Dear blog reader,
This month we are joined by Scott Graham, a doctoral candidate at Ulster University in Northern Ireland. From the first time I met Scott, what struck me was his passion for behavior analysis and his dedication for using it to help people. You will get a sense of this passion very quickly from reading Scott’s story below, and the journey he has been on, both the ups and the downs. Many will relate to the struggles Scott has faced along the way, battling misinformation about what behavior analysis and its application are actually about, and its potential to induce positive change. These “battles” unfortunately seem to have become all the more frequent in recent years. However, we must persevere. We know well what good the philosophy, science, and practice of behavior analysis is capable of — we have seen the data and the clinical outcomes! It can be tricky living a monistic and naturalistic science in an inherently dualistic and mentalistic culture. But often once you have tasted the fruits of such an approach, there is no going back. As Scott himself says below, “We must stay true, protect, and hold onto our wonderful science.” And on that note, keep scrolling, reader, and enjoy Scott’s addition to this series.
Colin
Author bio:
Scott Graham is an accomplished Board Certified Behaviour Analyst (BCBA) and United Kingdom Behaviour Analyst (UKBA cert). With over ten years of experience in the field of ABA, Scott has held various applied positions in the UK, Ireland, and the USA. He has developed extensive expertise in direct therapy, staff/parent training, clinical assessment, and intervention development. Currently, Scott is pursuing his PhD at Ulster University, where he is investigating how ABA can enhance inclusive education interventions in mainstream education settings. Alongside his research, Scott occasionally facilitates teaching in ABA modules at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He also works part-time as a Positive Behaviour Support Specialist, providing training to new staff and given his extensive experience in the management of challenging behaviour, he will occasionally act as a consultant, providing specialist advice. More recently, Scott became a committee member for the only ABA charity in Northern Ireland, Parents Education as Autism Therapists (PEAT).
A Life of Contrasting Experiences
Since a young age, I have been passionate about helping people. Not because I have some noble intrinsic characteristic or trait found within me but because I experienced significant adversity in my early life. Growing up in a family affected by domestic abuse and addiction, I was fortunate to have a wonderful grandfather who served as a positive role model, instilling in me a sense of empathy and compassion. Drawing from these experiences, I pursued a degree in psychology at Ulster University (UU), Northern Ireland. Initially uncertain about my future career path, I envisioned myself working as a family therapist, counsellor, or addiction therapist.
Despite my strong desire to study psychology and acquire practical skills to aid others, I felt that my undergraduate program wasn’t providing me with the practical experience I sought. Instead of learning meaningful ways to support those in need, I found myself engulfed in fluctuating psychological theories and statistical constructs. Deviating from my initial aspiration, I felt more like a trainee statistician than a psychologist. This was not what I signed up for.
In my final year, I developed a keen interest in social issues. Consequently, when I came across a module titled ‘Behaviourism and Social Issues,’ I decided to enrol. Little did I know this choice would have a profound impact on my life. From the very first day of Professor Mickey Keenan’s teaching, I was captivated. The philosophy of behaviourism and the principles of behaviour analysis resonated with me. Single-case designs allowed me to see the effect of contingencies. This wasn’t merely another theoretical concept; Prof. Keenan was offering practical solutions to real-world problems and a refreshing perspective within the undergraduate program. Inspired by Prof. Keenan, I found myself delving into ‘Science and Human Behavior’ for ‘fun’.
After completing my undergraduate degree, I took a year out to save money for the postgraduate Master’s programme in Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) that Prof. Keenan had pioneered. During this time, I worked as a mental health support worker and dedicated my free time to reading everything I could find on ABA. Fast forward one year, and I enrolled on the Master’s program. I left my support worker job and got a part-time job working as a barista. This allowed me to go to school and volunteer approximately 20 hours per week with the only ABA charity in Northern Ireland, Parents Education as Autism Therapists (PEAT), a charity founded by Prof. Keenan. Although there were challenges, practising ABA allowed me to experience first-hand the impact of what I was learning in class. I’ll never forget the first child I taught to speak or the first time I taught a child to tolerate getting his toenails cut; both were followed with tears of joy and hope from their respective parents.
During the second year of my Master’s programme, facilitated by the collaborative relationship between UU and The New England Center for Children (NECC), again something that Prof. Keenan had established, I set off to Boston, USA, to gain further experience. The knowledge and experience I acquired at NECC were profoundly impactful and will remain with me. This experience afforded me the invaluable opportunity to actively engage in specialist procedures (e.g., functional analyses) under the close supervision of BCBAs, an experience I could not obtain at home. The experience instilled in me the significance of fostering curiosity, observing how my behaviour influenced others, the importance of adhering to technical and systematic methodologies, and the reliance on empirical data in decision-making processes. Witnessing the transformative progress achieved by children with intense needs through the implementation of ABA was unbelievable. Given the limited availability of ABA positions in the UK and Ireland, I expressed my desire to return to NECC after completing my internship. Astonishingly, my request was granted, allowing me to continue my professional pursuits.
Completing my internship, I returned to Northern Ireland feeling inspired and made plans to move back to the United States with my wife within the next six months. In the meantime, I worked for a non-profit organisation supporting individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). While I found job satisfaction and observed progress for the individuals whom I supported at NECC, I did not have the same experiences at home. In contrast to NECC, where we could effectively manage and modify behaviour through the manipulation of contingencies, I faced challenges back home. Instead of utilising evidence-based interventions, I found myself in debates with others about basic principles such as reinforcement. Many people framed reinforcement as bribery and considered it unacceptable. This was when I first realised that the underlying philosophy of the Health and Social Care system in Northern Ireland functions as a barrier to effective behaviour support. The mentalistic philosophy which the Health and Social Care system subscribed to was naïve in the extreme. Indeed, the notion of contingent reinforcement was often touted as cruel and was something to be avoided.
After encountering these frustrating obstacles and witnessing little to no improvement in behaviours of concern, I was thrilled to return to NECC. As a staff member rather than an international intern, my experience with NECC was even more fulfilling. Quickly, I advanced to become a clinical assistant in one of NECC’s most challenging units. This experience was invaluable; I got the chance to work alongside some of the most significant figures in the field. Indeed, I owe much of my practical knowledge of behaviour analysis to the experts within the walls of the NECC building and I will always fondly remember my time at NECC. Approximately a year later, unfortunately, my wife and I had to relocate back home for family reasons. Again, I found myself supporting individuals with IDD in my local community. Although I enjoyed many aspects of my work, I missed being immersed in ABA. Moreover, while I enjoyed supporting adults in residential settings, I really missed working with children in education facilities. Collectively, these voids in my life resulted in me applying for a funded PhD position under Prof. Keenan. The PhD was funded to extend research into a class-wide inclusive education intervention named The Good Inclusion Game (GIG), a variation of The Good Behaviour Game aimed at improving inclusive interactions between students with and without special education needs (SEN) (Coyle & Dillenburger, 2019; Dillenburger & Coyle, 2019).
To this day, I am not sure how, but somehow, I got awarded the scholarship. I couldn’t believe I had earned the scholarship and was going back to UU. Moreover, I was going back to investigate an intervention that could help struggling students—an outcome close to my heart. Although I am currently pursuing a PhD, I have always encountered academic challenges throughout my educational journey. While I was always good at Maths, I faced difficulties in other subjects due to poor reading and writing skills. These experiences instilled in me a genuine appreciation of the importance of the research I was going to conduct. I could not wait to get started and hopefully improve the classroom environment for many students.
While on this matter, there is another personal point I would like to share in order to highlight, at least for me, the importance of the behavioural perspective. When I returned to university, I was offered the chance to receive a free assessment for dyslexia. Now, although I do view ‘dyslexia’ as a summary label, I always wondered if I “had” dyslexia. Therefore, out of curiosity and recognising that I would be entitled to some support if I was determined to “have” dyslexia, I accepted the offer of assessment. As I expected, the evaluation assigned me the label of dyslexic. However, what I wasn’t expecting was the feeling this label gave me. Although I consider myself a behaviour analyst, I have a much longer learning history associated with mentalistic thinking, and when I was advised that I ‘was’ dyslexic, that long history of mentalism kicked in. When the assessor told me I was dyslexic, I got a sick feeling in my stomach; I felt there was something wrong with me, that I was broken, that I was given a poor hand, that I was stupid, that I was ‘less than’. I had a range of feelings, none of them positive. Please note I am aware that some may be offended by my reaction. Indeed, it is not something I am proud of, but it is how I felt, and I hope the reader can appreciate this and the baggage that comes with mentalism.
I also feel it is important to note that this is not how behaviour analysts view learning disabilities; indeed, it is the complete opposite. As I suggested above, these emotions were coming from a place shrouded in mentalism. After struggling with these emotions for a few days, I realised I was in a mentalistic rabbit hole. Without the behavioural perspective, I was slipping into what you might call a form of depression. Thankfully, I reengaged with the behavioural perspective and again saw ‘dyslexia’ for what it is: a summary label. I realised nothing was wrong with me; I simply did not master some essential literacy components, and rather than my teachers being sensitive to my needs, the teaching progressed as dictated by a curriculum.
Interestingly, this experience allowed me to retrospectively analyse how mentalism impacted me personally. Since then, I have often thought to myself that mentalism could easily lead me (or anyone) down one of two paths. Path one leads to narcissism, and path two towards complete despair. Thankfully, the behavioural perspective kept me from venturing down that second path. I really do wish that others could understand this and experience the liberation that comes with an understanding of behaviour analysis.
Returning to the subject at hand, I would like to detail some potential implications of the GIG. When I say that the objective of the GIG is to increase ‘inclusive interactions’, I really mean students ‘helping, sharing and caring’ for each other. These are important behaviours for all children to master, not just SEN students. Now, an inclusive classroom environment which values ‘helping, sharing and caring’ may have significant implications. For instance, students with SEN, by definition, require additional help and support; thus, an intervention that improves ‘helping, sharing and caring’ among all students may allow for SEN students to receive the support they require. Moreover, students offering help (i.e., students functioning as ‘peer tutors’) may also benefit socially and academically (Galbraith & Winterbottom, 2011). It is also worth noting that SEN students are capable of helping non-SEN students and they may also benefit from these positive ‘peer-tutoring’ effects.
Research shows that SEN students often have difficulty participating socially in inclusive education classrooms (Vetoniemi & Kärnä, 2021). This difficulty can have both short and long-term effects (Broomhead, 2019; Gamboa et al., 2024; Rose et al., 2017). Thus, the GIG, an intervention that increases social participation, may affect these respective outcomes. Finally, and in relation to the previous point, I’ll end with one final potential implication of the GIG. That is, I believe it is important to consider the possible impact that the GIG may have on a student’s self-perception. Personally, I know the effects that struggling in school can have. Finding reading and writing difficult, I started to view myself as “the stupid kid in class”. This narrative has had a negative impact on my self-esteem to this day. If an intervention such as the GIG can help students realise that all students need help at some time or another, this may lead to students avoiding the development of such destructive ‘self-narratives’. While my current research focuses on the immediate effects of the GIG, further investigation into its potential long-term effects will be invaluable.
As I approach the end of my PhD journey, I find myself uncertain about my future for many reasons. In addition to the fact that there are few behavioural jobs in Northern Ireland, ABA continues to face significant opposition.An incident from my recent research serves as a clear example. During one of my final studies, a school initially agreed to participate. However, as I sought consent from parents and caregivers, the school informed me that a parent had lodged a formal complaint about the research. As a result, the school decided to withdraw from the study. I was shocked and disheartened. How could a parent object to an intervention focused on promoting inclusivity, where students are encouraged to ‘help, share, and care’ for each other? I later learned that the objection stemmed from the fact that the research was “ABA research”. There was nothing inherently flawed about the study procedures or its objectives. The research was deemed unacceptable simply because it was associated with ABA. This serves as a clear example of discrimination against ABA (Dillenburger & Keenan, 2023; Graber & Graber, 2023).
Because our Health and Social Care system embraces mentalism, the barriers thrown up (as defined by the contingencies that are designed) can affect behaviour analysts in many ways, especially in regards to the development of frustration, reduced job satisfaction, and a tendency to compromise scientific precision in favour of obtaining social reinforcers (Tierney & Smith, 1997). In addition, as the anti-ABA movement gains significant momentum, it appears to be fuelling an increasing divide in the verbal behaviour within our own professional community. A popular trend has emerged where some behaviour analysts are claiming that they are the only ones who are practising “today’s ABA”. Others advocate for “trauma-informed ABA”, or “neuro-affirming ABA”, or even “Positive Behaviour Support (PBS)”, all the while remaining blind to the ramifications of the potential schisms they are creating. How a policy maker who is not trained in behaviour analysis could choose between this chocolate box of variations when designing policy is beyond me! While these terms may be useful for propelling one’s business or career (Tierney & Smith, 1997), they are often used to simultaneously imply that the methodologies of other behaviour analysts are ethically questionable, or inferior to what their business is promoting. For example, ABA professionals may question the ethics of others who use discrete trial training procedures with their clients, suggesting that this is “old” or “yesterday’s” ABA. As an example of the consequences of this behaviour, in the UK and Ireland, PBS is a recommended intervention for supporting individuals with IDD and behaviours of concern. However, without appropriate counter control that could ensure a balanced perspective, advocates of PBS have morphed into a movement that publicly distances itself from ABA (Stalford et al., 2024).
In many respects, the “cognitive revolution” within the analysis of behaviour appears to be still at play (Tierney & Smith, 1997). While many behaviour analysts laud the position of radical behaviourism, elements of cognitivism are seeping into professional practice. While I acknowledge the importance of using our clients’ language at times, I also believe that there are instances where we should refresh the use of our own professional language. Unfortunately, it is most disconcerting to see behaviour analysts use mentalistic language in their discussions with each other. I fail to see the necessity of incorporating mentalistic concepts when formally analysing or discussing behaviour in the presence of other behaviour analysts. Agreeing with a point made by Tierney and Smith (1997), I worry that if our internal (i.e., behavioural) verbal community continues to reinforce such mentalistic language, it could become more prevalent and impact the practices of our professionals. It really is a slippery slope!
With this, I would like to end with a plea directed at my fellow behaviour analysts. We must stay true, protect, and hold onto our wonderful science. If we are not careful, the science we were attracted to may morph into nothing more than a pseudoscience. If this happens, those most vulnerable in our communities will suffer.
References
Broomhead, K. E. (2019). Acceptance or rejection? The social experiences of children with special educational needs and disabilities within a mainstream primary school. Education 3-13, 47(8), 877–888. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2018.1535610
Coyle, C., & Dillenburger, K. (2019). The Good Inclusion Game (GIG): Effective practice for inclusive education. Academia Journal of Educational Research, 7(2), Article 12. https://doi.org/10.15413/ajer.2018.0305
Dillenburger, K., & Coyle, C. (2019). Education for all: The Good Inclusion Game. Behavioral Interventions, 34(3), 338–351. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.1671
Dillenburger, K., & Keenan, M. (2023). Autism and Behavior Analysis: From dissonance to dialogue. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 15(3), 199–208.
Galbraith, J., & Winterbottom, M. (2011). Peer‐tutoring: What’s in it for the tutor? Educational Studies, 37(3), 321–332. https://doi.org/10.1080/03055698.2010.506330
Gamboa, P., Freire, S., Anica, A., João Mogarro, M., Fátima Moreira, M., & Vaz Da Silva, F. (2024). Correlates of rejection by the peer group: A study comparing students with and without SEN. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 28(4), 381–401. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2021.1941314
Graber, A., & Graber, J. (2023). Applied Behavior Analysis and the Abolitionist Neurodiversity Critique: An Ethical Analysis. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 16(4), 921–937. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-023-00780-6
Rose, K. K., Barahona, D., & Muro, J. (2017). Peer perceptions of students receiving pull-out services in elementary school: A multi-age study. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 21(4), 376–388. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2016.1197323
Stalford, D., Graham, S., & Keenan, M. (2024). A discussion of Positive Behavior Support and Applied Behavior Analysis in the context of Autism Spectrum Disorder in the UK and Ireland. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 17(2), 442–455. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-023-00905-x
Tierney, K. J., & Smith, J. A. (1997). What are the reinforcers for cognitivism in behaviour therapy. In K. Dillenburger, M. F. O’Reilly, & M. Keenan (Eds.), Advances in behaviour analysis. University College Dublin Press.
Vetoniemi, J., & Kärnä, E. (2021). Being included – experiences of social participation of pupils with special education needs in mainstream schools. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 25(10), 1190–1204. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2019.1603329