Association for Behavior Analysis International

The program co-chair, Dr. Terry Falcomata, will provide opening remarks.

All 51 states passed laws requiring insurance companies and state employee benefit plans to pay for applied behavior analysis (ABA) services; by 2019 this meant that over 200 million people were covered providing a huge new market for Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) and Registered Behavior Technicians (RBTs) that greatly exceeded the supply that was available. Private equity firms discovered this “cash cow” just sitting there and began investing as early as 2010 and by 2022 they constituted approximately 90% of all merger and acquisition deals in this new sector. The net result of this new gold rush involving millions and millions of dollars was that newly minted behavior analysts with very little experience were presented with six-figure offers with little understanding of what they were getting into; these companies are primarily involved in pressuring them to pull in more and more clients with increasing dosages (billable hours) of treatment. Many BCBAs have become fiscal pawns in a profit-driven game of grab-the-money-and-run. In this paper I will describe in detail the downside of this rapidly evolving practice by private-equity-owned ABA companies and offer suggestions on how behavior analysts can reestablish their role as guardians of honest, ethical, and effective treatment.

Masters and Doctoral Behavior Analysts Concerned with Service Delivery to ASD Children

Proper management and supervision of staff members, instructors, teachers, and caregivers is important to ensure high-quality services to individuals with autism and related disabilities. In this presentation, I will highlight some key management and supervision strategies and provide evidence for the effectiveness of each. These strategies include using the most effective and efficient methods of training, observing staff and caregivers regularly, formally assessing staff and caregiver performance problems, arranging the instructional environment for optimal performance, and providing consistent feedback on performance. I will conclude with a description of a broad management and supervision approach that I have found to be particularly useful.

Anyone directly providing or supervising folks who provide services to people with autism and related disabilities; practitioners; researchers

The past decade of functional analysis research shows an interesting divergence in trends toward efficiency, on one side, and precision on the other. Sometimes, these trends are in opposition; however, both have an important place in our science. This talk will describe several advancements in functional analysis research with a particular focus on the predictive and social validity of the assessment. The talk will include a review of published research, outcomes of emerging research from the presenter’s lab, and the presenter’s opinion on the most productive way to move forward.

Researchers and practitioners

More than three million individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the United States engage in self-injurious behavior (SIB; head banging, self-biting, striking one’s body). SIB causes injuries that vary from minor (e.g. superficial scratches) to very severe (e.g., concussions, bruising, lacerations, amputation of digits, tooth fractures, retinal detachment, broken bones). SIB is also extremely concerning because it is a major source of suffering for caregivers, can necessitate restrictive behavioral and pharmacological interventions, limits opportunities for educational and community inclusion, and is a costly strain on healthcare systems. In most cases, SIB is maintained by social consequences (e.g., caregiver attention). However, in approximately 25% of cases SIB occurs independent of social contingencies. This class of behavior, referred to as automatically maintained SIB, can be highly resistant to reinforcement-based interventions. In the first part of this presentation, I will overview a subtyping model delineating treatment-resistant and non-treatment-resistant phenotypes of automatically maintained SIB. In the second part, I will discuss some analytic methods, along with illustrative data, that may inform applied research on variables contributing to treatment-resistant SIB.

Behavior analysts, psychologists, physicians

What does it mean when we say a child “mastered” some task? This talk will discuss performance criteria, or “mastery criteria,” which are the rules instructors follow to determine when a particular phase of teaching is completed and the instructor should change their teaching behavior. Despite the ubiquity of including performance criteria as a component of skill acquisition programming, there is surprisingly little research to support our practices. During this talk, the concept of “mastery” and components of performance criteria will be defined. Relevant past research will be discussed as well as new research that examines how different components of mastery affect learning and how variations in how we apply criteria to different students and types of responses affect the durability of those responses. The talk will end with suggestions for future research and a call to join in on conducting your own research on this topic.

Folks working with children, practitioners

Program co-chair, Dr. Christopher Newland, will provide closing remarks.