Though many of us likely think of ourselves as talendted clinicians, do we honestly consider our work with others to be considered art? Well, Richard Foxx did and so, apparently, do a lot of behavior analysts who think its high time we operationalize and train folks in the field on some of the skills that make creating a therapeutic alliance seem so effortless (at least, for some of us!). Thanks to our fabulous patrons, we’re digging into the topic of behavioral artistry. Are there really skills that separate the artist BCBAs from the jobbers? And if so, how does one become an artiste de behavior analysis?

This episode is available for 1.0 LEARNING CEU.

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Articles discussed this episode:

Foxx, R.M. (1985). The Jack Tizzard Memorial lecture: Decreasing behaviours: Clinical, ethical, and environmental issues. Australia and New Zealand Journal of Developmental Disabilities, 10, 189-199. doi: 10.3109/13668258508998639

Callahan, K., Foxx, R.M., Swierczynski, A., Aerts, X., Mehta, S., McComb, M., Nicols, S.M., Segal, G., Donald, A., & Sharma, R. (2019). Behavioral artistry: Examining the relationship between the interpersonal skills and effective practice repertoires of applied behavior analysis practitioners. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 49, 3557-3570. doi: 10.1007/s10803-019-04082-1

Bukszpan, A.R., Anderson, A., Moon, E., Kaplan, A., & Leaf, J.B. (2024). Training behavior technicians to become behavior artists through the teaching interaction procedure. Behavioral Interventions, 38, 1-17. doi: 10.1002/bin.1963

Lugo, A.M., King, M.L, Lamphere, J.C., & McArdle, P.E. (2017). Developing procedures to improve therapist-child rapport in early-intervention. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 10, 395-401. doi: 10.1007/s40617-016-0165-5

Anonymous. Confessions of a Previous ABA Technician - Part 2: The Problem with Pairing. Therapist Neurodiversity Collective. https://therapistndc.org/the-problems-with-pairing/

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