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| News and Notes cont'd |
January,
2007 Page 5 |
and convene a three-day subject matter expert panel meeting following the California Association for Behavior Analysis conference in February to address the matter of specialty credentials. The panel will be a representative group of certificants who work with individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities and who are academics, administrators, consultants, and practitioners who supervise or conduct direct behavior analytic interventions. The panel members were chosen from the group of certificants who responded to the BACB’s call for volunteers last year. The CalABA panel will first identify the tasks that are required to work with persons who have autism and persons with other developmental disabilities. The panel will then review and compare the task items contained in the Third Edition Task List with the identified tasks to determine 1) if the differences are sufficient to warrant developing an additional credential or credentials to supplement BCBA certification, and, if so, 2) if the differences between what is required to work with persons with autism and what is required to work with persons with other disabilities warrant a separate specialty credential for each, or a combined credential covering both. The panel also may make some preliminary recommendations on what should be required for specialties to supplement BCBA certification, should the data show that development of specialties is warranted. The BACB Board of Directors likely will review the findings and recommendations of the subject matter expert panel at its May meeting and decide how to proceed. Certification Recognition Increasing the recognition of BACB credentials and funding opportunities for certificants who hold them are main goals of the BACB. We are in the process of developing a draft database with state-by-state information on 1) funding sources available for BACB certificants, and 2) regulations pertaining to behavior analysis services. Individual state contact people will be responsible for keeping their state’s data current and the contact person will have access to the data from all other states. The BACB and the Association for Behavior Analysis International’s Professional Affairs |
Committee are planning several certification-related events at the San Diego ABAI convention – watch this space for details. As you may recall, we have contracted for the expert consulting services of Sam Bell to help us with government and legislative matters. Sam is on the Board of Directors of State Law Resources, a consortium of legal firms specializing in government affairs. SLR has a member firm in nearly every state capital and provides a national network of support for its clients. Sam and I attended the SLR annual meeting in Austin, Texas this past fall along with Jon Bailey who was invited by the BACB to represent state behavior analysis associations. Jon and I presented before the group on behavior analysis, the BACB, and the nature of legislative challenges that were likely to confront certificants. I believe that through our affiliation with the SLR group, the BACB has begun forming a national network of professional support that will allow us to deal effectively with the increasing number of governmental and legislative issues we are facing in the US. In addition, Sam has help draft model legislative language that will be available for use by state associations for behavior analysis as the need arises. The state association is the focal point in each state for action required to protect certificants’ right to practice and fund behavior analysis service. It is the state associations who will speak for behavior analysis in their states and the BACB will continue to support these efforts. Please contact me if you would like consultation from the BACB regarding government or legislative matters, and/or you would like me to present at your state conference. Several states do not have state associations, however, and certificants in those states run the risk of having unqualified individuals speak for behavior analysis in government and legislative matters. We believe that BACB certificants and other qualified behavior analysts should represent the field and, over the next year, we will encourage and support certificants to form state associations in states where there are none. You’re probably asking yourself what you can do right now to help get certification recognized more widely, so …… |
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| The BACB: The Best Stimulant for Behavior Analysis Training Programs Page 1 |
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| Did
you know? Page 2 |
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| News
and Notes Page 4 |
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Focus on Ethics |
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| The Ethical Behavior Analyst Page 10 |
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| Where Do We Get Those Exam Questions, Anyway? Page 11 |
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| Many Thanks Page 13 |
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