| Abstract: The social validity of an intervention encompasses (a) whether consumers/stakeholders believe that the intended outcome of the intervention is desirable, (b) the extent to which consumers/stakeholders consider the procedures for changing behavior to be acceptable in terms of ethics, cost, and feasibility, and (c) whether consumers/stakeholders are satisfied with the outcomes produced by these procedures. Behavior analysts typically assess social validity, at the conclusion of the intervention, by interviewing or asking care providers (e.g., parents, teachers) questions the research team generated for that purpose. This approach limits input to primary care providers, the input of the recipient of the intervention is not gathered, nor is input from the broader community (e.g., other autistic people). In addition, whether the intervention was viewed as acceptable or needed at the start of the intervention (or during intervention) is not known. In this panel we will explore whether typical methods of evaluating social validity are appropriate and if our field should broaden its conceptualization of social validity to include input from others and/or occur at multiple timepoints. |