The practice of behavior analysis is embedded within a complex web of professional obligations, client needs, organizational demands, and societal expectations. The BACB Ethics Codes for both RBTs and BCBAs establish benchmarks of expected conduct, yet the application of these standards to real-world situations frequently requires far more than a surface-level reading of the code.
Provider: BehaviorLive — via Association of Professional Behavior Analysts
Take This Course →Including ethics, supervision, and topics like this one. New live CEU every Wednesday.
Join Free →Our Codes of Ethics for RBTs and BCBAs provide benchmarks of expected conduct on the part of our therapists and their supervisors. The standards set are not exceptionally high nor extremely complicated, but they do require careful reading and assume an entry level of experience and common sense that befits a profession that purports to deal with the complexities of human behavior. The behaviors themselves are not usually the most perplexing but the contingencies surrounding them certainly are and our ethics codes provide both guidelines and boundaries. The ABA Ethics Hotline was established to assist our ABA workforce and consumers in understanding what ethical conduct to expect under everyday circumstances. Our tagline: Dedicated to Independent Ethics Consultation and Guidance we believe makes our mission clear. Our more than a dozen volunteer ethics experts are seeing an increasing number of questions, often 10 or more per day, arriving at the Hotline; this provides us some sense of the status, really the pulse, of our field in the realm of ethical dilemmas, challenges, concerns, and quandaries. In this presentation I will describe the four primary areas of concern and provide examples of the types of questions in each area. I will also make some suggestions regarding effectively preventing some of the more frequent issues that arise.
| Certification Body | Credits | Type |
|---|---|---|
| BACB® | 1 | Ethics |
Dr. Bailey received his BS and MS from Arizona State University where he worked with Jack Michael and Lee Meyerson, and his PhD, from the University of Kansas in 1970, with Mont Wolf as his mentor; he is a newly retired Professor Emeritus of Psychology from Florida State University where he was on the graduate faculty for 38 years and produced a record 63 PhDs. He was on the faculty of the FSU Panama City for nearly 25 years and created their ABA Master’s Program which has been ranked #1 in the world by the BACB three times in the last 10 years; approximately 350 students have graduated from the program. He is a BCBA-D, a Fellow of the Association for Behavior Analysis: International, and the American Psychological Association. Jon received the Distinguished Service to Behavior Analysis Award from the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis, the Division 25 Fred S. Keller Behavioral Education Award and the University of Kansas Applied Behavioral Science Distinguished Alumni Award as well as the prestigious Nathan H. Azrin Award for Outstanding Contributions to Applied Behavior Analysis from the American Psychological Association. In 2017, he received the Murray Sidman Award for Enduring Contributions to Behavior Analysis from the Berkshire Association for Behavior Analysis and Therapy. He is credited with founding the Florida Association for Behavior Analysis which now has nearly 2,000 members and Behavior Management Consultants, a thriving consulting company, both in 1980. He has published over 150 peer-reviewed research articles, is past Chief Editor of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and is the co-author of 16 books including Ethics for Behavior Analysts, Research Methods in Applied Behavior Analysis, How to Think Like a… Behavior Analyst and 25 Essential Skills for Professional Behavior Analysts. His latest endeavor is the creation of the popular ABAEthicsHotline.com which receives hundreds of ethics questions per month from consumers and behavior analysts all over the world.
Side-by-side comparison with a clinical decision framework
Research-backed educational guide for behavior analysts
Research-backed answers to common clinical questions
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.