The Behavior Crew: Recent Episodes

Melissa Druskis

ABC Behavior Training, and our membership podcast The Behavior Crew, have the mission of disseminating the science of ABA to everyday behavior analysis. We will cover practical topics for behavior analysts each month featuring article reviews, open discussion, and interviews. These topics will include BCBA supervision, ABA therapy techniques, Autism, assessments, ABA research, bringing ABA into everyday life, and more! Be sure to check out our members-only site to get exclusive access and resources for FREE! You can also earn CEU's for listening to these episodes at www.abcbehaviortx.com.

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In this episode we're talking about how to save time and implement proactive strategies to write treatment plans and conduct re-assessments with less time and greater efficiency.

Get your 0.5 CEU's for this episode here.

Be sure to check out our time-saving tools mentioned in the episode below:

  • Masterclass: Assessment and Report Writing includes 4.0 CEU's giving you all the training you need to master assessment selection, report writing, treatment goal development, and more.
  • The Report Writing Package includes over 30 documents to make report writing easier, including report templates, treatment goals, FBA cheat sheets, and more!
  • The Program Library is an ever-expanding collection of treatment goals that can be input into an electronic data collection system or printed for a binder system, includes treatment goals, prompt levels, SD descriptions, target lists, summary graphs, and in editable documents to customize for your clients.

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This week we are covering feeding disorders in children with autism and treatment methods. If you want a more in-depth look at behavioral feeding therapy and competency-based mentorship, check out our Intensive Competency Workshop: Behavioral Feeding Therapy.

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This week we are covering the steps you should take before, during, and after supervision to ensure you are providing effective supervision...or receiving effective supervision if you are a supervisee.

In addition to my own supervision experience, this episode includes information from the following article:
Sellers, T. P., Valentino, A. L., & LeBlanc, L. A. (2016). Recommended Practices for Individual Supervision of Aspiring Behavior Analysts. Behavior analysis in practice, 9(4), 274–286. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-016-0110-7

Resources Mentioned:
Supervision Curriculum
FREEBIE Supervision Checklist

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This week we are covering some commonly misunderstood supervision requirements from the BCBA Handbook. We also review the requirements of both the supervised fieldwork and concentrated supervised fieldwork.

Objectives:

  • Identify the requirements of BCBA fieldwork
  • Understand how the requirements should be implemented in practice

Resources Mentioned:
Intro to Supervision Course
Behavior Analyst Supervision Curriculum
Masterclass: Exceptional Supervision
5th ed Supervision Documentation Package

DON'T FORGET TO GET YOUR CEU'S FOR LISTENING TO THIS EPISODE!

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I'm so excited to have interviewed Dr. Amanda Coffey, the founder of The Behavior Network, one of the first BHCOE accredited training sites. We discuss how they provide such effective supervision, what sets their clinic apart from others, and what advice Dr Coffey has for other BCBA's that want to start their own clinic.

Objectives:

  • Identify strategies for effective supervision
  • Describe barriers to providing supervision in a clinic setting
  • Discuss considerations to clinic ownership

DON'T FORGET TO GET YOUR CEU'S FOR LISTENING TO THIS EPISODE!

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DON'T FORGET TO GET YOUR CEU'S FOR LISTENING TO THIS EPISODE! https://www.abcbehaviortx.com/podcast 

In this episode, we will be talking about reducing automatically reinforced behaviors by using antecedent interventions.

Objectives: 
-Describe the challenges to reducing automatically reinforced behaviors  
-Discuss how to conduct a competing stimulus assessment 
-Identify appropriate behaviors to target for reduction

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DON'T FORGET TO GET YOUR CEU'S FOR LISTENING TO THIS EPISODE! https://www.abcbehaviortx.com/podcast 

In this episode, we will be talking about graduated exposure and desensitization including its history, steps to use, and practical applications in ABA therapy. 

Objectives: 
-Demonstrate understanding of graduated exposure and desensitization 
-Identify how to implement this procedure 
-Discuss potential uses for this antecedent intervention in ABA therapy

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DON'T FORGET TO GET YOUR CEU'S FOR LISTENING TO THIS EPISODE! https://www.abcbehaviortx.com/podcast

June 8, 2023

In this episode, we will be talking about non-contingent reinforcement. What is it? What is it NOT? How to implement it? What are the pros and cons of utilizing non-contingent reinforcement?

Objectives:

  • Demonstrate understanding of examples and non-examples of non-contingent reinforcement
  • Identify how to utilize non-contingent reinforcement for different functions of behavior
  • Discuss pros and cons to utilizing non-contingent reinforcement in ABA therapy session

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In this episode, we will be talking about how to use ABA to change your own behavior to meet your goals. This section will talk about goal writing and how to write SMART goals.

Objectives:

  • Identify the meaning of the acronym SMART for goal writing
  • Demonstrate how to identify when goals to work on for ourselves
  • Discuss real-life relevance and how this goal creation and tracking system could be implemented.

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I had the great opportunity to talk to Todd Ward, Ph.D., former BCBA-D, to discuss his recent decision to let his BCBA expire and what that means for the future direction of his career. Todd received his doctoral degree in behavior analysis from the University of Nevada, Reno and was the president and found of bSci21 Media, LLC, running one of the most successful blogs for behavior analysts, bSci21.org. Dr. Ward has also served on editorial boards and has worked in a wide variety of settings in ABA from centers, residential programs, homes, schools, and was the Director of the Behavior Analysis Online program for the University of North Texas.

Objectives:

  • Identify ways that ABA can be utilized outside the field of autism
  • Understand the differences between the science of behaviorism in general and utilizing ABA in therapy
  • Discuss how education paths towards becoming a BCBA may play a role in the breadth of our scope of practice.

DON'T FORGET TO GET YOUR CEU'S FOR LISTENING TO THIS EPISODE!

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In our first episode of The Behavior Crew podcast, we'll go over some of the things you can expect from this and future episodes! In this month's topic "ABA Outside the Box", we'll be exploring other career options and fields that we can explore as BCBA's outside of the world of Autism, while still utilizing our knowledge of the science of behavior analysis.

In this episode, we will be talking about several unique career options based on literature from the BACB and research articles in our field.

Objectives:

  • Identify at least two new fields that a BCBA can transition to outside of working with children with Autism.
  • Understand the previous and current ABA-related research in those fields.
  • Discuss transition planning into new fields as a BCBA

DON'T FORGET TO GET YOUR CEU'S FOR LISTENING TO THIS EPISODE!
References

Maragakis, A., Drossel, C., & Waltz, T. J., (Eds.). (2021). Applications of Behavior Analysis in Healthcare and Beyond. Springer.

Available at https://www.amazon.com/Applications-Behavior-Analysis-Healthcare-Beyond/dp/3030579689

BACB. ABA Subspecialty Resources. https://www.bacb.com/about-behavior-analysis/

Druskis, M. (2017). On Using ABA to Coach Baseball. ABC Behavior Training. https://www.abcbehaviortx.com/single-post/2017/05/02/on-using-aba-to-coach-baseball

Other resources presented

Masterclass: Assessment and Report Writing

Report Writing Package