I consider that you have done a good job in your analyzes of these two cases. A particularity that both of these two cases have (# 33 and 35) is that they involve new people in the ABA field and their supervisors. In both cases, the code 5.0 and 5.04 apply. Supervisors have an impact on many people: their supervisees, consumers, and the ABA profession. Therefore, supervisors must ensure that their supervisees are following the ethics code to the full extent. Moreover, supervisors must ensure the welfare of all clients the supervisees serve. ABA supervisors should maintain a mentoring attitude with all their supervisees; but in particular with those who are new (Sellers, Alai-Rosales, & MacDonald, 2016).
Your explanation regarding the biases
of the student having his/her practice in case # 33 is a perspective I did not considered; but, reasoning may be well founded. Nevertheless, the student can do much more when he/she sees that a situation of ethical nature is not solved in an appropriate way: act with integrity, confront people acting unethically, and report to the corresponding authorities. The practitioner has the responsibility to act with the highest integrity and promote true and honest behavior of others: 1.04 (a). Furthermore, when ABA professionals encounter situations that conflicts with the law or policies of an agency, they are called to adhere to the Professional and Ethical Compliance Code1.04 (e) (BACB, 2014). In a professional manner, the student may confront the therapist suggesting the weighted vest and ask if the implementation of the weighted vest in tune with code 4.09 (Least Restrictive Procedures); and if parents’ consent regarding the strategy has been obtained as indicated in code 4.02 (Involving Clients in Planning and Consent). The student may also ask to speak with the therapist's supervisor and express their questions. When a person under practice observes questionable treatments, he/she can make an evaluation of them. If such practices are in disagreement with the PECC, have been communicated to supervisors, and/or have not been resolved properly, they be can reported to the Behavior Analyst Certification Board. This includes following PECC 7.02 a and c (Ethical Violations by Others and Risk of Harm) (BACB, 2014).
It is important as a professional health care provider to have guidelines, regulations, and ethical standards to obey when providing care to the public. The ACA is to improve the quality of professional counselors in the community with education, knowledge, and guidelines by providing an ACA Code of Ethics standard when delivering treatment toward a clientele (American Counseling Association, 2015). One particular part of the ACA mission that is essential, is the ACA Code of Ethics. The purpose of the ACA Code of Ethics is a guide to ensure counselors in training and professional counselors understand the ethical obligations toward clients, possible grievances for conduct unbecoming, and professional responsibilities, which supports the ACA
Behavior Modification strategizes to reduce varieties of unwanted or unexpected behavior by utilizing reinforcement and punishment. In hopes to changing a specific behavior, the individual will learn that good behavior will result in good consequences. In a 1:1 setting, Discrete Teaching or DTT is a method part of ABA that involves the use of “three-term contingency” or simply known as antecedent, behavior and consequence. For example, in a 1:1 setting, a teacher asks a student to clap hands (antecedent), the student claps hands (behavior) the teacher gives student a piece of candy (consequence).
American Counseling Association (2005). ACA Code of Ethics. Alexandria, VA: Author. - See more at: http://www.counseling.org/knowledge-center/ethics#sthash.13ImD8Lb.dpuf
Incidental teaching focuses on child-initiated interactions. (Hall, 2013) Incidental teaching is used to increase skills of individuals with autism spectrum disorders. (Hall, 2013) A study done by Hart and Risley (1975) looked at the incidental teaching process used at the preschool age to aide in teaching language. Incidental teaching has been the most frequent strategy that has been used to teach language. When using incidental teaching a child’s request may be verbal or nonverbal. Examples include reaching for an object that is out of one’s reach, requesting food or a toy or calling an adult’s name. There is a series of decisions that an adult can use to respond to the child’s request. These choices include: if the occasion should be used for incidental teaching: if so then a choice regarding the language behavior that is obtained from the child, and then a choice has to be made concerning the cue that will be used to initiate instruction, the cur could be focus of attention by itself, or in addition to the focused attention a verbal cue as well. If the individual does not respond to the cue, then a choice concerning the degree of prompt to be used, the “fullest degree: a request for imitation; medium degree: a request for partial imitation, or minimal degree: a request for the terminal language behavior.” (Hart & Risley, 1975) This study was performed on boys and girls between the ages of four years old to five years old. The baseline procedures ensured that the children had a variety of vocabulary for use in sentences. The sentences that they were taught was “I want x so I can y.” The second step of the procedure was the use of incidental teaching of compound sentences directed to teachers. After thirty-six days of school, the incidental teaching began to occur when the children needed assistance in trying to get different preschool materials.
The most typical component of ABA used is positive reinforcement, which studies have shown to be an effective technique within a variety of settings and circumstances. Ferguson and Rosales-Ruiz (2001) conducted a study in which they utilized positive reinforcement in order to modify the behavior of horses. Prior to the study, the five horses observed were demonstrating inappropriate behaviors while loading into a trailer, which can be dangerous for both caregivers and the animals (p. 409). In order to deter these behaviors, the researchers provided the mares with preferred foods as positive reinforcement as the behavior was gradually shaped. They began by reinforcing approximate behaviors until the desirable behavior was achieved. At first, the horses were reinforced with food for several trials if they simply stepped near the entryway and touched their noses to a towel (the distance marker) without maladaptive behaviors. Over the series of eight steps, the target was pushed farther back into the trailer and the horses were reinforced for each successive approximation (p. 412). After all of the trials, each horse ended up completing the tasks and the inappropriate behaviors thereafter fell to zero. This was completed simply through the use of shaping and positively reinforcing the successive approximations of the behavior without the use of punishment or negative reinforcement (p. 421).
Tarbox, Madrid, Aguilar, Jacobo, and Schiff (2009) researched this behavioral technique in a study involving three children with Autism who had echoic language deficits. Each of these students (ages 3, 5, and 7) could only produce single-syllable approximations of words prior to this study (Tarbox et al., p. 902). Three child-relevant, di- and tri-syllabic words were selected as targets of mastery for each student. A chaining procedure was then utilized by in-home ABA therapists to allow gradual, yet effective mastery of the words. Each word was broken down into sounds, and each sound was a step in the chaining process. The therapist would then verbally model a component of the word. Once that step was mastered, immediate reinforcement was provided and the next step would begin. The final step linked all of the components together in order to form the entire echoic. Out of the nine words total between the three participants, eight were mastered within only nine sessions. One word took a participant 35 sessions to master; however, all of the words reached mastery level and eight were maintained long-term (p. 903). These findings suggest that chaining procedures can be effective methods of increasing word-lengths in children with Autism who struggle with echoic language. Since language-production is a common deficit for those with ASD, this method of chaining is often utilized in ABA for language acquisition and is many times deemed effective (Tarbox et al., p. 904).
The ACA Code of Ethics and the AACC Code of Ethics are both written for those involved in the field of counseling and helping others and are written with a central focus on the well being and protection of clients. The major difference leading to most other distinctions in these two codes is centered on the guiding principals and goals of each organization. The ACA code is written from a secular perspective with emphasis on human development and embracing diverse cultures, ideas, beliefs, and lifestyles while the AACC (2004) code is written from a biblical perspective with its primary goals being “to bring honor to Jesus Christ and his church, promote excellence in Christian Counseling, and bring unity to Christian counselors” (pg. 3). The AACC code is written with respect to much more specific beliefs and thus, in many areas, provides more specific ...
In this article, the American Physical Therapy Association (2005) discusses the ethical conduct standards that a physical therapist assistant should follow. Within the preamble it states, “All physical therapist assistants are responsible for maintaining high standards of conduct while assisting physical therapists. The physical therapist assistant shall act in the best interest of the patient/client.” These standards of conduct must be followed by all physical therapist assistants. (American Physical Therapy Association, 2005)
Members not only agree to subscribe to the ethical codes to govern their conduct but also monitor other members of the profession to ensure conformity to them as well. Failure to conform may earn the individual a dismissal from the profession or
Formulating boundaries, while not always easy to do, is often necessary in order to protect the practitioner from allegations of malpractice, negligence, or any other type of ethical violations for that matter, including breaches in confidentiality. Unfortunately, since ethics are not clearly defined in terms of simply black-or-white or right-or-wrong, it becomes that much more difficult to determine where one line of the professional boundaries starts and another begins. The result of these inconsistencies tends to be somewhat
This paper addresses a case study involving Emily and Mr. Pearson, Emily’s mental health counselor who directs the Wellspring Counseling Center. The case involves his inappropriate behavior towards Emily, a client of his, diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Mr. Pearson's inappropriate actions towards Emily include boundary violations, such as physical contact, recommending alcohol consumption, and suggesting inappropriate behavior from Emily. Ms. Meade, a registered intern under Mr. Pearson's supervision, became aware of these issues. This paper uses an ethical decision-making model to identify the problem, consider relevant ethical codes and statutes, identify the nature of the dilemma, explore potential courses of action, evaluate
For practitioners in ABA, adhering to ethical guidelines is not a matter of compliance, but rather a commitment to ethical behavior that underlines every aspect of our work. It does not matter if we are ensuring that our interventions are evidence-based and tailored to the client's individual needs or safeguarding client confidentiality. Ethical principles inform our daily practice and shape interventions
The ACA Ethics Committee members developed “A Practitioner 's Guide to Ethical Decision Making”, which address ethical questions in the workplace by identifying problems, deliberating potential
Romal, Jane B., and Hibschweiler, Arlene M. "Improving Professionals Ethics: Steps for Implementing Change." The CPA Journal (2004). Retrieved on 16 September 2006 .
Averill, DeWitt, and Zimmer (1978), stated a person is commonly considered less responsible if their actions are interpreted as emotional rather than deliberate. While working for a previous employer as a Case Manager for persons receiving case benefits from social services, a popular and well-liked supervisor failed to provide consistent leadership for those in her unit. Her mood of the day, rather than policy dictated how circumstances were to be handled. Although most situations should be treated on a case-by-case basis, there should and must be a certain set of criteria followed to maintain program integrity. Based on this, as case managers, we assisted our clients based upon past practices; however, we were sometimes called-in to explain our actions. While we were working within the rules, if she felt our actions were not in compliance, we had to defend our decisions. To bolster the direction I took with my own cases, I would often use the supervisors past case actions as a precedent. Without a fair and equitable way to determine who received what, our program tended to rely on subjectivity rather than objectivity. Never quite knowing what was acceptable, even if it was within the rules and regulations, made for a fru...