Autistic Cultural Competency from an Autistic BCBA's Lens is the kind of topic that looks straightforward until it collides with the speed, ambiguity, and competing demands of caregiver coaching, home routines, team meetings, and values-sensitive decision making. In Autistic Cultural Competency from an Autistic BCBA's Lens, for this course, the practical stakes show up in better alignment between intervention and the family context in which it must survive, not in abstract discussion alone.
Provider: BehaviorLive — via Verbal Beginnings
Take This Course →Including ethics, supervision, and topics like this one. New live CEU every Wednesday.
Join Free →As professionals in the field, we advocate for ABA because it is proven to help the lives of many. However, there's another side to this story, and that is that our science has had a rough history. For example, the Judge Rotenburg Center has a history of using Contingent Skin Shock, long-term restraints, and sensory deprivation. This has led to many Autistic advocates stating that ABA causes potential PTSD due to interventions that are used to decrease a variety of target behaviors that do not harm themselves or others, such as self-stimulatory behaviors (e.g., hand-flapping, spinning, scripting). In contrast, Autistic advocates have cited that ABA focuses on increasing and forcing compliance. For example, if a technician uses escape-extinction for any direction that does not involve the health and safety of our clients, such as clapping their hands and stomping their feet, that the client must follow the direction right away, otherwise they cannot move on to another activity. Because of this, we as analysts need to be more trauma-informed and culturally competent. When we are trauma-informed, we are keeping in mind the trauma that a client has faced in their life and potential trauma that can happen as a result of ABA services. Additionally, when we are culturally competent, we are keeping in mind that we are individualizing treatment by following the client's cultural needs. Michelle Zeman, an Autistic BCBA, will be going over how professionals can ensure this while also advocating for our science.
| Certification Body | Credits | Type |
|---|---|---|
| BACB® | 2 | General |
| COA | 2 | — |
Michelle Zeman is an Autistic Board Certified Behavior Analyst. She's been in the field since 2013 and certified since 2016. She's a firm believer in compassionate care for all, and focusing on client-directed, client-centered goals that are socially significant to the client.
Dig into the research behind this topic — plain-English summaries written for BCBAs.
280 research articles with practitioner takeaways
279 research articles with practitioner takeaways
258 research articles with practitioner takeaways
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All behavior-analytic intervention is individualized. The information on this page is for educational purposes and does not constitute clinical advice. Treatment decisions should be informed by the best available published research, individualized assessment, and obtained with the informed consent of the client or their legal guardian. Behavior analysts are responsible for practicing within the boundaries of their competence and adhering to the BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts.