Ethics
BEHAVIORS, PRACTICES, and DECISIONS that address 3 fundamental questions that guide how you conduct yourself to help others improve their
... [Show More] physical, social, psychological, familial, or personal condition
Question: Why is Ethics Important?
To further the welfare of the client
3 Fundamental Questions of Ethical Practice
1. What is the right thing to do?
2. What is worth doing?
3. What does it mean to be a good behavior analyst?
1. What is the right thing to do?
-Considerations related to cultural practices: what may be acceptable in one culture is not in another
-Differences across time: what may have been acceptable 20 years ago is not today
Things to Help You Guide the Decision-Making Process
1. Professional Training and Experience
-Your training should influence the methods you use. The decision to opt for Method A (e.g., differential reinforcement) or Method B (e.g., overcorrection) should be based on your clinical training, not your personal history
-Your training as a behavior analyst should ALWAYS OVERRIDE your personal history.
2. Personal History
-A personal history is your individual cultural, religious, or social background. It should not influence your clinical decisions.
-Recognize that your personal history may lead to inappropriate solutions (e.g., if a person was raised in a family that believed in "spare the rod, spoil the child", that person may tend to be harsh with children)
-If you recognize that your personal history is impacting your clinical decision-making, get help from supervisors, colleagues, and research. If you cannot get the help or change your behavior, excuse yourself from the case.
3. The Context of Practice
-Refers to where you practice and the specific nature of job (e.g., at home, at school, etc.)
-Determines what is legal vs. illegal, ethical vs. unethical
Question: What is Legal, but Unethical?
1. Breaking a professional confidence.
2. Accepting valued heirlooms in lieu of payment.
3. Engaging in consensual sex with a client over the age of 18.
Question: What is Both Illegal and Unethical?
1. Misrepresenting promised services or skills.
2. Stealing a client's belongings.
3. Abusing a client physically, emotionally, financially, socially, or sexually.
4. Engaging in consensual sexual relations with persons under age 18.
Question: What are Ethical Codes of Behavior?
-Guidelines that specify what IS a violation.
-Guidelines for deciding a course of action or conducting professional duties.
-Guidelines to help to discriminate between legal and ethical distinctions making us more likely to:
-provide effective services
-maintain sensitivity towards clients
-not break the law or our professional
standards of conduct
2. What is Worth Doing?
-Addresses the goals and objectives of practice and forces us to ask the questions:
1. What are we trying to accomplish?
2. How are we trying to accomplish it?
3. Is the objective socially valid?
4. What is the risk-benefit ratio?
Social Validity
-When the results show meaningful, significant, and sustainable change.
-When the goals, procedures, and results of an intervention are socially acceptable to the client, the behavior analyst, and society.
-Not every skill has social validity (ex. teaching an adult with developmental disabilities to play with children's coloring books is not socially valid.
2 Ways to Assess Social Validity
1. Social Comparison:
-Comparison of the performance of clients
exposed to the intervention with an
equivalent or "typically developing" group.
-Limitation: normative data may not be really
relevant for the client's functioning.
2. Subjective Evaluation of Experts:
-Evaluation of the client's performance by
experts who are very familiar with the client.
-Limitation: subjective evaluation of experts
may not tell us about the success of an
intervention.
3. What Does it Mean to Be a Good Behavior Analyst?
- Following professional codes of conduct (BACB)
-Keeping client's welfare in your ideas
A Good Practitioner is Self-Regulating
Seeks ways to calibrate decisions over time to ensure that values, contingencies, and rights and responsibilities are integrated and an informed combination of these is considered.
3 Reasons Why We Abide By Ethics (MHS)
1. M: Meaningful Change
-To produce meaningful behavior change of
social significance to the client
- Increase the likelihood of appropriate
services being rendered to individuals
2. H: Harm
-To reduce/eliminate harm (e.g., poor
treatments, SIB, etc.)
3. S: Standards
-To conform to the ethical standards of
learned societies and professional
organizations
Question: What Are Professional Standards?
(Standards is an umbrella word for everything.)
-Standards are written guidelines that provide a direction for conducting the practices associated with an organization.
BACB
-Certifies individual practitioners
-In 1999, the BACB started credentialing behaviorists in the US and other countries. The BACB certification is based on Florida's certification program. It ensures consumers that an individual's specialization is ABA.
Association for Behavior Analysis (ABA)
Accredits university programs
5 Documents that Describe Standards of Professional Conduct and Ethical Practice for ABA
(TLCEPBT): TLC Eating Peanut Butter Together
1. TL: Task List
-The BCBA and BCaBA Task List Fourth
Edition, 2015
2. C: Code
-Professional and Ethical Compliance Code
for Behavior Analysts (BACB, 2016)
3. E: Education
-The Right to Effective Education
(Association for Behavior Analysis, 1990)
4. P: Psychologists
-Ethical Principles of Psychologists and
Code of Conduct (American Psychological
Association, 2010)
5. BT: Behavioral Treatment
-The Right to Effective Behavioral Treatment
(Association for Behavior Analysis, 1989)
BCBA and BCaBA Behavior Analyst Fourth Edition Task List
-Effective January 1, 2015
-Describes knowledge, skills, and attributes expected of a behaviorist
-Describes numerous tasks across three main sections
Professional and Ethical Compliance Code for Behavior Analysts
(AKA The "Code")
-Effective January 1, 2016 (most recent revised version August 11, 2015)
-All BACB applicants, certificants, and registrants are required to adhere to the Code
-The BACB has consolidated, updated, and replaced 2 of their old ethical documents:
1. The Professional Disciplinary and Ethical
Standards
2. The Guidelines for Responsible Conduct
for Behavior Analysts
-The Code has 2 parts:
1. 10 Sections: these are relevant to
professional and ethical behavior of
behavior analysts
2. Glossary
1.0 Responsible Conduct of Behavior Analysts
-You maintain the high standards of behavior of the profession.
-Code's Definition of Behavior Analyst: individual who holds the BCBA or BCaBA credential, an individual authorized by the BACB to provide supervision, or a coordinator of a BACB Approved Course Sequence
1.01 Reliance on Scientific Knowledge
You rely on professionally derived knowledge based on science and behavior analysis when making scientific or professional judgments in human service provision, when engaging in scholarly or professional endeavors
1.02 Boundaries of Competence
- You provide services, teach, and conduct research only within the boundaries of of your competence, defined as being commensurate with your education, training, and supervised experience.
-You provide services, teach, or conduct research in new areas (e.g., populations, techniques, behaviors, etc.)
-Only after FIRST undertaking appropriate
study, training, supervision, and/or
consultation from persons who are
competent in those areas
1.03 Maintaining Competence through Professional Development
You maintain knowledge of current scientific and professional information in your areas of practice and undertake ongoing efforts to maintain competence in the skills you use.
4 Methods of Maintaining Professional Development (CLAC)
1. C: CEUs
-Maintain your credential with continuing
education units (CEUs)
2. L: Literature
-Read appropriate literature (i.e., most
updated evidence-based, peer-reviewed
research)
3. A: Additional Coursework
-Obtain additional coursework
4. C: Conferences/Workshops
-Attend conferences/workshops
1.04 Integrity
1. You are truthful and honest and arrange the environment to promote truthful and honest behavior in others.
2. You do not implement contingencies that would cause others to engage in fraudulent, illegal, or unethical conduct.
3. You follow through on obligations and contractual and professional commitments with high quality work and refrain from making professional commitments you cannot keep.
4. Your behavior conforms to the legal and ethical codes of the social and professional community of which you are a member.
5. If your ethical responsibilities conflict with law or any policy on an organization with which you are affiliated, you make known your commitment to this Code and take steps to resolve the conflict in a responsible manner in accordance with law.
1.05 Professional and Scientific Relationships
1. You provide behavior-analytic services only in the context of a defined, professional, or scientific relationship or role.
2. When you provide behavior-analytic services, you use language that is fully understandable to the recipient of those services while remaining conceptually systematic with the profession of behavior analysis. Provide appropriate information PRIOR to service delivery about the nature of such services and appropriate information later about results and conclusions.
3. If differences of age, gender, race, culture, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language, or socioeconomic status significantly affect your work concerning particular individuals or groups, you obtain the training, experience, consultation, and/or supervision necessary to ensure the competence of your services, or make appropriate referrals.
4. In your work-related activities, you do not engage in discrimination against individuals or groups based on age, gender, race, culture, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language, or socioeconomic status, in accordance with law.
5. You do not knowingly engage in behavior that is harassing or demeaning to persons with whom you interact in your work based on factors, such as those persons' age, gender, race, culture, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language, or socioeconomic status, in accordance with law.
6. You recognize that your personal problems and conflicts may interfere with your effectiveness. You refrain from providing services when your personal circumstances may compromise delivering services to the best of your abilities. [Show Less]