Association for Behavior Analysis International

1. Define assent functionally, and how to obtain it for ethical practice.

2. Identify examples and nonexamples of assent given commonly encountered situations in practice.

3. Assess for the presence or absence of assent and program for it to maximize ethical decision making.

The new "Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts," published by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board, is the newest iteration of our ethical obligations as behavior analysts. As our ethical requirements grow and clarify, there continues to be ethical lapses amongst the professionals in our field. Ethical drift continues. This panel, comprised of four members of the ABA ethics hotline, will present several case studies of ethical dilemmas, and each panel member will talk through how s/he thinks about each case, discussing interpretations, possible actions, and eventual resolutions. This panel has presented at ABAI for the past several years and has been very well attended.

There are no prerequisite skills - ethical behavior is required by all who practice in our field. We are targeting behavior analysts who work with humans and non-humans; ethics apply to all we do.

Educators in public schools face a diverse student population, requiring them to address unique academic and adaptive needs, encourage self-regulation, and decrease challenging behavior. Pre-service teachers receive some classroom management training in their preparation programs, yet this is limited and often leaves teachers with minimal understanding of preventing and responding to disruptive classroom behavior. Limited resources and budgets are common barriers to further in-service training for educators, burdening school administrators with increasing maladaptive behaviors and teacher burnout. One solution is strengthening the partnership between Behavior Analysts and schools through consultation. This panel will discuss various frameworks and share their experiences of providing ABA consultation in public schools (Pre-K through Secondary) to support diverse student populations and stakeholders. Panelists will explicitly highlight three consulting frameworks, each addressing unique school needs and settings: a multi-year consultation, a framework based on the Registered Behavior Technician Task List (2nd ed.), and a framework supporting regional district needs in rural areas. Panelists will discuss lessons learned, challenges, and ethically responsible problem-solving using the Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts (2020). Finally, panelists will discuss the impact of legislation on available resources and the implementation of ABA in schools. Attendee participation is highly encouraged. Questions and experience-sharing are welcome throughout the session.

Students should have completed some coursework toward their BCBAs and have experience working or practicum experiences in school settings. Professionals should be BCBAs or educators working with BCBAs looking to learn key factors in teaming in schools and have experience with behavior consulting or would like to pursue this partnership.

Professional organizations for behavior analysts and the Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts (Behavior Analyst Certification Board, 2020) are intended to protect vulnerable populations receiving applied behavior analysis (ABA) services and offer service providers support and accountability in upholding guidelines set to protect clients. When selecting practices in alignment with professional guidelines, behavior analysts also may want to confer with the research literature to ensure their selections are evidence-based. This symposium includes four presentations, each one showcasing a dataset related to an area of ethical need within the field. The first presentation will discuss survey results about researchers’ use of practices to obtain consent and assent from research participants. The second presentation will cover survey results regarding clinicians’ use of assessments and behavioral procedures to minimize behaviors that may cause harm. The third presentation will share results from an experiment comparing the efficacy and acceptability of using parents’ preferred or non-preferred language during behavioral skills training. The fourth presentation will consider results from a systematic review of recent literature in behavioral journals involving autistic people, comparing the use of deficit-based vs. strengths-based terminology. Amy Gravino (A.S.C.O.T Consulting, LLC) will discuss these four presentations based on her experiences and perspective.

The target audience includes BCBAs or BCBA-Ds providing ABA services and/or conducting ABA research. The pre-requisites include knowledge of the Code of Ethics for Behavior Analysts and the ability to make evidence-based decisions.

Autism and disability research are shifting to a strengths-based approach including acceptance of characteristic differences and recognizing differences can be socially constrained. Advocates have suggested that terminology surrounding autism may negatively impact service delivery and people on the autism spectrum. In response, advocates have published recommendations for alternative terms to use in autism research. We aimed to identify how behavioral researchers describe autism and intervention supports to determine whether current language practices are consistent with recommendations. We conducted a systematic review using PRISMA-S guidelines for articles involving autistic people in 2021, yielding 2360 articles across 242 peer-reviewed journals. We will present results from articles in behavioral journals (n = 98 articles). We specifically examined the use of traditional deficit-based language relative to recommended alternative terms. Initial findings suggest that behavioral researchers still predominantly use terms consistent with a deficit-based model as opposed to strength-based alternatives; however, this is consistent with autism discourse across other disciplines of research as well. We will discuss ethical and practical implications of such language choices and provide recommendations for behavioral researchers.

Acceptance of care, quality of care and outcomes of care are all influenced by the cultural responsiveness of the clinicians delivering that care. Nowhere has this been clearer than in service delivery in the Caribbean. Our panelists from the Cayman Islands, St. Croix and Curacao will provide a brief introduction of who they are and the roles they play and have played in behavior analysis in the Caribbean. After these introductions, our chair from Puerto Rico will moderate a discussion based on questions from the audience focused on exploring the importance of cultural responsiveness and values-based care in communities where access to care has been limited; mental health stigmas still exist; and cultural factors must be taken into consideration. This panel is appropriate for anyone interested in learning more about starting services outside the United States or in rural/remote areas in the United Stated where services are not yet accessible, and barriers to care including cultural barriers exist.

Behavior analysts with at least 1-2 years of experience.

For over 70 years, the conceptual development of countercontrol in behavior analysis has focused on broad societal issues (e.g., public protests & social movements) with little attention to the behavior of individuals in clinical, residential treatment, and educational settings (see Delprato, 2002; Skinner, 1953, 1971, 1974; Spencer, King, Martone, & Houlihan, 2022). In fact, we are not aware of any interventions or experimental manipulations of countercontrol published in the applied behavior analytic literature. The purpose of this symposium is to first extend the conceptual literature by exploring dependent, independent, and extraneous variables associated with countercontrol in clinical, residential treatment, and educational settings. Next, we will discuss the treatment of countercontrol as a special example of the necessary risk/benefit analysis associated with client assent in applied behavior analysis. We propose that assent should be viewed on a continuum, be balanced with treatment effectiveness, and that assent (or lack thereof) can complicate applied behavior analytic treatment under certain conditions.

Behavior analysts interested in the clinical treatment of counter-control and associated assent considerations.

Skinner (1953, 1971, 1974) described countercontrol as a response to social aversive control that functions to escape/avoid control at the individual (e.g., noncompliance) or group (e.g., protest) level that is often multiply-maintained by the attention of peers. Delprato (2002) asserted that socially mediated controlling conditions (e.g., rules) often function as establishing operations for countercontrolling responses while Spencer, King, Martone, and Houlihan (2022) emphasized the role of rule-governed behavior. Although countercontrol has received conceptual attention in behavior analysis for over 70 years, no experimental manipulations or interventions for countercontrol exist in the behavioral literature. Given that all residential treatment and educational settings operate around rules of conduct, one might expect that behavior analysts experience some degree of countercontrolling responses in practice. The purpose of this presentation is to provide: (1) a review of the conceptual literature; (2) an overview of residential treatment and educational factors; and (3) recommendations for implementing function-based interventions and ways to address treatment challenges specific to countercontrol.

Behavior analysts are obligated to consider “obtaining assent from clients when applicable” as dictated by the ethics code - section 2.11 (Behavior Analyst Certification Board, 2020). Assent is broadly thought of as client agreement or approval of treatment procedures. The American Academy of Pediatrics advises that assent should include following elements: (1) helping the patient achieve a developmentally appropriate awareness of the nature of his or her condition; (2) telling the patient what he or she can expect with tests and treatments; (3) making a clinical assessment of the patient’s understanding of the situation and the factors influencing how he or she is responding; and (4) and soliciting an expression of the patient’s willingness to accept the proposed care. In behavior analysis, there is limited research describing assent procedures or studying the implications for treatment outcomes (Morris, Detrick, & Peterson, 2021). We will explore how factors such as court-mandated placements, regulatory guidelines, conservatorships, substituted judgement, and health related supports can impact client assent in function-based treatment.

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) has encountered several challenges which have negatively impacted the application of behavior analysis and importantly, public trust in ABA. Community-Informed Practice (CIP) – developed by TRIAD, the autism institute at Vanderbilt Kennedy Center (VKC) – is a model for developing partnerships and seeking regular input and feedback from communities served by practitioners in human services fields to ensure those services reflect socially valid best-practice. CIP began as a conceptual model focused on understanding and categorizing common and increasing objections to ABA. Through substantive engagement with existing advocacy groups such as VKC’s Community Advisory Committee and The Arc Tennessee, as well as TRIAD’s Autistic Advisory Committee, we developed a set of guiding principles for a CIP-based implementation of ABA across various TRIAD service lines. In this way, CIP honors societal concerns about ABA and the ethics of its providers, as well as the professional expertise and judgement of behavior analysts. This balance can be elusive without direct and ongoing community engagement by a team devoted to reflecting the appropriate implementation of behavior analysis in their work and discussion of that work. This presentation will focus primarily on the work of TRIAD’s behavior analysts across Tennessee schools supporting students with intellectual and development disabilities who engage in complex and dangerous behavior; however, the processes of development and implementation of CIP will be discussed in a manner that will be applicable across different types of service models. The development of a strong CIP approach to ABA (or any other human services) can be challenging, resource-intensive, and time consuming, making it impractical for most, so additional discussion within this presentation will focus on considerations for taking CIP to scale at the state level and beyond. Finally, Community-Assessed Practice – a process by which a diverse advisory group provides ongoing feedback on service delivery, will be briefly highlighted.

Practitioners, Organizational Leadership, Public Policy

“The reason you don’t fight for me is because you’re not fighting for yourself fully… Are you ready to heal?... That’s why they repress us as trans and gender variant people, because they’ve done this violence to themselves first.” - Alok Vaid-Menon When supporting transgender and gender-nonconforming clients, students, supervisees, trainees, and colleagues, it is critical that behavior analysts create contexts of affirmation. When considering cultural responsiveness, the Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts notes that behavior analysts “evaluate their own biases and ability to address the needs of individuals with diverse needs/ backgrounds,” (BACB, 2020, p. 9). This presentation will examine gender identity as covert or subtle behavior, and the ways in which the tacting of covert events is taught (Skinner, 1945; Skinner, 1957; Moore, 2008). Attendees will be equipped to assess their own biases through the examination of selectionism at the phylogenic, ontogenic, and cultural levels, focusing on their own learning histories. Attendees will also learn how to create environments which forster orienting to appetitive control and which reinforce authentic responding through cultural competency and the movement toward cultural safety (Curtis et al., 2019).

ABA practitioners and professionals

Over the last decade, it has become increasingly common for public school districts to hire Board Certified Behavior Analysts® (BCBAs®) to provide services to students and staff in their district. This recent partnership presents many wonderful opportunities to students receiving behavior analytic services, but it is not without challenges. Schools have a distinct culture with values and norms that are in many ways inconsistent with the values and norms of applied behavior analysts. In some instances, the cultural differences conflict with the Ethical Code for Behavior Analysts. This symposium presents two papers addressing issues related to applied behavior analysts working in public schools. The first paper describes results from a mixed method investigation surveying over 300 BCBAs® working in public schools across the United States. The second paper discusses the ethical and logistical challenges of training and supervising aspiring BCBAs® in public schools and provides some recommendations for those faced with this task.

Experience working in and/or supervising aspiring BCBAs to work in public schools; experience supporting students/clients in transitioning to public school classrooms; experience collaborating with public school personnel (e.g., special or general education teachers, administrators); experience supporting families and caregivers in navigating the educational system.

Board Certified Behavior Analysts® (BCBAs®) can play an important role in public schools. However, little is known about the scope of work BCBAs® are tasked with in these settings and to what degree this scope of work is in alignment with the ethical code for Behavior Analysts. The purpose of this study was to survey BCBAs® who self-identify as working in public schools in an effort to learn more about their experiences working in this setting. The research team emailed a survey containing 23 questions pertaining to BCBAs® working in public schools. These questions ranged in topics from caseloads to ethical dilemmas BCBAs® may encounter while working in public schools. The data collected from this survey were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Quantitative analysis of responses was performed by calculating a percentage through dividing the number of responses with a particular answer selected by the total number of responses and multiplying by 100. Qualitative analysis was conducted by employing an iterative process where responses to open-ended questions were coded into themes. The intent of this paper is to generate meaningful discourse in training and supervision, collaborating with school administrators, resolving ethical concerns, and clarifying roles and responsibilities in public schools.

Justice, equity, diversity, inclusion (JEDI) and related issues have started to receive more attention in behavior analysis circles, including publications in behavior analysis journals about diversity and representation, antiracism, and cultural competence. To date, behavior analysis publications have been focused in two areas: cataloging demographic information from author bylines or the parts of Method sections that describe participants, and JEDI-oriented guidelines, frameworks and recommendations for clinical practice. Basic behavior analysis research is not immune from discriminatory practices, and basic behavioral scientists are not exempt from doing the work needed to ensure that behavior analysis is open to anyone. On the contrary, this kind of justice is one of three basic principles outlined in the Belmont Report for the protection of human subjects of research and one of five general principles in the American Psychological Association’s Ethics Code. Presentations will explore how JEDI principles can be meaningfully implemented in research involving student researchers and with animal research subjects, interrogate broader obligations to prospective behavioral scientists, and consider intersections between JEDI principles and culture responsiveness.

Students, Researchers, BCBAs

Dr. Shrinidhi Subramaniam is an Associate Professor in Psychology at California State University, Stanislaus and a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. Dr. Subramaniam received her PhD in Psychology from West Virginia University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in behavioral pharmacology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She teaches courses in applied behavior analysis, research methods, ethics, and addiction treatment, and mentors graduate students in their thesis research. Dr. Subramaniam’s research applies behavior analytic principles to solve problems like addiction, unemployment, and poverty in her community. Currently, she is the co-PI for Wellness WORKs!, a holistic health education program for CalWORKs participants in San Joaquin County. In addition to this work, she has published over 20 manuscripts and chapters across broad research interests. These publications include clinical studies evaluating the effectiveness of behavioral interventions like incentives and education, and basic and translational studies exploring processes underlying human decision making such as choice and temporal learning. Dr. Subramaniam is an Associate Editor for The Psychological Record, is on the editorial board for the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, and serves as the Board Secretary of the Society for the Quantitative Analysis of Behavior. She was the Association for Behavior Analysis, International’s 2022 recipient of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences Early Career Impact Award.

Behavior analytic practitioners live within two different dimensions. Most of the time, treatment is provided with only straightforward ethical issues, but sometimes situations seem to turn our practice upside down. This alternate dimension of unethical behavior is not often discussed, yet it threatens the existence of our ABA, science-based world. Thankfully, behavior analysts can be taught the tools to fight against unethical monsters without needing psychic powers. This symposium will provide behavior analysts with methods to fight the ethical upside down by reviewing a script for instructing how to confront unethical behavior, methods to combat the invasion of pseudoscience, and ways to vanquish the barriers to conducting experimental analysis in clinical practice.

The target audience will have prerequisite knowledge in the BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts, the science-based application of behavior change interventions, as well as the ethical use of experimentation in clinical practice.

The foundations of applied behavior analysis (ABA) and its subsequent ethical codes necessitate the use of experimentation to determine relationships among behavior and environmental variables as an underlying principle. Behavior analysts may be experiencing barriers to using experimental analysis (EA) in clinical practice. This paper included two questionnaire studies investigating behavior analysts’ (Study 1 N=293; Study 2 N =324) current use and barriers to ethical implementation of EA in clinical practice. Results aggregated from both studies indicated that approximately 1/3rd of behavior analysts did not use EA in clinical practice. Across the studies, lack of resources ranked as the most significant barrier, while reimbursement for services was ranked as the least influential barrier to using EA in clinical practice. These studies suggested possible general and specific barriers to implementation of EA in clinical practice, which may have significant ethical implications for appropriate treatment for clients.

Behavior analysts have a responsibility to provide their clients with interventions that are based on scientific evidence. Nevertheless, in a survey identifying certified behavior analysts’ use and variables influencing their use of autism treatments, only between 78% and 95% of participants (N=921) at each certification level (BCBA-Ds, BCBAs, BCaBAs, and RBTs) reported current use of applied behavior analysis (ABA). Furthermore, with the exception of bleach therapy, all treatments, including ineffective/harmful interventions (e.g., facilitated communication), were reportedly used by at least one participant. Participants frequently cited persuasion by others as an influence for their treatment selections. A comparison with previous findings (Schreck et al., 2016) identified a statistically significant decrease in the percentage of certificants at each level (i.e., BCBA-Ds, BCBAs, and BCaBAs) using ABA compared to five years ago. Significant decreases in the use of two unestablished treatments were also found; however, there was no change in the reported use of all other pseudoscientific treatments. Since behavior analysts’ use of unestablished treatments may be detrimental to client outcomes and the reputation and success of the field of ABA, it is essential to discuss these findings and to identify methods for increasing behavior analysts’ use of empirically supported treatments.

ABA practitioners, researchers, those working in the field of early intervention, clinicians/professionals working with autistic adults, and anyone looking to learn more about autism.

Picky eating is a normal phase of child development, but what happens when it goes beyond general pickiness? Pediatric Feeding Disorder (PFD; Goday et al., 2019) affects up to 25% of the general population and 80% of children with developmental disabilities (Galai et al., 2022). It is reported that children on the autism spectrum are five times more likely than their peers to develop PFD and to require intervention (Bareaskewich et al., 2021). Without treatment, PFD can lead to increased caregiver stress, impaired development, poor nutrition, and other health concerns (Kozlowski et al., 2015; Silverman et al., 2020). The assessment and treatment of feeding disorders by behavior analysts requires specialized training and collaboration with an interdisciplinary team (Tereshko et al, 2021). Unfortunately, in areas where behavior analytic services are more sparse, many providers do not have access to the appropriate training, supervision, or resources needed to treat this complex disorder. The purpose of this symposium is to discuss the training and supervision of future behavior analysts to treat PFD, ethical considerations and the importance of care integration when working with this population, and innovative ways that providers in service deserts are treating these patients.

We have classified this training as advanced; the presentation is focused specifically on providing services to a niche population that requires the behavior analyst in question to have specific training. Attendees are encouraged to have a baseline knowledge of pediatric feeding disorders and an interest in furthering their knowledge to better improve their practice or train future practitioners.

Children with autism and other developmental disabilities frequently present to traditional ABA clinics with a comorbid diagnosis of Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) or Pediatric Feeding Disorder (PFD). These children may have been enrolled and discharged from a multidisciplinary feeding program, may be currently receiving feeding therapy services, or may have not had access to feeding therapy yet. In some instances, it may be appropriate for behavior analysts to continue feeding intervention in order to increase variety, develop self-feeding, or to promote generalization and maintenance in novel settings. The purpose of this presentation is to review ethical considerations when providing behavioral intervention for feeding concerns in traditional ABA or early intervention clinics. Consultation with external providers from relevant disciplines and common intervention strategies to promote generalization and maintenance will also be discussed.

This panel will discuss ethical and cultural considerations when providing Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) services to Latinx families in Mexico and the United States. The United States is diversifying at a fast rate. According to the 2021 Census data, 18.9% of the United States population are Hispanic, and Mexican account for over 60% of the Hispanic subgroup. Mexico is the third-largest country in Latin America and has the second-largest economy. In Mexico, a lack of medical and educational services is common, especially for families of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Panelists will share about the creation of a professional organization to disseminate the science of behavior analysis across Mexico and about the first behavior analytic organization in the United States formed to specifically address diversity of behavior analysts in the field of ABA. Results from a study that examined early intervention needs in the Mexican population and compared these needs to those in the Latinx Spanish-speaking population in the United States will also be discussed. Panelists will discuss their experiences, challenges, and lessons learned when providing ABA services to Latinx families. Attendees are encouraged to ask questions and share their own experiences during this interactive panel session.

Audience members should minimally have the competencies and pre-requisite skills for a Board Certified Behavior Analyst as defined by the Behavior Analysis Certification Board 5th Edition Tasklist.

Decision making in clinical applications of behavior analysis is complex. This symposium will consist of three of the papers describing applied research and one conceptual paper. The first presentation will describe a study in which the the component skills involved in ethical decision were taught to students of behavior analysis. The steps students would implement given scenarios were compared to each other and to experts. The results of this study will be discussed in terms of the instructional considerations for those teaching students to engage in ethical decisions. The second presentation is another applied study, in which the decisions of novice and expert behavior analysts were compared. Experts and novices were asked to rate risk in conducting a functional analysis with and without a structured decision-making tool. The results of this study showed that both experts and novices benefited from use of the tool. The third presentation will describe an applied study of the underlying behavioral processes involved in clinical decision making. Researchers manipulated the televisibility and short-term harm to the clients of decisions. A loss-discounting framework was used to analyze the variability in responding of participants. The final presentation will challenge the audience to consider ethical decision making in a new context—that of artificial intelligence. This paper will address the question, what are the ethical considerations when designing artificial intelligence technologies? Finally, the discussant will summarize the common themes of complex, ethical decision making and implications for the field.

Prerequisite skills are certification as a beahvior analyst, detailed knowledge of the BACB's Code of Ethics, a detailed understanding of a variety of assessments and treatments commonly used in practice, as well as common ethical challenges related to the implementation of these assessments and treatments.

Autism is prevalent in all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups, with 1 in 44 children aged 8 years or older receiving an autism diagnosis, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC)’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network. However, minority groups are less likely than their white counterparts to be diagnosed with autism or as having speech delays. There are also disparities in the age that some minority children are diagnosed with autism, as well as the reported quality of care received. Studies found inequalities specific to autism diagnosis and treatment due to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status that limit accessibility of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) interventions for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and low-income families (Lauer, 2013; Magaña, et al. 2012; Smith et al., 2020). The panel discussion will start with an overview of disparities in access to healthcare, funding, and access to services and three organizations will discuss initiatives aimed at reducing disparities in service access. The panelists will then answer questions discussing organizational resources for building a DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) department, staff and client resources aimed at increasing service access, and recruitment strategies aimed at increasing the diversity of service providers.

BCBAs, BCBA-Ds, and Professional Psychologists should have experience in implementing programs in their own organizations, engaging with their communities, and using measurement tools to indicate organizational outcomes.

Academics, practitioners, animal trainers, dog owners, zookeepers, animal researchers

As the field of applied behavior analysis has grown exponentially in the last decade there have been greater accusations of past and present abuse and trauma caused by the interventions, strategies, and practitioners of ABA. How best can we address these concerns with a sense of curiosity rather than a defensive posture? Are these just the acts of some inexperienced newbies or evil eugenic founders of science? In this presentation, you will learn some of the histories of abuse and maltreatment of underrepresented groups (specifically BIPOC and disabled individuals). You will gain an understanding of how these learning histories of groups with a shared cultural identity or multiple shared identities lead to mistrust, non-compliance, and lack of consent to evidence-based strategies. Additionally, you will learn how cultural humility, awareness, and culturally relevant practices can improve the acceptance, consent, assent, and ultimately social significance of instructional objectives and outcomes for clients.

BCBA, BCaBA, Teachers, Psychologists, School Administrators or Consultants

The legitimacy of science is based on an unbiased, disinterested research and peer review system. Scientists are expected to pursue their research and publish their findings without regard to personal gain. Journal reviewers and editors are expected to perform their duties without bias due to personal gain and relationships. Conflicts of Interest (COI) arise in situations in which a person is in a position to derive personal benefit from actions or decisions made in their official capacity. COI is a critical ethical issue in scientific publications. This PDS introduces and defines COI, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines regarding COI, provides some general guidelines for identifying and avoiding COI in scientific publication, and delves further into the complexities of COI for reviewers and COI for practitioners who seek to publish their work. Calling ABAI members, and especially student members, to a thoughtful conversation about COI in scientific publications, especially ABAI publications is a central theme of this PDS. Ample time for questions and answers is provided.

Students, and professionals

Ethics is an important construct in the field of behavior analysis for numerous reasons. However, the utilization of distinct ethical practices and the different theoretical conceptualizations of ethics have only recently began to attract more attention from our field as a whole. In this symposium, we will attempt to offer applied and theoretical applications of ethics and ethical practices. First, Andrea Michaels will describe the current state of ethics within applied behavior analysis via data gathered from a scoping literature review. Next, Will Fleming will discuss a molar, interbehavioral approach with regards to analyzing the ethics of behavior analysis as an applied science. Finally, Dr. Ilene Schwartz will describe how behavior analysts identify ethical dilemmas in practice, how they make ethical decisions, and what resources are used during the decision-making process.

This symposium is intended for a target audience at an intermediate instruction level. It is encouraged that attendees are familiar with the BACB ethics code, are current on ethics-related literature within behavior analysis, and are also familiar with the philosophical underpinnings of the field to a certain extent. It will also be beneficial for attendees to assess their own professional experiences within behavior analysis and identify potential ethical dilemmas they have previously faced prior to attending this symposium.

When students have complex behavior needs school teams often struggle to maintain student engagement and safety. An appropriate education includes evidence-based strategies for teaching new skills and for decreasing interfering behaviors when universal behavior supports have failed. Unfortunately, teachers and school-based staff often struggle to meet the needs of these students and have limited access to training related to evidence-based behavior analytic technology. Behavior analysts are uniquely equipped to address complex behavior needs of students and to address skills of educators whose lack of skill presents barriers to educational service delivery. Behavior analysts can be welcomed as a collaborative member of an interdisciplinary team when they value teaming relationships and follow their ethical responsibility to collaborate with colleagues to identify and implement solutions. This panel has a cumulative 55 years of experience working with school systems at various levels (e.g., individual, classroom, district, statewide) across 5 states. We will discuss our efforts in public schools to support students’ educational programming and to build capacity in educators’ skills while discussing key elements of the BACB Ethical Code (e.g., collaboration, scope of practice, addressing interfering conditions to service delivery). Audience members will be encouraged to ask questions for the panel’s response.

This presentation would be appropriate for board-certified behavior analysts who have experience with clinical or school-based applications for severe problem behavior who are interested in coaching educators to put intensive behavior interventions in place. If practitioners or researchers would like to improve their skills for collaboration as a means of building service delivery capacity in educators, then this would be a beneficial session for them.

In recent years, behavior analysts have increasingly embraced the relevance and importance of the construct of compassion, including but not limited to how it pertains to: (a) building relationships with clients, families, and colleagues (Taylor et al., 2019); (b) engaging in culturally responsive care (Jimenez-Gomez & Beaulieu, 2022); (c) establishing neurodiversity affirming practices (Schuck et al., 2021); and (d) ensuring that the delivery of ABA services are aligned with commitments of trauma-informed care (Rajaraman et al., 2022). These themes have each fostered burgeoning independent lines of scholarly discussion, but their amalgamation as an overall compassionate approach to ABA has not yet been described. This presentation represents my attempt to bring these definitions together to meaningfully infuse compassion into several elements of ABA practice. Through various professional experiences, I have learned to employ a particularly collaborative process—practical functional assessment and skill-based treatment, often embedded within an enhanced choice model—when given the opportunity to address an individual’s dangerous and challenging behavior. Evidence demonstrating the effectiveness, safety, and social validity of the approach is well documented; however, behavior analysts may struggle to gain “buy-in” with caregivers and colleagues due to the counterintuitive nature of certain procedures. In this presentation, while briefly summarizing procedures and expected outcomes based on existing research, I will delineate key areas of collaboration and defend the inclusion of certain procedures (and omission of others) by invoking compassion as a guiding compass. I will also argue that compassion can be found in the methods we use to evaluate our services by describing how the logic of certain single-case experimental designs can foster, rather than inhibit, compassionate ABA. Regardless of your opinions of or prior experiences with this approach, I hope to offer you an evidence-based argument—grounded in compassion—in its favor, while proposing a vocabulary for describing and defending compassionate and trauma-informed processes for addressing dangerous and challenging behaviors exhibited by the individuals you serve.

ABA Practitioners