It is April and it is Autism Awareness Month. I was recently at a Provider Resource Fair for an Autism Walk in NJ. Luckily, $80,000 was raised for the cause. The money is used to educate parents and teachers.
It was really nice to see so many families and friends all together working for the same cause. Because I was a resource provider, many parents approached me to ask for info about our expanding ABA field.
Many parents with children who have Autism do not realize that Board Certified Behavior Analysts are still quite rare. Currently, there are only about 5,000 certificants who hold the BCBA ( Masters or Ph.D level) and BCABA ( Bachelors level) credential in the world. In addition, Behavior Analysts are not just limited to serving the Autism population. It depends upon the Behavior Analyst’s education, work experience, populations serviced and expertise background. Some Behavior Analysts only deal with Verbal Behavior, others work with a broader range of behaviors, some only work with children, some adults, some can teach parents, some work in business, others work with typical kids etc., etc. ABA is applicable to many things, not just Autism.
It was refreshing to speak with a few parents who were more aware of Applied Behavior Analysis and its many positive uses. They understood that changing their behavior would help their child with Autism.
Now some might say, if you want to change behavior then just go buy a book and implement the techniques yourself or go attend a behavior workshop and apply it yourself. These avenues are fine, though where is the true guidance ?
These parents that I met were very interested in getting direct training/coaching in the home. They felt that perhaps they do know some ABA, but a professional would be better to objectively assess the needs and provide the necessary teaching to improve/modify/maintain behaviors.
Changing behavior is similiar to learning a brand new skill. We all needed teachers throughout our lives, why not a Behavior Analyst to teach how to change our behaviors ?
Changing behavior is not easy, it is complex.
Tags: assess, changing behavior, complex, modify behaviors, training
April 14, 2008 at 9:01 pm |
The biggest problem with the do-it-yourself approach is that oftentimes part of the Behavior Analyst’s job is to train the parents as well.