Behavioral Artistry: Examining the Relationship Between the Interpersonal Skills and Effective Practice Repertoires of Applied Behavior Analysis Practitioners.
Kevin Callahan, Richard M Foxx, Adam Swierczynski and 7 others
PMID 31127484WHAT IT FOUND
Parents of children with autism preferred autism service providers described as warm, lively, stable, bold, self-assured, open, self-reliant, and organized.
Observed ABA therapists with more of these traits showed more pleasant facial expressions, but other behaviors and planned therapy steps did not differ clearly.
Key findings
01Parents preferred the interpersonal descriptions linked to the eight traits the study called behavioral artistry, with a mean preference of 86.6%.
02Applied behavior analysis majors had the lowest mean percentage of these traits among human-services majors, but the study did not show a clear difference from other majors.
03Therapists with more of these traits scored 31.27% for pleasant facial expression and therapists with fewer scored 15.83%; other observed behaviors and therapy skill scores did not differ clearly.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
Only 13 therapists with high scores and 13 therapists with low scores were observed, so the therapy-session findings are preliminary. All observed therapy came from one university-based autism center, so the results may not apply to homes, schools, or clinics. The student and parent samples were online and not random, so they may not represent all students or families. The observers were former therapists at the autism center, which could have affected ratings even though they did not know which group they were scoring. The study could not balance the number of discrete trial training and naturalistic environment training sessions observed, which may have affected the behavioral ratings. The study measured therapist personality and observed therapist behavior, not whether children improved. The findings are about ABA therapists and autism centers, not about physical, occupational, or speech-language therapy practice.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that training these interpersonal traits improves autism therapy results. The study measured personality scores and observed only one facial-expression difference, and it did not test whether clients improved.