The Ethics of Actually Helping People: Targeting Skill Acquisition Goals That Promote Meaningful Outcomes for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

As a field that predominately supports individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), we have an ethical duty as behavior analysts to ensure that the goals we write and interventions we prescribe promote best outcomes across the lifespan. This is critical, given that as it stands now, outcomes in adulthood for individuals with ASD are poor in every area assessed. The Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts can be interpreted to provide support for teaching the right goals, the right way, with respect to inherent rights of those we serve, in order to help affect positive changes in these outcomes. The present article highlights ethical themes that are relevant in order to affect these changes that are supported by the Code, as well as actionable steps to take next. The aim is to provide a resource for practitioners to use in clinical practice and in making ethical decisions that will help to improve outcomes for individuals with autism in adulthood. In addition, recommendations are made about integrating these values and approaches in terms of training, supervision, advocacy, and research.

The Importance of Professional Discourse for the Continual Advancement of Practice Standards: The RBT® as a Case in Point.

The Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB®) created a third level of certification, the Registered Behavior Technician™ (RBT®) in 2014. The RBT® was created based upon the requests of stakeholders who wanted to credential those individuals who make direct contact with clients under the supervision of a Board Certified Behavior Analyst®. There has been tremendous growth in the number of RBTs® with over 60,000 individuals certified to date. The BACB® recently sent out a newsletter outlining changes to the RBT® certification, including the processes of training, supervising, and becoming an RBT®. These changes represent a number of potential concerns. The purpose of this paper is to highlight these concerns and to propose solutions to improve the RBT® certification.

Promoting Functional Communication Within the Home.

Functional communication skills are essential for all learners and must be promoted within all environments, including the home. During this time of home confinement, many families will need to look at opportunities for their children to use existing functional communication skills or even to acquire new skills. This article describes a set of 9 critical communication skills and provides a variety of examples of how families can improve the use of these important skills. Some of these involve speaker (expressive) skills, whereas others involve listener (receptive) skills.

[Behavior analytic approach to Asperger syndrome].

We describe the behavior analytic approach to helping people with Asperger syndrome regarding social interaction and communication issues. In the behavior analytic approach, the cause of maladaptive behavior is not attributed to the disability itself. Maladaptive behaviors are viewed as a function of the interaction between an individual and the environment. Therefore, we assess these functional relationships and intervene by modifying aspects of the environment. Functional assessment is one of the most effective methods to evaluate the cause of problem behaviors and helps in the selection of an intervention strategy. We teach students functionally equivalent alternative behaviors that are socially appropriate and yet met the needs of the individual. Furthermore, we discuss the importance of teaching individuals with Asperger syndrome critical skills, including communication skills, self-management skills, and how to deal with anxiety.

Multiply controlled verbal operants: an analysis and extension to the picture exchange communication system.

This paper presents Skinner's (1957) analysis of verbal behavior as a framework for understanding language acquisition in children with autism. We describe Skinner's analysis of pure and impure verbal operants and illustrate how this analysis may be applied to the design of communication training programs. The picture exchange communication system (PECS) is a training program influenced by Skinner's framework. We describe the training sequence associated with PECS and illustrate how this sequence may establish multiply controlled verbal behavior in children with autism. We conclude with an examination of how Skinner's framework may apply to other communication modalities and training strategies.