Personal Paradigm Shifts Among ABA and PBS Experts

Abstract

Applied behavior analysis (ABA) experts were surveyed to examine their perceptions of treatment acceptability of commonly used decelerative consequence-based behavioral procedures and the factors that have influenced shifts in these perceptions over time. These results were then compared with the perceptions of positive behavior supports (PBS) experts from an earlier study. Both similarities and disparities in perceptions across groups of experts are reported. Differences were noted in the overall acceptability and frequency of use of various consequence-based decelerative procedures, with ABA experts expressing greater willingness to consider their use than PBS experts. However, there were many similarities across both groups, including the decade in which shifts occurred in perceptions of treatment acceptability, the reasons these changes occurred, and the rationales used to justify the use or nonuse of certain consequence-based strategies. These data support earlier work that found that perceptions of treatment acceptability were not static but, rather, changed across time.