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Contingencies that Support Non-Behavior Analytic Treatments |
Sunday, May 24, 2015 |
4:00 PM–4:20 PM |
204B (CC) |
Area: CSE |
Chair: Thomas P. Kitchen (Mercyhurst University) |
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If Not Us, Then Who?: The Struggle for Equal Footing in Non-Behavior-Analytic Climates |
Domain: Service Delivery |
THOMAS P. KITCHEN (Mercyhurst University) |
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Abstract: It has been 36 years since Montrose Wolf (1978) implored the field to present itself as an approachable consumer-driven discipline ready to tackle the “best human goals and social problems.” It has been even longer since the establishment of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. The field has amassed decades of peer-reviewed, rigorously vetted evidence for its effectiveness in addressing problems across contexts and populations. However, behavior analytic intervention may arguably still be characterized as an “underdog” in the contest for prominence as the most popular approach to most human issues, with autism perhaps being a lone exception in recent years.
If the field is to ever realize its potential in changing the world on a massive scale, then behavior analysts must analyze contingencies maintaining widespread consumer selection of less-evidence-based approaches, and change their own behaviors accordingly. Who better to do so? If behavior analysts are not analyzing these contingencies and engineering alternate contingencies that lead to more evidence-based treatment selection, then they are not applying their science to their own dilemma. This paper examines contingencies likely responsible for adoption of non-behavior-analytic approaches and makes suggestions for engineering those that will lead to more widespread adoption of behavior analytic approaches. |
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