The Importance of Professional Discourse for the Continual Advancement of Practice Standards: The RBT® as a Case in Point

Abstract

The Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB®) created a third level of certification, the Registered Behavior Technician™ (RBT®) in 2014. The RBT® was created based upon the requests of stakeholders who wanted to credential those individuals who make direct contact with clients under the supervision of a Board Certified Behavior Analyst®. There has been tremendous growth in the number of RBTs® with over 60,000 individuals certified to date. The BACB® recently sent out a newsletter outlining changes to the RBT® certification, including the processes of training, supervising, and becoming an RBT®. These changes represent a number of potential concerns. The purpose of this paper is to highlight these concerns and to propose solutions to improve the RBT® certification.

Evaluating the Relationship Between Performance on a Multiple-Choice Examination and Common ABA-Based Procedures

“…These results are consistent with previous critiques of certification, which have suggested the final determinative step in obtaining behavior analytic certification should involve additional methods of assessing certficants’ behavior analytic repertoires, as the final or an additional step on the way to certification (e.g., Leaf et al, 2017, 2020). Others that have noted this concern have suggested assessing candidate performance of task list skills in vivo or via video submission (e.g., Leaf et al, 2017).…”

“…The BACB should be lauded for their efforts to define standards within behavior analysis, protect consumers, and help ensure quality intervention for autistics/ individuals diagnosed with ASD. Nonetheless, there has been some professional discourse within the literature related to concerns with specific certification requirements outlined by the BACB (e.g., Carr et al, 2017;Leaf et al, 2017Leaf et al, , 2020. These concerns have related to the scope of task lists, transparency with respect to the use of subject matter experts, and the number of required experience and supervision hours (Leaf et al, 2017(Leaf et al, , 2020Moore & Shook, 2001;Risley, 1975).…”

“…Nonetheless, there has been some professional discourse within the literature related to concerns with specific certification requirements outlined by the BACB (e.g., Carr et al, 2017;Leaf et al, 2017Leaf et al, , 2020. These concerns have related to the scope of task lists, transparency with respect to the use of subject matter experts, and the number of required experience and supervision hours (Leaf et al, 2017(Leaf et al, , 2020Moore & Shook, 2001;Risley, 1975).…”

Training behavior technicians to become behavior artists through the teaching interaction procedure

“…(2019) inspected the relationship between effective practice and interpersonal skills in ABA services. Despite this renewed investigation into BA, with several references appearing to this research from within contemporary research in compassionate care (e.g., Rohrer & Weiss, 2022), commentaries on quality ABA interventions (e.g., Leaf, Leaf, et al., 2021), and conversations over exemplary practitioners (e.g., Chadwell et al., 2019; Zayac et al., 2021), no experimental research has sought to expand the work by Callahan and colleagues to investigate the training of ABA therapists or any other professionals working with individuals with ASD. This research is the first to expand upon Callahan et al.…”