Unit 3 Study Guide

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May 27, 2024

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AB565 Professional Ethics Unit 3: Study Guide 1. Comment on Leaf et al.’s (2021) critique of the RBT® certification. To what extent do you agree with their critiques? You need not agree or disagree with all of their critiques; you may select one or two and comment on those specific critiques. Leaf et al. critiques the RBT certification for it’s shortcomings in a few areas such as training proficiency, training length, missing skills on the task list, and the task list missing operational definitions. While the RBT certificate can be held by those without any degree, only a high school diploma, it grants them the ability to practice ABA therapy with clients of all ages. An RBT may not have any other type of schooling or training other than their 40 hours, which I can agree with Leaf et al.’s concern. I have been studying behavior and psychology since my time in my undergraduate studies. While I may not have studied directly applied behavior analysis, I still studied the psychology of people and their reasoning for behavior. With my 40-hour training, I feel like I was able to solidify many things I have previously learned and understand how they are implemented in this field. This is not the case for everyone, however. I do not think only 40-hours of coursework is enough to be able to perform this therapy. Trainings, and more applicable supervision should be implemeneted, to ensure the teacher is fully prepared for their role. In addition, I can understand the writer’s worry about the missing skills on the task list. It is stated that a skill like stimulus fading was removed due to it being too advanced for an entry-level RBT, but this is a key skill in teaching and it should be required. Though this job might not require a great deal of education, it is not necessarily considered entry level. ABA therapists teach the most important skill- functional communication. RBT’s should be heald to a higher standard due to the honor they have of teaching such important daily living essentials. If something is ‘too difficult’ the RBT candidate should not pass the exam.
AB565 Professional Ethics They should be required to learn such important skills that they will use daily in the field, even if they require more practice than others. 2. How would implementing Leaf et al.’s solutions resolve the issues they addressed? If you work in an RBT role, do you think implementing their solutions would resolve any issues in your own organization? Leaf et al. believes that training hours should increase to align with the research. This would not be harmful to anyone in the field. Although it is more time consuming, learning more is never a bad thing. For those who have no skill other than a high school diploma, they may need to spend more time going over basic concepts. Someone who has been in an adjacent field might know some things, but might need to spend more time learning how it applies to ABA. I think that a longer training would make everyone feel more confident in their skill set, increase the passing rate of the RBT exam on the first try, and make for solid therapists who can lend a hand to other para-professionals working in their classroom. Including all necessary procedures on the task list is very important as well to have a fully operational therapy session. Including something like shaping on the task list is a necessity. Just because this process might be considered difficult by some, does not mean it should be removed. The RBT must be ready to learn the things that they find challenging in order to become the most successful therapist for their clients. Defining the skills clearly, like the writers explained, would be helpful in the successful implementation of the various practices like shaping that were removed from the task list due to difficulty. 3. Pick one of the three primary approaches to ethics about which you have learned thus far: virtue ethics, deontology, consequentialism. Using Rosenberg and Schwartz (2019) as a guide, make a case for why behavior analysts’ professional ethics should be based on that approach. What is an issue with this approach?
AB565 Professional Ethics Consequentialism is a behavior approach that determines whether behavior is “right or wrong” based on the consequences of that behavior (Broadhead et al., 2018). A behavior is deemed right if it “maximizes the good” and wrong if it does more harm than good. As a BCBA, it is always a practioners aim to do no harm. Practitioners need to find the best fit of services for their client, and there is not one right answer. Two clients can have the same struggle, but need two very different approaches. It would be unethical to use the same teaching tools for each client and expect it to work, because everyone learns differently. It is key to “evaluate” each “ethical dilemma” and consider all extenuating circumstances before landing on an intervention for a particular client ( Rosenberg and Schwartz, 2019). If a BCBA knows a particular approach to teaching color mastery is to use a rainbow and have the students match the colors is helpful, they might use that as their go- to lesson for colors. If there is a student that is so low functioning that they are not able ot identify a match in such a large color field, then this would not be useful. It is the ethical duty of the practioner to make applicable lessons for all students, rather than just using one teaching method. Behavior Analysts should use this method for ethics because it is puts the client first. This method allows the individual to have their needs met in a way that is tailored to them, rather than the practitioner being rigid in their teaching ways. The only issue to the consequentialism approach is that a consequence is not always ‘good’ or ‘beneficial’. Sometimes behavior can be learned through natural consequences, which are not always enjoyable. It is the job of the BCBA to know when a potential consequence could be more dangerous than useful. For example, teaching a child that it is dangerous to jump off the top of the slide at the playground holds far too dangerous of a consequence to allow for consequentialism to be the primary tool in this scenario. It is the duty of the BCBA to do no
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