The rapid growth of the ABA field has created a supervision challenge that is both structural and qualitative. More BCBAs are supervising more trainees in more settings than at any prior point in the field's history.
Provider: BehaviorLive — via Women in Behavior Analysis
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Join Free →With the rapid growth of our field, maintaining quality in clinical services is a concern for many practitioners and agencies. Supervision and training practices have become especially important as the demand for supervision continues to increase, outpacing the availability of experienced BCBA supervisors. The BACB 2022 Eligibility Requirements for supervised fieldwork and BACB Supervision Training Curriculum Outline 2.0 present a challenge and opportunity to BCBAs and ABA agencies providing supervision to trainees. The increased expectations for total training hours, monthly supervision contacts, documentation, and implementing a competency-based approach to supervision require more resources on the part of BCBA supervisors and ABA agencies, when the demand for supervision is at an all-time high. To address this challenge, the author and her colleagues developed a supervisor program within their agency, which they piloted and refined over the past few years. Their goals included providing high-quality supervision to BACB trainees, increasing exam pass rates and BCBA retention, and reducing administrative burden for BCBA supervisors. This supervision program has been successfully implemented in ABA agencies across several states. In social validity surveys, BCBA supervisors who participated in the program reported increased sense of readiness to set clear expectations in supervision, implement systems to evaluate the effectiveness of their supervision practices, and document feedback provided during supervision. Initial data on trainee outcomes suggests that exam pass rates and retention of new BCBAs have increased. Recommendations for implementing similar supervision programs will be provided, and challenges to implementation will be discussed.
| Certification Body | Credits | Type |
|---|---|---|
| BACB® | 1 | Supervision |
Dr. Becky Thompson is the Senior Director for Advocacy at LEARN Behavioral. She is a Clinical Psychologist and Board Certified Behavior Analyst, Doctoral level (BCBA-D) who has been working with individuals on the spectrum since 2000. Dr. Thompson has experience supervising behavioral treatment programs for young children with autism, conducting and supervising diagnostic services, developing trainings for clinicians at all levels, and mentoring students seeking a Master's Degree in Behavior Analysis. Dr. Thompson serves as an appointed member of the Wisconsin Governor's Autism Council, and she is the current President of the Wisconsin Autism Providers Association (WAPA). She also services as the President of Illinois Providers for ABA Access & Quality (IPAAQ), and the Chair of Massachusetts Providers for ABA Access & Quality (MPAAQ).
Dig into the research behind this topic — plain-English summaries written for BCBAs.
279 research articles with practitioner takeaways
236 research articles with practitioner takeaways
233 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.