A brief guide to ABA for Educators and Healthcare Professionals who’re looking to work collaboratively with Behaviour Analysts

Many experts consider ABA to be the gold-standard treatment for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or other developmental conditions. Did you know that ABA is sometimes used in the treatment of other conditions as well? This includes attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Intellectual disability, behaviour disorders, acquired brain injuries, dementia, substance use disorders and feeding and movement disorders. 

This post is a guide for educators and other professionals to learn more about Applied Behaviour Analysis and access some tips on how to work collaboratively to better support the individuals you work with. 

1) What exactly is ABA?

In simple terms, ABA is a scientific approach that looks at the environment and how it affects the behaviour of an individual. ABA looks at how the environment can be adapted to help teach socially appropriate behaviours while simultaneously decreasing socially inappropriate behaviours. The main focus of ABA is teaching skills that are socially appropriate to the client to help them live the best quality of life. 

ABA utilizes many different procedures in order to promote behaviour change in the individuals we support. Some common strategies that an ABA clinician may recommend include reinforcement systems, shaping, modelling, errorless teaching, incidental teaching.  You can learn more about these strategies as well as other ABA Techniques. 

The procedures a Behaviour Analysts recommends in ABA utilizes seven interconnected dimensions for the ultimate goal that promote meaningful behaviour change for the individual they provide service for.  Let's take a look at them: 

Behaviour change lasts over time, occurs in new settings, occurs with new people and can extend to other unlearned behaviours. Interventions and procedures are effective and increase socially significant behaviours. Interventions and procedures are clearly outlined with sufficient detail for others to replicate them. Behaviours that are targeted are socially significant to the individual. Interventions and procedures are research-based and follow behaviour analytic principles. Data is collected before, during and after in order to make data-based decisions. The target behaviour must be observable and measurable. 

2) Who are Behaviour Analysts?

Now that we have talked briefly about ABA and the procedures used... Who implements these procedures? Behaviour Analysts! 

Behaviour analysts are professionals who have an educational background in behaviour analysis or a related field and have supervised experience in the field. Behaviour analysts adhere to the standards and regulations of the Behaviour Analysts Certification Board (BACB®) https://www.bacb.com/about/. Behaviour analysts complete formal training including, coursework, supervised practice and writing a validated exam to test their knowledge. In their practice, behavioural analysts work with individuals of all ages, genders and abilities according to their professional competence. 

3) Interprofessional Collaboration 

Effective collaboration between healthcare providers can improve care for individuals, and improve the integrity of treatment procedures and may lead to increased job satisfaction, enhanced problem-solving and lower levels of stress for team members (Zwarenstein, Goldman, & Reeves, 2009, Kelly & Tincani, 2013, Hall, 2005; D’Amour et al., 2005; Xyrichis & Ream, 2008).

Collaboration can occur between many different professionals such as Behaviour Analysts, Dieticians, Nurses, Occupational therapists, Physicians, Speech and Language Pathologists.  

Professionals working together can help individuals make valuable gains and decrease problem behaviour by looking at different approaches to treatment. In an ideal world, everyone can work together to provide the best quality of service to their clients, but we know that when working with other professionals there may be overlapping or conflicting goals. Every profession has its own beliefs and values which may cause conflict. Here are some tips to help you work collaboratively:

1. Understand and respect the roles of other team members

2. Convey respect and appreciation of other professionals

3. Communicate one’s role and responsibilities clearly

4. Identify shared or cooperative goals and reinforce professional behaviours that contribute to shared values such as client centeredness

5. Adjust the language to the target audience

6. Make interprofessional education a priority in training and supervising new professionals

7. Demonstrate a willingness to work outside one’s own professional “comfort zone” while remaining within one’s scope of practice

8. Manage conflicting perspectives effectively

I hope this information has been helpful in better understanding the world of ABA!  Here is a link to the ONTABA website where you will find more information about ABA, behaviour analysts and interprofessional collaboration: https://training.ontaba.org/?page_id=551