Social Validity Assessment

The prevalence of intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) affects approximately one in six youth under the age of 17 years. This population requires specialized medical and behavioral healthcare interventions. Board-certified behavior analysts (BCBAs) play an integral role in the behavioral healthcare of individuals diagnosed with IDD, particularly those engaging in problem behavior. As the field evolves, BCBAs find themselves delivering services targeting problem behaviors exhibited by individuals with IDD in varied settings. While this is a necessary expansion of services, efforts to ensure the social validity of our practices given different stakeholder groups are essential. This chapter describes the history and application of social validity practices within the field of applied behavior analysis (ABA). We emphasize the ways social validity can be assessed depending on the stakeholder and how to support the customer (i.e., recipient of ABA services), consultant (i.e., provider delivering services), and society (e.g., community, regulatory agencies) in a socially valid manner with behavior-analytic practices when serving individuals diagnosed with IDD engaging in problem behavior. The chapter concludes with a discussion of future directions for researchers and practitioners.