ABSTRACT
The majority of Board Certified Behavior Analysts® become supervisors
within a short time after completing their graduate training. Training
others to carry out behavioral procedures is an essential part of behavior
analysis treatment because in most cases, the treatment occurs in the cli-
ent’s natural environment where these “significant others” are a large
part of the client’s life. A student who is referred for classroom behavior
problems usually cannot be successfully treated in an off-campus coun-
seling session that occurs after school. An effective treatment will in-
volve observation in the classroom to determine controlling variables,
and the teacher will most likely be involved in the behavior change pro-
gram. The behavior analyst might observe that little Jenny is off-task
during certain activities, that the other children reinforce it, and that the
teacher contributes to the problem by providing unintentional inter-
mittent attention. In this case, the behavior analyst’s job consists of
training the teacher how to increase the likelihood that Jenny will stay
on task (perhaps by changing her class seating arrangement and her aca-
demic instruction level) and then additionally training the teacher to re-
spond more systematically to the on-task, off-task behavior (Guideline
5.01). Basically, the teacher will be trained to be much better skilled in
ignoring off-task behavior and watching for on-task behavior and im-
mediately reinforcing it. It is entirely appropriate for the behavior ana-
lyst to train the teacher in this way because there is no “specialized
training” involved. The teacher will have all the prerequisite skills and
have the appropriate “scope of practice” for such an intervention. And,
it should be made clear, that the behavior analyst in this case must oper-
ate within his or her level of expertise as well, that is, this behavior ana-
lyst has had special training working with children in schools and in
training teachers.
