Supervision is not just a professional requirement in applied behavior analysis — it is a legally regulated activity with significant consequences when it goes wrong. The Behavior Analyst Certification Board publishes data on ethics complaints and disciplinary actions, and supervision-related violations consistently appear among the most frequent categories.
Provider: BehaviorLive — via Behavioral Talent Consulting
Take This Course →Including ethics, supervision, and topics like this one. New live CEU every Wednesday.
Join Free →The profession of applied behavior analysis-based services relies heavily on supervision to shape the repertoires of trainees and supervisees and to ensure the quality of services delivered. Behavior analysts certified by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board ® (BACB ® ) have specific requirements that they must meet and maintain to provide supervision to others, and failing to do so can have serious consequences for trainees, supervisees, consumers, and organizations. Based on data provided by the BACB, issues related to failing to meet and follow supervision obligations consistently rank as some of the most frequent allegations and violations of ethics standards. Some of the common issues are: 1) a lack of familiarity with, or understanding of, supervisory obligations 2) failure to have systems in place, and 3) failure to properly and regularly audit those systems and respond to results This panel brings together those with expertise in providing and managing supervision systems to discuss some common risky supervisory pitfalls and landmines, environmental variables that facilitate those risks, antecedent strategies to avoid them, and some tips for addressing issues when they do occur. Attendees are encouraged to submit questions to the panelists.
| Certification Body | Credits | Type |
|---|---|---|
| BACB® | 1 | Supervision |
Tyra Sellers is the owner of TP Sellers, LLC consulting and Scholar-in-Residence at Pass the Big ABA Exam (PTB). She earned a B.A. in Philosophy and M.A. in Special Education from San Francisco State University, a J.D. from the University of San Francisco, a Ph.D. from Utah State University, and is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst®. Her professional and research interests focus on professional ethics, training and supervision, assessment and treatment of severe problem behavior, and variability. Dr. Sellers has over 30 years of clinical experience working with individuals with disabilities in a wide variety of settings. She has held positions as an Assistant Professor at Utah State University, Director of Ethics at the Behavior Analyst Certification Board®, and CEO of the Association of Professional Behavior Analysts(APBA). She carries out reviews for several joirnals, has published several journal articles, four co-authored book chapters, co-authored books focused on supervision and mentorship and applied ethics for behavior analysis, and a workbook pair for consulting and new supervisors. She's been a vegetarian for 40 years, she loves flowers, she thinks Twizzlers should be uninvented, and she hopes you know how amazing you are!
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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.