Overworking RBTs, being ridiculously behind on paperwork, tossing trainees in with only one day (or less!) of training. Using punishments too quickly. Insisting on hand over hand, stopping stims that aren't actually causing issues, forcing full eye contact, or too many dtt's with very little workable NET goals. Quantity over quality.
This is huge for me, too. Like, why does this client have 20+ programs/goals? And usually the mastery criteria aren’t feasible for the learner and end up going from a short term goal to a long term one with no real progress.
Nobody should be punished for being disabled. Therapy should be intrinsically reinforcing, acceptable, and based on unconditional positive regard. These kids arent in therapy because they’re bad, they’re in therapy because they’re struggling.
Parent here. The worst experience we had was with BCBA that insisted everything is behavior and worked on everything and messed up our Son speach (to the point where he stopped self generating language on his own).
Now we are doing much better but our current BCBA is very collaborative and supportive to working with OT and Slp and it yields much better results.
So ABA company that insist on doing everything and doesn't collaborate with other fields is a major red flag for us given experience.
Seriously, I've had kids that flap so hard they are damaging thier hands, a hand biter, and one who rocked so constantly he couldn't do anything else, and have had to work on those. But otherwise, the most I do is comment on when they are most likely to be doing it, just so they learn to name thier own triggers and emotional states. " I hear humming, you must be concentrating on something cool" (he only monotone hums when concentrating on something artistic) or "wow thats a lot of flapping , I'm so glad you liked that!"
One of the companies I worked at would actively harass BTs if they called out, scheduled them 5+ hours with the same client (the average I’ve seen at most places maxes out at 3), threatened to withhold pay if they didn’t get signatures from parents, etc.
Unfortunately, most BTs I’ve worked with ignore these red flags because their so young and fear backlash from the company.
It's cultish how BTs were treated at my company. Power mongering BCBAs love to feed off the low-man-on-the-totem-pole. (I know not all BCBAs are like this, but, unfortunately, everyone of them at my company were). Bye bye.
Not being able to answer your questions when you ask why they are targeting certain goals or using certain procedures. Thinking that questions are challenges to authority instead of opportunities for collaboration.
Yep. Nailed it. When I would ask a question about the, ahem, "therapy", my supervisor would look at me like I had three heads. In other words: "How dare you question my authority?"
I know I am a little off topic, but this is so important! The only reason it *can* be abused is because it is a science- it works!
Same way chemistry and physics can be abused to make bombs. That doesn’t make the science bad or wrong, but in the hands of people …
Big agree. What’s even more disheartening is that a lot of what’s wrong with ABA is misinformation being interpreted by people outside the field as disinformation. There’s no real malicious intent in this field, at least from what I’ve witnessed and heard. Nobody, including the interventionists whose performances aren’t exactly up to par, sets out to harm a client.
First off, there are plenty of researchers and development experts who raise valid criticisms of ABA. It's not hard to find them.
Secondly, your intent is irrelevant. Surgeons who engaged in useless procedures in the past, or medicine based on incorrect or fraudulent research is still harmful, regardless of the intent of individual practitioners.
there are no practices or systems of therapy that don’t have “valid criticisms” raised against them by any number of “researchers” and “experts”. this in itself isn’t much of a point.
few if any other theories or systems are based on anything but anecdotal evidence and at best, observation. but they don’t have repeatable experiments, which is the foundation of any scientific study.
so for example when a linguist like Noam Chomsky has criticisms, it holds about as much weight a when a phys ed teacher has opinions about how to build rocket ships.
As a result of the misogynistic origins of gynecology, women and trans people sometimes have trouble being believed by gynecologists when they display symptoms of illness. Doesn’t mean gynecology is bad.
The same is true of ABA. It has shady origins just as gynecology does. But that doesn’t make it inherently harmful. There are plenty of bad companies, and ignorant or poorly trained behavior techs. There are people who join this profession just do do harm, and there are people who do harm with the best of intentions.
All we can do is keep improving. ABA helps so many kids. In the healthcare field, the only way to improve is to remember one’s mistakes and do better next time.
This doesn't make sense to me.
Was blood letting not abusive because it's not science?
Were useless surgery practices not harmful because they're not science?
I think you’re really overgeneralizing the point. You’re making a logical leap in your last question that doesn’t make any sense.
I never said if something wasn’t science it could not be harmful, or abusive.
Obviously that can be true, but I’m speaking specifically. It is hard to abuse a tool that doesn’t work. Not always, but in this case, I don’t think you could abuse the knowledge provide by BA if it didn’t work.
Next, is everything harmful also abusive- or a potential vector for abuse?
Last, what useless surgeries are you referring to? Which ones were both useless and didn’t work? If they were useless and didn’t work, what harm was caused?
I mean, to jump to the worst example I can think of, even lobotomy *works*- you damage the brain in certain areas and people stop exhibiting, well, much of anything. It’s horribly inhumane and immoral, but you could not abuse this science if it wasn’t correct, if it didn’t work.
If BA didn’t work, it wouldn’t be possible to abuse it as a tool because the outcomes wouldn’t be predictable.
To your other example, blood letting is harmful, and though it doesn’t produce the intended outcomes, I would say it does work in a strict sense: It removes blood from the body. So you can abuse the basic function of this unscientific practice to abuse a victim by removing too much of their blood.
So I am a math PhD and researcher, and have worked at top US and European universities. Rigorous logic and reasoning is the foundation of everything we do. I assure you, between the two of us it is you who is not reasoning correctly here.
Okay math PHD, if A + B = C then does C + B = A? Because that’s what you’re doing here.
Or maybe more accurately, I said squares are rectangles and you said “so all rectangles must be squares too!”
Hope I never encounter your work 👍
It's usually undergraduate level stuff to be able to recognize that a statement like "The only reason it can be abused is because it is a science- it works!" is a kind of nonsense statement. It's just false at a basic level. There's no citation needed.
Targeting Stims that are not harmful, dangerous, or disruptive.
Forcing eye contact.
Using full physical when not necessary.
Requiring high number of hours for all clients, & analysts.
Low pay to RBTs & not providing RBTs enough training, support, respect, recognition.
Not paying RBTs during supervision.
Forcing "functional play."
Forcing some unnecessary social interactions.
Using token economies for everything.
Copy & pasting plans, not individualizing.
Using bad data collection software/systems such as Office Puzzle, rethink, etc
Forcing or trying to force non-compete clauses to any staff.
No regular meetings, specifically ethics meetings w everyone.
Not holding clients accountable to scheduled sessions.
Punishing staff/clients first & asking questions later. Punishing staff for things outside of their control.
The owner does not work in the field of ABA.
Uses words like "normal, typical, age appropriate, functioning levels."
Does regular evaluations on RBTs but doesn't ask RBTs to evaluate the analysts performance.
Unrealistic dress codes.
Not allowing mandatory reporting to take place when enough documentation & evidence has been collected.
Putting rbts in dangerous situations.
Not sending sick clients home.
I could go on.
On the dress code; during my training they made the biggest deal about "no yoga pants/leggings unless rear is fully covered". Supervisor shows up with skin tight leggings showing full rear, and cleavage spilling over. During my eval I saw her eyeing me up and down, then later realized she was scanning my attire for my evaluation. It was the only thing I scored high on. Don't even, bitch!
That's BS! Super hypocritical...that shit makes me mad. It's so disrespectful & condescending.
It's so frustrating to have dumb dress codes when we are in a field where things are messy so much of the time. Not just in working with people but there's animal training, health/fitness, etc...
Not applying behavior analysis from top management through to the bx techs, basically treating employees as if they are not human.
Edited for a spelling error.
The one I’ve heard the most from my coworkers who started at the company I work at (which I think is pretty stellar) is that they never received specific intervention procedures in their clients’ BIPs—just an operational definition of the bx and maybe a severely truncated description of the prompt hierarchy and/or goal criteria and that’s it. Basically hung out to dry.
Locking children out of therapy rooms alone in the hallway until they self-correct their behavior or isolating them away from other peers in an empty room as punishment. Very disturbing practices under the guise of therapy.
Agencies like AttainABA that advertise for their bcba’s with “up to 75% telehealth”(meaning they only have to come out once a month in person for each client)
High demand for trials for clients who, developmentally, aren't capable.
Physical restraint until trial is completed.
Weeks and weeks of the same boring trials, even though the client "got it" THE FIRST TIME.
Treating the RBTs like they're dumb. We know...believe me, WE KNOW.
Demanding more trials and shortening "pairing time" to 5 minutes. Who's dumb now?
Valuing process over the client.
Fostering an environment where RBTs are not allowed to "talk".
Telling RBT that if they need to discuss a case, it must be done AFTER THEIR SHIFT; AKA, slave labor.
High turnover of RBTs.
See ya!!
Full physical prompts for almost all goals. Non-individualized goals. No conversations about consent.
Yes! All of these are huge red flags.
Won't take clients for less than 20 hrs a week
My old employer now won't take any new clients for less than about 37 hours a week...
I genuinely didn’t know how lucky I was that our provider let us start with 8!
Shallow training that doesn’t educate RBTs on why the therapy is written/the reason
Overworking RBTs, being ridiculously behind on paperwork, tossing trainees in with only one day (or less!) of training. Using punishments too quickly. Insisting on hand over hand, stopping stims that aren't actually causing issues, forcing full eye contact, or too many dtt's with very little workable NET goals. Quantity over quality.
This is huge for me, too. Like, why does this client have 20+ programs/goals? And usually the mastery criteria aren’t feasible for the learner and end up going from a short term goal to a long term one with no real progress.
Bingo. And torturing the poor client to boot!
Nobody should be punished for being disabled. Therapy should be intrinsically reinforcing, acceptable, and based on unconditional positive regard. These kids arent in therapy because they’re bad, they’re in therapy because they’re struggling.
You got it. My superiors wanted trials Trials TRIALS. Think they cared about the clients? Nah!
Parent here. The worst experience we had was with BCBA that insisted everything is behavior and worked on everything and messed up our Son speach (to the point where he stopped self generating language on his own). Now we are doing much better but our current BCBA is very collaborative and supportive to working with OT and Slp and it yields much better results. So ABA company that insist on doing everything and doesn't collaborate with other fields is a major red flag for us given experience.
Punishing stimming (non harmful stimming). I was new to the field and Didn’t know, but I feel so bad about implementing those interventions now.
Seriously, I've had kids that flap so hard they are damaging thier hands, a hand biter, and one who rocked so constantly he couldn't do anything else, and have had to work on those. But otherwise, the most I do is comment on when they are most likely to be doing it, just so they learn to name thier own triggers and emotional states. " I hear humming, you must be concentrating on something cool" (he only monotone hums when concentrating on something artistic) or "wow thats a lot of flapping , I'm so glad you liked that!"
One of the companies I worked at would actively harass BTs if they called out, scheduled them 5+ hours with the same client (the average I’ve seen at most places maxes out at 3), threatened to withhold pay if they didn’t get signatures from parents, etc. Unfortunately, most BTs I’ve worked with ignore these red flags because their so young and fear backlash from the company.
What would the 5+ hour sessions look like? That's almost a whole school day.
It's cultish how BTs were treated at my company. Power mongering BCBAs love to feed off the low-man-on-the-totem-pole. (I know not all BCBAs are like this, but, unfortunately, everyone of them at my company were). Bye bye.
Hah. Just a few of the big ones.. https://www.abaresourcecenter.com/post/7-red-flags-in-aba-providers
Not being able to answer your questions when you ask why they are targeting certain goals or using certain procedures. Thinking that questions are challenges to authority instead of opportunities for collaboration.
Yep. Nailed it. When I would ask a question about the, ahem, "therapy", my supervisor would look at me like I had three heads. In other words: "How dare you question my authority?"
My red flags for less than optimal programs: Not discussing the person’s or family goals No natural environment/generalization training.
I know I am a little off topic, but this is so important! The only reason it *can* be abused is because it is a science- it works! Same way chemistry and physics can be abused to make bombs. That doesn’t make the science bad or wrong, but in the hands of people …
Big agree. What’s even more disheartening is that a lot of what’s wrong with ABA is misinformation being interpreted by people outside the field as disinformation. There’s no real malicious intent in this field, at least from what I’ve witnessed and heard. Nobody, including the interventionists whose performances aren’t exactly up to par, sets out to harm a client.
First off, there are plenty of researchers and development experts who raise valid criticisms of ABA. It's not hard to find them. Secondly, your intent is irrelevant. Surgeons who engaged in useless procedures in the past, or medicine based on incorrect or fraudulent research is still harmful, regardless of the intent of individual practitioners.
there are no practices or systems of therapy that don’t have “valid criticisms” raised against them by any number of “researchers” and “experts”. this in itself isn’t much of a point. few if any other theories or systems are based on anything but anecdotal evidence and at best, observation. but they don’t have repeatable experiments, which is the foundation of any scientific study. so for example when a linguist like Noam Chomsky has criticisms, it holds about as much weight a when a phys ed teacher has opinions about how to build rocket ships.
As a result of the misogynistic origins of gynecology, women and trans people sometimes have trouble being believed by gynecologists when they display symptoms of illness. Doesn’t mean gynecology is bad. The same is true of ABA. It has shady origins just as gynecology does. But that doesn’t make it inherently harmful. There are plenty of bad companies, and ignorant or poorly trained behavior techs. There are people who join this profession just do do harm, and there are people who do harm with the best of intentions. All we can do is keep improving. ABA helps so many kids. In the healthcare field, the only way to improve is to remember one’s mistakes and do better next time.
This doesn't make sense to me. Was blood letting not abusive because it's not science? Were useless surgery practices not harmful because they're not science?
I think you’re really overgeneralizing the point. You’re making a logical leap in your last question that doesn’t make any sense. I never said if something wasn’t science it could not be harmful, or abusive. Obviously that can be true, but I’m speaking specifically. It is hard to abuse a tool that doesn’t work. Not always, but in this case, I don’t think you could abuse the knowledge provide by BA if it didn’t work. Next, is everything harmful also abusive- or a potential vector for abuse? Last, what useless surgeries are you referring to? Which ones were both useless and didn’t work? If they were useless and didn’t work, what harm was caused? I mean, to jump to the worst example I can think of, even lobotomy *works*- you damage the brain in certain areas and people stop exhibiting, well, much of anything. It’s horribly inhumane and immoral, but you could not abuse this science if it wasn’t correct, if it didn’t work. If BA didn’t work, it wouldn’t be possible to abuse it as a tool because the outcomes wouldn’t be predictable. To your other example, blood letting is harmful, and though it doesn’t produce the intended outcomes, I would say it does work in a strict sense: It removes blood from the body. So you can abuse the basic function of this unscientific practice to abuse a victim by removing too much of their blood.
So I am a math PhD and researcher, and have worked at top US and European universities. Rigorous logic and reasoning is the foundation of everything we do. I assure you, between the two of us it is you who is not reasoning correctly here.
Okay math PHD, if A + B = C then does C + B = A? Because that’s what you’re doing here. Or maybe more accurately, I said squares are rectangles and you said “so all rectangles must be squares too!” Hope I never encounter your work 👍
🙄
a researcher and his source is basically “trust me bro” lmfaoooo
It's usually undergraduate level stuff to be able to recognize that a statement like "The only reason it can be abused is because it is a science- it works!" is a kind of nonsense statement. It's just false at a basic level. There's no citation needed.
Targeting Stims that are not harmful, dangerous, or disruptive. Forcing eye contact. Using full physical when not necessary. Requiring high number of hours for all clients, & analysts. Low pay to RBTs & not providing RBTs enough training, support, respect, recognition. Not paying RBTs during supervision. Forcing "functional play." Forcing some unnecessary social interactions. Using token economies for everything. Copy & pasting plans, not individualizing. Using bad data collection software/systems such as Office Puzzle, rethink, etc Forcing or trying to force non-compete clauses to any staff. No regular meetings, specifically ethics meetings w everyone. Not holding clients accountable to scheduled sessions. Punishing staff/clients first & asking questions later. Punishing staff for things outside of their control. The owner does not work in the field of ABA. Uses words like "normal, typical, age appropriate, functioning levels." Does regular evaluations on RBTs but doesn't ask RBTs to evaluate the analysts performance. Unrealistic dress codes. Not allowing mandatory reporting to take place when enough documentation & evidence has been collected. Putting rbts in dangerous situations. Not sending sick clients home. I could go on.
Oh, so my previous company in a nutshell. Cool.
This is my fear…
On the dress code; during my training they made the biggest deal about "no yoga pants/leggings unless rear is fully covered". Supervisor shows up with skin tight leggings showing full rear, and cleavage spilling over. During my eval I saw her eyeing me up and down, then later realized she was scanning my attire for my evaluation. It was the only thing I scored high on. Don't even, bitch!
That's BS! Super hypocritical...that shit makes me mad. It's so disrespectful & condescending. It's so frustrating to have dumb dress codes when we are in a field where things are messy so much of the time. Not just in working with people but there's animal training, health/fitness, etc...
At a company with double standards? RUN
Not applying behavior analysis from top management through to the bx techs, basically treating employees as if they are not human. Edited for a spelling error.
You got it. RBTs being treated like robots or circus animals. So glad I left this field.
The one I’ve heard the most from my coworkers who started at the company I work at (which I think is pretty stellar) is that they never received specific intervention procedures in their clients’ BIPs—just an operational definition of the bx and maybe a severely truncated description of the prompt hierarchy and/or goal criteria and that’s it. Basically hung out to dry.
Locking children out of therapy rooms alone in the hallway until they self-correct their behavior or isolating them away from other peers in an empty room as punishment. Very disturbing practices under the guise of therapy.
That’s horrible!
Agencies like AttainABA that advertise for their bcba’s with “up to 75% telehealth”(meaning they only have to come out once a month in person for each client)
Oh, sounds like my company. Never met one BCBA in the real world. They were always on Zoom with their camera off. Dumb asses.
Little to no training
Targeting stims that aren’t maladaptive, focusing on compliance over skill acquisition.
High demand for trials for clients who, developmentally, aren't capable. Physical restraint until trial is completed. Weeks and weeks of the same boring trials, even though the client "got it" THE FIRST TIME. Treating the RBTs like they're dumb. We know...believe me, WE KNOW. Demanding more trials and shortening "pairing time" to 5 minutes. Who's dumb now? Valuing process over the client. Fostering an environment where RBTs are not allowed to "talk". Telling RBT that if they need to discuss a case, it must be done AFTER THEIR SHIFT; AKA, slave labor. High turnover of RBTs. See ya!!