July 2025: Turning Point Webinar

Wednesday: July 30, 2025 @ 12pm

Turning Point – Webinar A Call for Research on Quality Assurance in ABA Autism Service Settings

Criticisms of applied behavior analysis (ABA) autism services and inadequate workforce preparation to meet the demands for those services suggest the industry has reached a turning point. One in which we must course correct with a greater focus on quality assurance. However, research on quality assurance in ABA autism services organizations and its controlling environmental variables lags far behind the proliferation of ABA autism services. This talk offers a compass and a call to action for behavior analytic practitioners to band together in pursuit of a more robust scientific approach to understanding the environmental variables that influence ABA autism service quality. An ABA quality research agenda focused on ABA service delivery processes and their outcomes, is proposed. The agenda guides behavior analysts to publish quality control studies and establish a research base leaders can draw from to design evidence-based quality assurance systems that deliver high-quality services and compensate for inadequate industry safeguards for quality. Managers for quality in ABA organizations can implement this action plan to begin systematically designing and implementing robust quality assurance systems that deliver high-quality services with quality planning, control, and improvement; beginning with validation of processes for controlling behavioral intervention quality.

Learning objectives:

Participants will identify the need for advancements in research on quality assurance in ABA service delivery.
Participants will learn to describe defining features of quality assurance systems in human service settings.
Participants will describe how to conduct experimental evaluations of efforts to control quality in ABA service delivery.

Learn more about the speaker:

Bryant C. Silbaugh, PhD, BCBA, LBA, is a former assistant professor of special education, founder of the National ABA Service Quality Network, and an internationally recognized behavior analyst specializing in the behavioral assessment and treatment of autism spectrum disorder.