board certified behavior analyst

Welcome to our latest podcast episode! In this compelling conversation, we sit down with Richard, a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) and an experienced parent of a child with disabilities. Join us as we jump into the conversation of BCBA lead parent training and Richard's heartwarming journey of personal growth in understanding and supporting his child's behavior.

Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share this episode with anyone who may benefit from Richard's expertise and heartfelt journey. Your support helps us continue to bring you valuable content on empowering parents and caregivers. Thank you for tuning in!

#BCBA #ParentTraining #SpecialNeedsParenting #ChildBehavior #ParentingTips #Podcast #Richard #EmpowerParents

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Today I am talking to a “unicorn”. Ashley Whitaker is one of the 505 (at the time of this recording) dually certified SLP/BCBAs! Ashley has been in the field for 10 years and shares her path to certification.

Ashley started her undergrad with the idea to become a teacher after a lifelong passion for helping kids learn. When her roommate suggested a course in speech, the rest was history. Shortly after her career began, she was exposed to ABA and began her journey to BCBA certification.

As prep for the exam, Ashley recorded herself reading The Cooper Book summaries and relistened to them during her commute, as well as taking mock exams and using the ABA Wizard App. If you're listening and interested in becoming a BCBA, remember that the requirements are always changing, so be sure to download the BCBA handbook for the latest information.

I actually met Ashley through ABA Speech, and she is a part of the new ABA Speech Connection CEU Membership. Her experience has shown it is a like minded group of professionals and a collaborative community. With the membership, Ashley has found a place to ask questions and learn in a non judgmental space.

As always, I want you to leave this episode with actionable tips to use in your therapy room. Listen to the end to see how Ashley uses Essentials for Living as a framework in her practice.

#autism #speechtherapy

What’s Inside:

• The career path of an SLP/BCBA.
• Study and prep for the BCBA exam.
• What is the ABA SPEECH Connection CEU Membership?
• Tips for using frameworks in your everyday practice.

Mentioned In This Episode:
Learn more about the ABA SPEECH Connection CEU Membership and Joint Attention on September 12th at 8-9pm eastern and September 13th at 8-9pm eastern. 

Dr. Trina Spencer has been a Board Certified Behavior Analyst for the last 21 years and is currently a Fulbright Scholar at the Center for Augmentative and Alternative Communication in South Africa. Today, she shares about her career journey, and all of the incredible and inspiring work she is doing in the field. Dr. Spencer's goal is to encourage research-practitioner partnerships, interprofessional collaboration, and anti-ableist practices.
On the day of our recording, Dr. Spencer was celebrating the launch of ECHO Autism - South Africa. ECHO Autism is a virtual learning network of providers offering real-time access to autism and behavioral experts. This advisory board of Echo Autism is the first on the continent of Africa.

Among her research and fascinating work, she has designed instructional tools. Story Champs is a multi-tiered system of language instruction used in a variety of educational settings across several countries. This structured program provides robust teaching procedures that allow for use in one on one settings as well as small or large groups. Story Champs includes 65 lessons that scale from preschool to 3rd grade. Goals in this system include story retelling, personal stories, fictional stories, writing personal stories, and answering WH questions but the scope and skills included with this instruction are vast! Social academic language is promoted throughout the instruction as well as in use in the reading opportunities taken straight from the learner's social studies and science curriculum.

The CUBED Assessment is a free downloadable comprehensive assessment that works great with story champs but can also be used and accessed independently of that program as well.
 "The CUBED is a family of screening and progress monitoring tools that accurately, reliably, and efficiently measure decoding, language comprehension, and their product, reading. There are two main subtests of the CUBED – The Dynamic Decoding Measures and the Narrative Language Measures, which together measure 18 targets." - Language Dynamics Group
I am so excited to follow along with all the AMAZING work Dr. Spencer is doing and will continue to do in the field. Be sure to check out all the amazing linked resources she shared today to purchase Story Champs, download CUBED, and so many more freebies!

#autism #speechtherapy

What’s Inside:

• How Dr. Trina Spencer is bringing interprofessional collaboration and anti-ableist practices to South Africa.
• What is Echo Autism?
• What is Story Champs?
• All about a multi-tiered system of language instruction.
• Cubed: A free comprehensive assessment.
• How to find Dr. Trina Spencer’s plethora of resources.

Mentioned In This Episode: 

Trina’s Tool Box
Language Dynamics Group
Northern Speech Services
ABA Speech: Home

Today we are talking with Farrah Benson, a BCBA and preschool teacher, from her classroom in South Carolina. Farrah has a lot to share about the importance of ABA in the classroom and what she and teachers like her can do to make that happen.

Embedding ABA into the classroom is all about blending it into daily activities. Farrah gives us some great examples of how she does this in her day to day. Working with 3-year-olds, she has to make sure ABA is worked in simultaneously and not relying on table time exercises. She shares how she makes circle time a time for ABA in a fun way!

When listening to Farrah’s strategies to use ABA in the classroom, we realized that best practice teachers are already doing these things, and they just aren't realizing it. BCBAs out there may think that it's ABA or education, but when you're doing it right, ABA IS education. We talk together about how we can take tools and resources teachers are already using to reinforce ABA strategies.

We also touch on some differences teachers without a background in ABA might have when working with a BCBA. Farrah gives us some easy solutions and personal experiences on these tough things like collecting data, over prompting and working with families. She proves that it doesn’t have to be fancy, just doable.

As a BCBA and a teacher, Farrah has a unique perspective, and she shares some advice for fellow BCBA teachers as well as newly minted BCBAs. She emphasizes something we keep touching on, and that is to never stop learning. No matter where you are in your career, keep asking questions. Whether you’ve been practicing for many years or are just starting out, you don’t know it all, and it's okay to lean on your community of professionals.

Meeting with BCBAs and other professionals like Farrah gives us the opportunity to keep learning and to share with others these new ideas, perspectives, and resources!

What's Inside:

• Guest Farrah Benson.
• ABA and Education.
• Embedding ABA into the classroom.
• Advice for new BCBAs.

Mentioned In This Episode:

HowToABA.com
How to ABA on YouTube
Find us on Facebook
Follow us on Instagram

Today, we are talking with a guest, Katerina “Kat” Savino. As a BCBA working in a multidisciplinary clinic and as a mentor to future BCBA’s with Simmons University, Kat has a lot of advice and insight to share. Her background started very similar to Shira’s, moving into ABA from Special Education, she notes how impactful that background has been on her career as a BCBA.

As a former Special Education teacher, Kat has worked with multiple disciplines since early on in her career, giving her the opportunity to see the benefits and struggles of this approach. She shares with us what seem to be the biggest hurdles when working with a multidisciplinary team, including finding that other specialties may feel more dominant and also apprehensiveness to new ideas.

However, we talk about how new ideas can be one of the best parts of working in a team of multiple disciplines. Kat emphasizes that regardless of your work setting, clinic or private, creating a network of various services is so important, whether it to be to learn from or reach out to for cases and situations outside your professional scope.

We also outline and advise you on how to deal with different approaches and different opinions when creating a plan for your clients with your team. Kat tells us how she maintains communication and makes compromises through the process.

Throughout the episode, we are focusing on being open and being humble. These attitudes are key when taking on a multidisciplinary approach. Kat also gives us her best advice, an important way of thinking she has picked up along her career journey, to be a lifelong learner.

As a BCBA working on a multidisciplinary team, it's important to be confident and know your stuff, but also learn from others. We remind you that in every aspect of this field, whether it be with your team or with a specific client, it is about what you are doing now, not what you were doing before.

What's Inside:

• Multidisciplinary Team.
• Networking to create a team beyond your professional scope.
• Plans to maintain communication with your team.
• How to deal with different approaches and opinions.

Mentioned In This Episode:

HowToABA.com
How to ABA on YouTube
Find us on Facebook
Follow us on Instagram

Functional communication training is when we teach our students functional communicative responses to get their wants and needs met. If you have not heard of this intervention, you are missing out, your students are missing out.

We can using functional communication training to teach our students how to ask for a break, how to ask for help, and how to get all of their needs and wants met so they can be successful in our classroom.

A lot of time, I mean a lot of time, our students engage in undesired behavior because they do not know how to communicate their needs and wants in that moment.

In this episode I talk all about the importance of functional communication training. I dispel some misconceptions of functional communication training that often stop us from using it in in our classroom. Lastly, I talk about how we can use functional communication training in ALL of our classrooms.

I walk you through all of the steps you need to start teaching students functional communicative responses and how this strategy can be so powerful in your classroom.

Our students do not always know how to communicate what they need when they become upset or frustrated or when they are sad or angry. That is where we come in. We can teach them functional communicative responses that are alternatives to the undesired behaviors we sometimes see in our classroom.

You won't regret listening to this episode! Learn how to use functional communication training in your classroom right now.

Resources You Might Be Interested In

FREE GUIDE TO TEACHING COPING SKILLS IN YOUR CLASSROOM!

Join the Teaching Behavior Together Community

Join the email list for weekly emails, monthly freebies, and alerts for sales and new products. (Click Here)

Visit my website for more strategies and interventions you can use daily in your classroom. (Click Here)

Follow me on Instagram for daily behavior and social emotional learning tips (Click Here)

Follow me over on Pinterest for all things behavior and social emotional learning (Click Here)

I get this question all the time, how do I become a school based behavior specialist? How do I get your job?

Well, first let me tell you, I have my dream job. I literally have the job I have been dreaming of for years and I love every minute of it. I love my role in schools and think every school should have a behavior specialist.

I have made it my goal to share behavioral and social emotional learning strategies with teachers so they can increase the success of their students. And guess what? I get to do that each and every day!

In this episode, I walk you through my journey (it was a long one) to becoming a school based behavior specialist. I talk about how I choose ABA and became a BCBA (board certified behavior analyst). Surprise, I also talk about my school psych license and how it helped me in my journey.

I also talk about steps you can take to create this role in your district. The truth is, more and more districts are hiring BCBAs as behavior specialists to help support teachers. I walk you through steps to talking with your district about supporting teachers in this role.

There are several different routes you can take to becoming a behavior specialist in your school, but one thing is for sure, if you are passionate about this, you need to pursue it. Being able to help support teachers with the behavioral and social emotional needs of their students is so valuable.

Sadly, teachers leave the field at alarming rates, and classroom behaviors is one of the number one reasons cited when teachers leave the field. You can help change that in your building. You can help teachers learn how to engage in effective classroom management skills. You can help teachers develop the behavioral and social emotional skills of their students.

When I tell you this job is so rewarding, I mean it. Again, this is my dream job!. If this is something you are interested in, listen to this episode all about how to become a behavior specialist in schools now!

Resources You Might Be Interested In

FREE GUIDE TO TEACHING COPING SKILLS IN YOUR CLASSROOM!

Join the Teaching Behavior Together Community

Join the email list for weekly emails, monthly freebies, and alerts for sales and new products. (Click Here)

Visit my website for more strategies and interventions you can use daily in your classroom. (Click Here)

Follow me on Instagram for daily behavior and social emotional learning tips (Click Here)

Follow me over on Pinterest for all things behavior and social emotional learning (Click Here)