The Impact of Changing Social Systems on Behavior Analytic Practice: Overcoming Barriers to Providing Socially Valid Behavioral Interventions
摘要
The rise in popularity of interventions based on behavior analytic principles for individuals with autism/autistic individuals has changed the contingencies for applied behavior analysis and practice. Systems-level practices and/or regulations have been established or have evolved by a variety of governing organizations (e.g., licensing boards and certifying organizations, university-based training programs in behavior analysis) and social systems (e.g., economic, education, health care). Many practices and/or regulations have been established or have evolved due to the need to serve increasing numbers of clients and those providing/coordinating the provision of services. These practices and/or regulations serve several functions—strengthening, evocative, and selective. They set the occasion for individual behaviors to be reinforced or punished, they restrict or expand the repertoire of potential responses that are likely to be emitted, and they condition or make different classes of reinforcers available. Practitioners, scientist-practitioners, students, researchers, and professors should be engaging in the complex contingency analyses that elucidate how these practices and/or regulations affect our contributions to the science, discipline, research, practice, and to the education and training of behavior analysts to ensure that we are engaging in a scientific approach to socially valid behavior change.