Applied behavior analysts make ethical decisions every day, yet many practitioners have never received formal training in the theories that underpin ethical reasoning or the empirical findings about what actually controls ethical choice behavior. This gap between the frequency of ethical decisions and the depth of preparation for making them creates vulnerability for practitioners, clients, and the profession.
Provider: BehaviorLive — via Kadiant
Take This Course →Including ethics, supervision, and topics like this one. New live CEU every Wednesday.
Join Free →Applied behavior analysts make ethical decisions every day. However, many practitioners have not received formal training in ethical analysis or formal steps to ethical decision-making. The purpose of this CE event is threefold. First, describe foundational ethical theories that are needed to analyze and justify everyday ethical decisions made during ABA service delivery. Second, demonstrate how variables that are known to control choice from basic behavior analytic research also can control ethical decision-making during ABA service delivery. Finally, provide one model of everyday ethical decision-making that allows practitioners to use ethical theory and basic choice research to make ethical decisions during ABA service delivery. Learning Objectives for Participants: At the end of this presentation, participants should be able to: Describe the following four ethical theories commonly used to justify claims to 'right' and 'wrong': deontology, consequentialism, virtue theory, contract theory. Describe how the four ethical theories underly the BACB Professional and Ethical Compliance Code for Behavior Analysts, and the RBT Ethics Codes. Describe how the four ethical theories can influence daily ethical decision-making in ABA service delivery. Describe how basic choice research translates to influence ethical decision-making in ABA service delivery. Describe the steps to one basic model of ethical decision-making. Apply the model of ethical decision-making to real-world examples.
| Certification Body | Credits | Type |
|---|---|---|
| BACB® | 2 | Ethics |
Dr. David Cox can formally lay claim to being a bioethicist (master's degree from Union Graduate College), a board-certified behavior analyst at the doctoral level (PhD in behavior analysis from the University of Florida), a behavioral economist (post-doc training at the Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine), and a data scientist (post-doc training through an Insight! Data Science Fellowship). He has worked in behavior analysis for 20 years as a clinician, academic researcher, scholar, technologist, and all-around behavior science junky. From his work and collaborations, David has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and books. And, has had the fortune to serve as Editor in Chief for The Experimental Analysis of Human Behavior Bulletin and Associate or Guest Editor for Perspectives on Behavior Science, Behavior Analysis in Practice, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Psychological Record, Education and Treatment of Children, Toward Data Science, and Behavior and Social Issues. When he's not doing research or building quantitative models of behavior-environment relations, he enjoys spending time with his wife, two beagles, and two kittens around St. John's, FL.
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.