Talk:Professional practice of behavior analysis

Important: Is this biased? Is this for a purpose other than education?
I work as a Behavior Analyst and Interventionist. __1) Regarding "Two Articles on the Same Thing": The article on Applied behavior analysis is focused on that subject. Which is entirely due as it is a very complex subject. This current article is on the PRACTICES and PEOPLE which may or may not use ABA. - This is like an article on Astronomy as a science and another on Astronomers working in the field. __2) Regarding the information presented about the function of the Behavior Analyst Certification Board: I am concerned that this article was written from a biased point of view. I am not "certified" and honestly I do not believe that there is a true certification now available for this area other than training & experience. I have never had anyone ask me if I am certified during an application. However, there are curricula now developed with the goal explicitly being obtaining this Certification. It seems this corporation has been successful in convincing some people in its importance, but not the majority of people who do the hiring, who are Project Managers, Parents of Autistic children, basically those actually involved with behavior analysis are MUCH less interested in it than are those who stand to financially benefit from this situation. The Behavior Analyst Certification Board BACB website(  which is a corporate entity NOT an educational one  ) is -I believe- simply the result of businessmen noticing a hole where they could benefit and where they could restrict practice and make money. The BACB is only a recent development and most parents of ASD children in treatment won't even ask about certification. A good program manager does assess the analysts & interventionists and choose the best candidates based on an intelligent and functional system. We are taking the power of assessment out of the hands of experts working in the field and putting it into a corporation. I do not believe we need a corporation without any psychological or medical credentials coming out of the blue and essentially demanding that persons who have achieved mastery over a subject by working in the field for many years, may now need to spend 6 years and $100,000 to "prove their mastery" to this corporation masquerading as a legitimate medical board. Because the general public does not know anything of the reality of this "Board" they will give is more credit than is due. They arose in the last few years and performed the questionable activity of " a) You need 'x'. b) We offer 'x' " when 'x' had never existed before the conception of this incorporated entity. The main function of the BACB as stated in the article is to reduce 'unskilled analysts using punishment programs'. The concern raised of punishment based programs occurring because of a lack of guidance is bafflegab. It is well-known within the community that punishment programs are ineffective & problematic and they are not part of the modern practice in the vast majority of cases. ( see Applied behavior analysis) The work a Behavior Analyst does is %100 transparent. There is no point at which one can obscure what you are doing. In other words, in anyone working with a child were to use punishment, everyone else working with that child, and the parents would know the details quickly. It is a red-herring to try to twin the obviously "bad" idea of punishment and the obviously "good" idea of certification. You could not write this essay in a writing program at a community college- therefore it should not be used to inform people on this subject! As an example, out of the Governing Board of Behavior Analyst Online journal from the 19 Masters or Phd level contributors, only 7 have the BACB certification ( and it is most likely that they obtained this after their MA or PHD, as the BACB would have come into being after their education, so these individuals only had to apply & pay for the Assessment Quiz, unlike those starting out in the field who would now have to get the MA or PHD in order to receive certification, and according to this article, in order to be "real" or "trustworthy" behavior analysts. These former individuals worked in the field for many years before receiving the certification. It is an assumption, but I do not beleive that they 'had to' but chose to. This may not be the situation for the future persons in this helping profession. ) Bottom Line: This article presents opinion as truth. These opinions could hurt many people. There are many persons in need of Behavior Analysts, and fewer Behavior Analysts. To restrict this title to those with the extra money and time ( which most BAs do not have! ) to get a certification - will only mean more children not being treated, more financial burdens on the parents ( the cost does travel down the line- to the parents of disabled children ). The benefit of extinguishing punishment programs is dubious at best. Punishment is already very well known to be ineffectual, problematic and morally questionable. It is already a rarity and becoming extinct. To use this as a motivation/rationale is simply a straw-man / red-herring argument. The pro-Board stance of this article. ( Which I will yield, against my own statements in 1)- This article is not actually a necessity. It would be nice to elucidate the practices, but this seems more like a way to introduce the Board into the common thought. Basically viral advertising. I say this from the experience I have seeing highly skilled people working themselves to the bone to help people- basically operating at %110 to help another. I do not think they need another hurdle to helping. And if the Board is going to be discussed, is should be a comprehensive analysis of the pros and cons, not an unverifiable statement of automatic wrongness paired with an unverified statement of automatic "rightness" ( "some people use punishment" -> "the BACB would fix this." This would get an F in logic 101, and it underscores a concern I have had in the past that Wikipedia, due to its (general) accuracy, and wide demographic distribution, could be the ultimate soapbox if a person were to write their article well enough to be accepted. How far do the ideas here disseminate? How many people researching Behavior Analysis, or Behavior Interventionism- how many parents of autistic children trying to define what is a "good BA" will read this and think "Oh, so the consensus is that they should have this certification. I'll have to say no to that nice grad student who applied to help my son, as she doesn't have this certification.." What is to say the person who IS certified by this Non-Medical Corporate Entity ( basically THEY ARE NOT CERTIFIED THEMSELVES!!! Not in any meaningful way! ) will be better for the child? I am concerned that skilled therapists will be blocked from helping those in need, and from their livelihood. I am concerned that the considerable financial burden upon parents of Autistic children will be increased by the assumed need for "certified" therapists who would likely charge more. I am concerned that this very helpful paraprofessional occupation will be choked by restrictions. As it is now- a person with a Masters degree, or a PhD, and/or experience will rightly receive recognition & I do not see the need for a outside entity to confer what is essentially a virtual merit. If one has helped 50 children exceptionally, or if one has a Masters degree and great skill as assessed by the program manager- there is no need for another hoop to jump though and honestly the only consequences would be negative. Reduction in ineffective or cruel techniques occurs naturally though education, experience and the already established assessment procedures. ( From interviews, to shadowing sessions, to video-taping, consideration of education & experience and one-on-one assessment of the therapist in person using human social-assessment skills and questions of the greatest importance in the real world. The assessment validity of this procedure will not be lesser than a generalized certification procedure. ) Wikipedia must be aware of the power of creating assumptions Wikipedia has, and for that reason, ensure the articles are FREE from bias to prevent the viral spread of an untrue & possibly harmful assumption. - PLUTOPHANES Αγαθος και Σωφος, Σωφος και Καλος, Καλος  και  Αγαθος (talk) 17:07, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like you have a lot of conflict and reason to be biased. Truth is in the U.S. Arizona licenses behavior analyst and Pa licenses behavior specialists. It is to keep people like you out. More states are going to do the same. In additon, currently regulations are being discussed that if people are doing treatments that theyned t oshow some qualification to do them. This is a savings to the medicare system- especailly in these tough budget times. Sadly for you, it looks like the era of flimflam artists like you is almost at an end.

Two articles on the same subject?
This article appears to be a near-duplicate of Applied behavior analysis. Why have two articles on the same subject? Let's have just one. Eubulides (talk) 01:18, 31 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Not a duplicate, be a removal of the practice issues from that site, which allow that site to focus more on defining research issues and less on practice issues. Please see the discussion section for that site- J.C. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.94.212.130 (talk) 02:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
 * the use of ABA to refer to treatment is often a misnomer -- Wikipedia will benefit from being one of the few accurate sources in this regard, I think. It will also allow the report of behavior analytic interventions that may not adhere to the 7 guidelines, but are definitely behavioral.  Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 02:58, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by 'hot areas'? Is that sourced somewhere? Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 23:51, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Areas in vogue...J.C. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jcautilli2003 (talk • contribs) 01:33, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Please read
The WP:MOS cleanup begins to weary. Please read WP:MSH and try to keep section headings brief, and the TOC clean. A new section heading isn't needed every three sentences, and section headings should respect Wiki's capitalization norms, be brief, and not repeat words in the title or previous section headings. Also read WP:MOSBOLD, WP:ITALICS and WP:FN. Examples, when the article title includes the words behavior analysis, this section repeats words unnecessarily: Defining the practice of behavior analysis. The next two sections use incorrect capitalization and the two title are repeats: Service delivery models, Summary of Service Delivery. We don't use the word "current" in Wiki, since it's vague and becomes dates, and it certainly doesn't belong in section headings (see WP:MOSNUM). Rather than "Current areas of application in organizations", the heading could be "Application in organizations". External jumps do not belong in the text (The Behavior Analysis Certification Board BACB defines behavior analysis as: ... and Analysis International's position that those receiving treatment have a right to effective treatment ABA:I and a right to effective education. ABA:I. ) please read WP:EL and WP:NOT, external links belong in the External links section, and Wiki is not a blog or a webpage or a collection of links, it's an encyclopedia. Please read WP:MOSNUM regarding how to handle numbers and percentages; I've fixed those repeatedly in these series of articles. Please read WP:DASH regarding the difference between hyphens and dashes ( ... the 1960-1980s but have ... and also in lists, such as ... Consultation- an indirect ... these should be endashes, not hyphens, and there should be consistency in list formatting.) Please use correct and consistent footnote punctuation ( ... rehabilation after injury.[29].[30]), ref after the punctuation. Besides an outrageous section heading, this entire section violates WP:NOT and needs to go: Other areas of applied behavior analytic research for building case conceptualization and technique development (it's a indisriminate list of links). I've taken the time to type all of this up becaue I've had to do and re-do and re-do these same kinds of corrections over and over in this series of articles. It would be helpful if the regular editors would read up on Wikipedia guidelines. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 15:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry -- myself and friends will work on getting this MOS down pat so we get things right -- we have so much to contribute, we sometimes just shoot all the content out there and then edit for formatting/style later! Probably a silly sequence -- oops!  Josh.Pritchard.DBA (talk) 23:19, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The problem is that these issues are spreading across many articles, so it may be worth taking the time to learn Wiki guidelines before diving into new articles. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 23:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Many countries regulate practice
I think the statement that certification- which is international and licensing, which is an action that goes on in many countries is limited to the United States, shows a limited understanding of markets. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.94.93.51 (talk) 04:32, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Refs and clarify tags
Hi

I have just edited the article and put a few citation needed tags in as well as hiding a couple of http links which need to be made into refs. I did fix a lot of them :¬)

I have also put in clarify tags. These are mainly where initials are used and it is not clear which ABA is being referred to (as they must mean different things) one talk about a procedure or method ABA the other seems to be the organisation.

thanks Chaosdruid (talk) 03:27, 7 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Chaosdruid did a lot of work cleaning up this article, but one thing that still needs to be done is to put in much better citations with a lot more details about how another reader could find the same article (that is, dates and page numbers and the like). -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 05:18, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

One Wikilink per term per article is enough.
Check the Manual of Style for more information on further clean-up of this article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 02:41, 14 July 2010 (UTC)