Applied behavior analysis at West Virginia University: A brief history.

The authors tell the 30-year story of how West Virginia University built one of the first stand-alone ABA programs.

They trace three tracks: a psychology lab, a special-ed teaching clinic, and a teacher-training degree.

All three lived under one name—behavior analysis—so students could move across research, therapy, and classroom work without switching departments.

WVU kept the program alive since the 1960s by branding every activity as ‘behavior analysis.’

Sharing faculty, grant money, and credit hours across tracks created more slots for students and steadier funding.

Graduates left with both BCBA coursework and hands-on lab or school hours, a rarity at the time.

Chezan et al. (2018) show the next step: four Virginia universities now pool classes online so rural teachers can sit for the BCBA exam.

Where WVU needed one campus to do it all, the Virginia consortium shares courses across schools—same mission, newer tool kit.

Kazemi et al. (2019) list the readings today’s programs assign; their national scan shows most syllabi still use the classic WVU core, proving the model endures.

Eldevik et al. (2006) reminds us why intensity matters: WVU’s model pushed 20-plus clinic hours per week, matching the dose later linked to real child gains.

If you run or teach in a graduate program, copy WVU’s glue: keep research, clinical, and education faculty in the same budget line.

One shared course number can let RBTs earn practicum hours while MA students collect thesis data—efficiency that still pays 30 years later.