Association for Behavior Analysis International

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) has long been recognized for its clinical rigor and impact on patient outcomes—but sustaining and scaling effective clinical services demands more than science alone. This presentation explores the often-overlooked business dimensions of running a successful ABA organization, where clinical excellence must intersect with operational efficiency, financial sustainability, and strategic leadership.

This session is designed for behavior analysts, clinical directors, practice owners, and emerging leaders in ABA organizations who want to expand their impact beyond clinical delivery. It will be particularly valuable for professionals seeking to integrate evidence-based clinical practice with sound business operations, financial sustainability, and strategic leadership. Both seasoned practitioners and those new to management roles will benefit from insights on aligning science, service, and business for long-term success.

Procedural fidelity is essential for ethical and effective service delivery, yet it is often treated as an afterthought—something to be checked off a list or overlooked entirely. In this presentation, I will challenge common assumptions about fidelity and highlight the critical role of fidelity in ensuring that our learners receive the services to which they consented. Drawing from applied and translational research in autism intervention, I will present practical, research-informed strategies for measuring fidelity in real-world settings where time and resources are often limited. Attendees will learn how to design sensitive and feasible fidelity measurement systems, distinguish between global and component-level fidelity, and apply fidelity data to improve both implementation quality and client outcomes. I will share examples of fidelity scoring methods, tools for assessing fidelity across repeated sessions, and ways to embed fidelity supports into training and supervision. Ethical considerations—including those related to informed consent, treatment validity, and stakeholder trust—will also be addressed. Finally, I will introduce emerging tools and approaches that can make fidelity measurement more sustainable, actionable, and aligned with the realities of everyday practice. Ultimately, the goal is to promote fidelity practices that are both rigorous and realistic, thereby enhancing the quality of services for autistic learners.

This session is designed for behavior analysts, psychologists, supervisors, and other professionals involved in designing, delivering, or overseeing autism services. It will also benefit educators, researchers, and practitioners seeking practical, research informed strategies for measuring and supporting procedural fidelity in real world settings. Both early career and experienced professionals will find value in this presentation.

The definitions of autism have changed dramatically over the past four decades to include a wide range of people. The field continues to debate the utility and meaning of identifying portions of the spectrum as distinct groups, including the recently introduced term Profound Autism. Autistic people with Profound Autism have very high support needs, but have received less research attention over time, despite having elevated rates of co-occurring mental health and behavioral challenges. The field lacks consensus criteria for this group, which impedes research progress. We will explore some of the ways the field has approached complex presentations in autism, highlight the critical area of adaptive functioning, and consider the benefits and risks of focusing on this group. Directing attention to the adaptive functioning of people with Profound Autism may lead to greater clarity in identification and improved individualization of services and supports.

This presentation is designed for behavior analysts, psychologists, special educators, researchers, clinicians, and service providers who work with individuals on the autism spectrum, particularly those supporting individuals with high support needs. It may also be of interest to policymakers, program administrators, and advocates seeking greater clarity around the term "Profound Autism" and its implications for research, diagnosis, and individualized services.

When my son was diagnosed with autism two decades ago, health insurance did not cover ABA at all. Today, most insured families in America have ABA benefits. This session will focus on the lessons learned from the groundbreaking, parent-led autism insurance reform movement and consider how the successful advocacy strategies can now be applied to address still-needed policy reform. Further, we will examine and discuss what to do about: • gaps and caps in coverage (e.g., adults!), • non-insurance products masquerading as insurance, and • the significant restrictions that sometimes discourage or block providers from recommending and delivering needed intensity. Finally, we’ll brainstorm ABA outcomes that are meaningful to a family.

Behavior analysts, clinicians, administrators, and advocates interested in autism services and policy reform. This session will be especially relevant for professionals seeking to understand the parent led autism insurance reform movement, apply effective advocacy strategies, and address current coverage gaps and systemic barriers. Parents and caregivers invested in shaping meaningful ABA outcomes may also find value in this discussion.

Decades of research from basic and applied laboratories suggest that certain procedural arrangements or types of stimuli can produce responding under unintended sources of stimulus control. The behavior analyst’s detection of the incongruence between what is learned and what was intended to be learned often requires direct testing of what could be learned. It is paramount, then, that the behavior analyst “make sure that pupils see what they see” (Sidman, 2011, p. 986), which might be more effectively arranged by attempting to see (or even catch a glimpse) from our learners’ view. Fortunately, the tactics that define the behavior analytic approach, characteristic of both applied practice and basic research, provide a framework for this type of analysis for each learner. This presentation will describe the approach taken by our lab to improve our inferences of our learner’s view (i.e., propensity for certain stimulus control topographies) and to arrange interventions to ensure coherence of what is taught and what is learned.

This session is designed for behavior analysts, researchers, and practitioners who are engaged in skill acquisition programming and are interested in refining their understanding of stimulus control processes. It will be particularly valuable for professionals who design, implement, or evaluate instructional strategies and want to ensure that learning outcomes align with instructional goals. Graduate students, supervisors, and educators seeking to strengthen their ability to detect and address unintended sources of stimulus control in applied settings will also benefit. Attendees should have a foundational knowledge of behavior analytic concepts and a desire to deepen their application to learner-centered approaches.