ABA Inside Track

This week we're revisiting our long-running series on professional collaboration by discussing how behavior analysts can engage in practices to work well with special education teachers. And, as a special treat, we're joined by long-time friend of the show and special education teacher/BCBA extrordinaire, Carolyn Beaumier. We dig into recent articles on some of the "faux pas" BCBAs often find them...

Though we've long been huge fans of single-case research designs—what behavior analyst isn't?—and hold peer-reviewed research papers as one of our favorite genres of non-fiction, is it possible that not every research paper is…on the level? Sadly, for many coplex reasons, not every research paper you read is without risk for following questionable research practices. To help our field put a stop t...

While we've been discussing how to move away from just getting parents to buy in to proposed behavioral treatments, there's still a huge gap between what works, what parents are told could work, and what parents like (when everything works). So we decided to kick off our Special Guest Month by having two experts at parent training, Drs. Roseanne Lesack and Jillian Wilson, help us figure out how to...

Nothing says "summertime" like visiting friends. And what's the podcast equivalent of a summer get together? Why a whole month devoted to guest episodes! This July we're doing a world tour of topics from all over the ABA map. We kick things off with Dr. Roseanne Lesack and Dr. Jillian Wilson updating us on some of the best practices in improving social validity of parent training planning before c...

Enjoy a short preview of our latest full-length Book Club episode.  Want to hear the whole thing and get 2.0 CEs for FREE? Subscribe to our Patreon  today at the premium $10+ levels for that plus other bonuses! It's the ginormous book that got Book Club Guy, Alan Haberman, to travel to Massachusetts to talk about. But did we have a good time reading the tome that is synonomous with "trauma care"?...

As part of the work of a behavior analyst, our ethical code requires us to explain our services in language that can be understood by clients and stakeholders. That holds doubly true when our clients speak a primary language other than English. And just busting out Google Translate isn't going to cut it! In the next entry in our Tutorial series, we break out the "how to" basics behind following be...

It's Ethicstime, Ethicstime, Eth-eth-ethicstime Ethicstime, Ethicstime, Eth-eth-ethicstime Ethicstime, Ethicstime, Eth-eth-ethicstime ETHICSTIIIIIIIIIIME! This episode is available for 1.0 ETHICS CEU. Articles discussed this episode: Henderson, T.B., Ludden, B.J., & Romero, R.A. (2023). The ethical obligations, barriers, and solutions for interprofessional collaboration in the treatment of autisti...

Watching treatment implementation is one of the key determinants behind whether great treatments lead to great results. But, deep down in our hearts, we all struggle to hit that magic 33% of sessions with greater than 80% agreement we all learned about in graduate school. But, what if interobserver agreement didn't have to be that. What if we were thinking about IOA all wrong? This week we brush u...

What are you still doing listneing to this drop reminding you the book club poll is up ? Go vote! Really! You get to pick 3 whole books you want us to read. Quick before it's all over!!

Now that we've got some vacation time coming up in our near futures, we can sit back, relax…and make our listener's choose our episodes for us! That's right. We've got not one but TWO polls for listeners this month that will determine our summer Listener Choice topic as well as the next year's worth of Book Clubs . Excited to vote? Well, only patrons (at ANY level) will have access to the LC and B...

As we come to the end of another school year in the US, we take a moment to ponder the question: What is it that a BCBA is supposed to do when they work in a school context? And to help us answer that question, we've enlisted the help of the other half of one of our favorite behavior analyst duos, John Staubitz! John walks us through all the stuff about comprehending the school ecology that you di...

Since time immemorial BCBAs have looked at their seven-item array of candies and asked, "Why can't I do a preference assessment with huge items or unavailable activities?" Well, now you can with pictorial and/or video-based preference assessments! But don't take my word for it. Or, do take my word for it, but my word paired with the word of all the research on the subject. And if you're already us...

UNLOCKED from our Patreon page , it's the "Activity Schedules for Children with Autism" Book Club! Interested in more Book Clubs? Want to vote on what we read next? Feeling FOMO at getting this a full year late? Wish your 2 CEs for listening to the episode were FREE??? Join us on Patreon to get all of our episodes a week early, access to these bonus episodes, plus other goodies. For our Spring 202...

While Jackie's away (and stuck in an elevator) Rob and Diana will play…podcast hosting duties for the month. This month last spring's Book Club choice, "Activity Schedules for Children with Autism" gets released to the free feed (with free CEs for Patreon subscribers! ) with new episodes on preference assessments and practicing within a school context. And speaking of pairs of awesome behavior ana...

Though the steps involved in developing a good, evidence-based treatment plan are well documented on our podcast, what good is any of that hard work if the families you purport to use it with kinda, sorta hate your plan. Well, this week, rather than complaining about how unappreciated your procedures are, why not take a step back and ask yourself, "How can I better learn from families I work with...

"WAZOWSKI! YOU DIDN'T FILE YOUR PAPERWORK LAST NIGHT!" is a line that resonates with all of us (and we make about 50 times in this episode). But, despite a fear of our own personal Rozes at work, most of us still tend to let those pesky piles of papers slip our minds as we go about the important business of being a behavior analyst (the direct helping of others). But, as with most skills, there's...

We're finishing up our two-part Listener Choice episodes highlighting tutorial articles that give you the "how to" when it comes to important BCBA skills. And if you enjoyed our episode on procedural integrity , you're going to LOVE this tutorial all about using token economies. We dive into some token economy history, basic set up, application, and come to the conclusion that WE'VE BEEN DOING TOK...

Here come Research Cottontail. Hoppin' down the ABA trail. Hippity hoppity, Grab Bag's on it's waaaaaaaay! Bringing every behavior analyst Baskets full of discussion panelists Things to make your Grab Bag podcast greaaaaaat!   This episode is available for 1.0 LEARNING CEU. Articles discussed this episode: Nevill, R.E., Crawford, M.F., Zarcone, J.R., Maquera, E., Rooker, G.W., Schmidt, J.D. (2024)...

Enjoy a short preview of our latest full-length Book Club episode.  Want to hear the whole thing and get 2.5 CEs for FREE? Subscribe to our Patreon today at the premium $10+ levels for that plus other bonuses! Could this book actually save your marriage? Well, that's not really the point of it; however, we found a LOT to enjoy and reflect on in our discussion of "Divergent Minds" by Jenera Nerenbe...

Spring has sprung on us with a bunch of freezing rain. So what better time than now to get set for a cozy crop of new podcasts for April. First up, as visit from our favorite mythical bunny with a grab bag of goodies in the form of new articles to discuss. Then finally wrap up our (winter!) Listener Choice episode with a tutorial on token economies before coming up with new ways to finish our pape...

While I doubt any of us would purposefully cheer on ableist behavior in our daily work, what if I told you that you may be secretly promoting ableism every single day? This week we do some tough reflection on the medical model that most of us work within and how it may inherently dismiss the environmental factors at play in determining the impact of disabilities on individuals' lives. And while we...

While most of us engage with goal writing, have you ever stopped to think whether the goals you've proposed to your client are…pointless? If so, put down your bopy of "101 Great Trigonometry Objectives" and join us and special guest, Dr. Shanna Bahry, to explore resources for crafting goals with your clients that might actually lead them to a productive, happier adulthood. We review some useful to...

Since you can only get so far with surveys of how frequetly registered behavior technicians want to quit their jobs due to burnout, we wondered, is it possible to gather more relevant, actionable research questions? Enter Dr. Nicole Gravina who, with her colleagues, used qualitative analysis research design to dig deeper into more of the "whys" behind how burnout develops for RBTs in Florida, and...

Maybe it's the lousy Smarch weather, but we're in a bit of a mood to start of this month. Not because our special guests aren't awesome. We had so much fun learning about qualitative analyses in exploring RBT burnout with Dr. Nicole Gravina and how to be more ethically responsible in creating meaningful goals for autistic adolescents and adults with Dr. Shanna Bahry. And not because we're not revi...

We're pretty social people, and we love working with other professionals to support client outcomes. But we've also learned that collaboration goes way beyond five-minute consult sessions and a few friendly emails. This week we're bringing the research and our professional practice together to make a delicious cake of transdisciplinary goodness focusing on the ethics of great collaboration. Becaus...