BCBA Exam: Ethics

BCBA Exam: Ethics Ethics ans: BEHAVIORS, PRACTICES, and DECISIONS that address 3 fundamental questions that guide how you conduct yourself to help others improve their physical, social, psychological, familial, or personal condition Question: Why is Ethics Important? ans: To further the welfare of the client 3 Fundamental Questions of Ethical Practice ans: 1. What is the right thing to do? 2. What is worth doing? 3. What does it mean to be a good behavior analyst? 1. What is the right thing to do? ans: -Considerations related to cultural practices: what may be acceptable in one culture is not in another -Differences across time: what may have been acceptable 20 years ago is not today Things to Help You Guide the Decision-Making Process ans: 1. Professional Training and Experience -Your training should influence the methods you use. The decision to opt for Method A (e.g., differential reinforcement) or Method B (e.g., overcorrection) should be based on your clinical training, not your personal history -Your training as a behavior analyst should ALWAYS OVERRIDE your personal history. 2. Personal History -A personal history is your individual cultural, religious, or social background. It should not influence your clinical decisions. -Recognize that your personal history may lead to inappropriate solutions (e.g., if a person was raised in a family that believed in "spare the rod, spoil the child", that person may tend to be harsh with children) -If you recognize that your personal history is impacting your clinical decision-making, get help from supervisors, colleagues, and research. If you cannot get the help or change your behavior, excuse yourself from the case. 3. The Context of Practice -Refers to where you practice and the specific nature of job (e.g., at home, at school, etc.) -Determines what is legal vs. illegal, ethical vs. unethical Question: What is Legal, but Unethical? ans: 1. Breaking a professional confidence. 2. Accepting valued heirlooms in lieu of payment. 3. Engaging in consensual sex with a client over the age of 18. Question: What is Both Illegal and Unethical? ans: 1. Misrepresenting promised services or skills. 2. Stealing a client's belongings. 3. Abusing a client physically, emotionally, financially, socially, or sexually. 4. Engaging in consensual sexual relations with persons under age 18. Question: What are Ethical Codes of Behavior? ans: -Guidelines that specify what IS a violation. -Guidelines for deciding a course of action or conducting professional duties. -Guidelines to help to discriminate between legal and ethical distinctions making us more likely to: -provide effective services -maintain sensitivity towards clients -not break the law or our professional standards of conduct 2. What is Worth Doing? ans: -Addresses the goals and objectives of practice and forces us to ask the questions: 1. What are we trying to accomplish? 2. How are we trying to accomplish it? 3. Is the objective socially valid? 4. What is the risk-benefit ratio? Social Validity ans: -When the results show meaningful, significant, and sustainable change. -When the goals, procedures, and results of an intervention are socially acceptable to the client, the behavior analyst, and society. -Not every skill has social validity (ex. teaching an adult with developmental disabilities to play with children's coloring books is not socially valid. 2 Ways to Assess Social Validity ans: 1. Social Comparison: -Comparison of the performance of clients exposed to the intervention with an equivalent or "typically developing" group. -Limitation: normative data may not be really relevant for the client's functioning. 2. Subjective Evaluation of Experts: -Evaluation of the client's performance by experts who are very familiar with the client. -Limitation: subjective evaluation of experts may not tell us about the success of an intervention. 3. What Does it Mean to Be a Good Behavior Analyst? ans: - Following professional codes of conduct (BACB) -Keeping client's welfare in your ideas A Good Practitioner is Self-Regulating ans: Seeks ways to calibrate decisions over time to ensure that values, contingencies, and rights and responsibilities are integrated and an informed combination of these is considered. 3 Reasons Why We Abide By Ethics (MHS) ans: 1. M: Meaningful Change -To produce meaningful behavior change of social significance to the client - Increase the likelihood of appropriate services being rendered to individuals 2. H: Harm -To reduce/eliminate harm (e.g., poor treatments, SIB, etc.) 3. S: Standards -To conform to the ethical standards of learned societies and professional organizations Question: What Are Professional Standards? ans: (Standards is an umbrella word for everything.) -Standards are written guidelines that provide a direction for conducting the practices associated with an organization. BACB ans: -Certifies individual practitioners -In 1999, the BACB started credentialing behaviorists in the US and other countries. The BACB certification is based on Florida's certification program. It ensures consumers that an individual's specialization is ABA. Association for Behavior Analysis (ABA) ans: Accredits university programs 5 Documents that Describe Standards of Professional Conduct and Ethical Practice for ABA (TLCEPBT): TLC Eating Peanut Butter Together ans: 1. TL: Task List -The BCBA and BCaBA Task List Fourth Edition, 2015 2. C: Code -Professional and Ethical Compliance Code for Behavior Analysts (BACB, 2016) 3. E: Education -The Right to Effective Education (Association for Behavior Analysis, 1990) 4. P: Psychologists -Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (American Psychological Association, 2010) 5. BT: Behavioral Treatment -The Right to Effective Behavioral Treatment (Association for Behavior Analysis, 1989) BCBA and BCaBA Behavior Analyst Fourth Edition Task List ans: -Effective January 1, 2015 -Describes knowledge, skills, and attributes expected of a behaviorist -Describes numerous tasks across three main sections Professional and Ethical Compliance Code for Behavior Analysts (AKA The "Code") ans: -Effective January 1, 2016 (most recent revised version August 11, 2015) -All BACB applicants, certificants, and registrants are required to adhere to the Code -The BACB has consolidated, updated, and replaced 2 of their old ethical documents: 1. The Professional Disciplinary and Ethical Standards 2. The Guidelines for Responsible Conduct for Behavior Analysts -The Code has 2 parts: 1. 10 Sections: these are relevant to professional and ethical behavior of behavior analysts 2. Glossary 1.0 Responsible Conduct of Behavior Analysts ans: -You maintain the high standards of behavior of the profession. -Code's Definition of Behavior Analyst: individual who holds the BCBA or BCaBA credential, an individual authorized by the BACB to provide supervision, or a coordinator of a BACB Approved Course Sequence 1.01 Reliance on Scientific Knowledge ans: You rely on professionally derived knowledge based on science and behavior analysis when making scientific or professional judgments in human service provision, when engaging in scholarly or professional endeavors 1.02 Boundaries of Competence ans: - You provide services, teach, and conduct research only within the boundaries of of your competence, defined as being commensurate with your education, training, and supervised experience. -You provide services, teach, or conduct research in new areas (e.g., populations, techniques, behaviors, etc.) -Only after FIRST undertaking appropriate study, training, supervision, and/or consultation from persons who are competent in those areas 1.03 Maintaining Competence through Professional Development ans: You maintain knowledge of current scientific and professional information in your areas of practice and undertake ongoing efforts to maintain competence in the skills you use. 4 Methods of Maintaining Professional Development (CLAC) ans: 1. C: CEUs -Maintain your credential with continuing education units (CEUs) 2. L: Literature -Read appropriate literature (i.e., most updated evidence-based, peer-reviewed research) 3. A: Additional Coursework -Obtain additional coursework 4. C: Conferences/Workshops -Attend conferences/workshops 1.04 Integrity ans: 1. You are truthful and honest and arrange the environment to promote truthful and honest behavior in others. 2. You do not implement contingencies that would cause others to engage in fraudulent, illegal, or unethical conduct. 3. You follow through on obligations and contractual and professional commitments with high quality work and refrain from making professional commitments you cannot keep. 4. Your behavior conforms to the legal and ethical codes of the social and professional community of which you are a member. 5. If your ethical responsibilities conflict with law or any policy on an organization with which you are affiliated, you make known your commitment to this Code and take steps to resolve the conflict in a responsible manner in accordance with law. 1.05 Professional and Scientific Relationships ans: 1. You provide behavior-analytic services only in the context of a defined, professional, or scientific relationship or role. 2. When you provide behavior-analytic services, you use language that is fully understandable to the recipient of those services while remaining conceptually systematic with the profession of behavior analysis. Provide appropriate information PRIOR to service delivery about the nature of such services and appropriate information later about results and conclusions. 3. If differences of age, gender, race, culture, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language, or socioeconomic status significantly affect your work concerning particular individuals or groups, you obtain the training, experience, consultation, and/or supervision necessary to ensure the competence of your services, or make appropriate referrals. 4. In your work-related activities, you do not engage in discrimination against individuals or groups based on age, gender, race, culture, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language, or socioeconomic status, in accordance with law. 5. You do not knowingly engage in behavior that is harassing or demeaning to persons with whom you interact in your work based on factors, such as those persons' age, gender, race, culture, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language, or socioeconomic status, in accordance with law. 6. You recognize that your personal problems and conflicts may interfere with your effectiveness. You refrain from providing services when your personal circumstances may compromise delivering services to the best of your abilities. 1.06 Multiple Relationships and Conflicts of Interest ans: 1. Due to the potentially harmful effects of multiple relationships, you avoid multiple relationships. -Code's definition of Multiple Relationships: behavior analyst is in both a behavior- analytic role and a non-behavior-analytic role simultaneously with a client or someone closely associated with or related to the client 2. You must always be sensitive to the potentially harmful effects of multiple relationships. If you find that, due to unforeseen factors, a multiple relationship has arisen, you seek to resolve it. 3. You recognize and inform clients and supervisees about the potential harmful effects of multiple relationships. 4. You do not accept any gifts from or give any gifts to clients because this constitutes a multiple relationship. Conflicts of Interest ans: -When a principal party, alone or in connection with family, friends, or associates, has a vested interest in the outcome of the interaction. -The relationship is beneficial to the behavior analyst in some way. -It involves a personal relationship with crossed boundaries, such as unsolicited gifts or invitations to parties. -You must guard against crossing any personal or professional boundaries. -General Rule: A practitioner in doubt about what is a crossed boundary should consult a supervisor or trusted and experienced confidante. 1.07 Exploitative Relationships ans: 1. You do not exploit persons over whom you have supervisory, evaluative, or other authority such as STUDENTS, SUPERVISEES, employees, research participants, and CLIENTS. -Code's Definition of Student: individual who is matriculated at a college/university; code applies to the student during formal behavior-analytic instruction -Code's Definition of Supervisee: any individual whose behavior-analytic services are overseen by a behavior analyst within the context of a defined, agreed-upon relationship -Code's Definition of Client: any recipient or beneficiary of the professional services provided by a behavior analyst (for purposes of this definition, the term client does NOT include third-party insurers or payers, unless you are hired directly under contract by the third-party insurer or payer 2. You do not engage in sexual relationships with clients, students, or supervisees, because such relationships easily impair judgment or become exploitative. 3. You must refrain from any sexual relationships with client, students, or supervisees at least 2 years after the date that the professional relationship has formally ended. 4. You do not barter for services, unless a written agreement is in place for the barter that is: 1. Requested by the client or supervisee 2. Customary to the area where services are provided, and 3. Fair and commensurate with the value of behavior-analytic services provided 2.0 Behavior Analysts' Responsibility to Clients ans: You have a responsibility to operate in the best interest of your clients (e.g., individual person, parent or guardian, organizational representative, and/or public or private organization/firm/corporation. 2.01 Accepting Clients ans: 1. You accept as clients only those individuals or entities whose requested services are commensurate with your education, training, experience, available resources, and organizational policies. 2. If you do not have the above-mentioned requirements, you MUST function under the supervision of or in consultation with a behavior analyst whose credentials permit performing such services. 2.02 Responsibility ans: 1. Your responsibility is to all parties affected by behavior-analytic services. 2. When multiple parties are involved and could be defined as a client, you create a hierarchy of parties and communicate this from the outset of the defined relationship. Identify and communicate who the primary ultimate beneficiary of services is in any given situation and advocate for his or her best interest. 2.03 Consultation ans: 1. You arrange for appropriate consultations and referrals based principally on the best interests of your clients, with appropriate consent, and subject to other relevant considerations, including applicable law and contractual obligations (Ex. you receive a referral for a new client with depression and suicidal ideations; you refer them to a psychologist or psychiatrist. 2. When indicated and professionally appropriate, you cooperate with other professionals, in a manner that is consistent with the philosophical assumptions and principles of behavior analysis, in order to effectively and appropriately serve your clients. 2.03 Consultation: How to Get Appropriate Consent to Make a Referral from Your Client ans: 1. Inform your client of the referral process 2. Inform them about the other providers' qualifications 3. Provide your client 2-3 referrals so your client can choose 2.04 Third-Party Involvement in Services ans: 1. When you agree to provide services to a person or entity at the request of a third party, you clarify to the extent feasible the nature of your relationship with each party at the outset of service. This clarification includes: -Your role -The probable uses of the services you provide or the information you obtain -Any limits to confidentiality -Any potential conflicts 2. If there is a FORESEEABLE RISK of you being called upon to perform conflicting roles because of a third party, you: -Clarify the nature and direction of your responsibilities -Keep all parties appropriately informed as matters develop, and -Resolve the situation in accordance with this Code 3. When providing services to a MINOR or individual who is a member of a PROTECTED POPULATION (e.g., those having limited mental capacity or physical capacity, prisoners, etc.), AT THE REQUEST OF A THIRD PARTY, you ensure: -The parent/guardian of the recipient of services is informed of the nature and scope of services to be provided and their right to all service records and data -Code's Definition of Service Record: includes, but is not limited to, written behavior-change plans, assessments, graphs, raw data, electronic recordings, progress summaries, and written reports 4. When a THIRD PARTY MAKES REQUESTS for SERVICES THAT GO AGAINST YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS: -You are obligated to resolve such conflicts in the best interests of your client -If the conflict cannot be resolved, you may DISCONTINUE services to your client following an appropriate transition 2.05 Rights and Prerogatives of Clients ans: 1. The rights of the client are paramount and you support clients' legal rights and prerogatives. 2. When clients and supervisees ask, you must provide an accurate and current set of credentials. 3. Permission for electronic recording of interviews and service delivery sessions: -Secure from clients and all relevant staff in all relevant settings -Obtain consent for different uses