Stronger Together

Please note that this blog is co-written by members of the ABAI Practice Board.

See the ABAI Practice Board website for more information.

It is that time of year when many of us renew our ABAI memberships. But why are we members? What do we expect from this community? 

ABAI is a science and advocacy organization for behavior analysis. It is also a social network of scientists and scientist-practitioners who focus on behavior analysis. ABAI’s mission is to contribute to the well-being of society by supporting, developing, and enhancing the growth and vitality of the science of behavior analysis. This covers topics of significant breadth and diversity (see Heward et al., 2022), positioning ABAI at the intersection of behavior analysis with many other fields. As professionals in these other fields, many ABAI members are also members of additional organizations. This allows us to both learn what other fields are doing and finding, and to share what we have to offer with related fields. When taken together, through learning from and disseminating to other fields, we strengthen our own science and practice and our community. Accordingly, other professional organizations are not seen as competitors, but rather associates, supplementing and complementing the resources ABAI provides.

For example, ABAI as an organization is a member of the Federal Associations of Behavioral and Brain Sciences (FABBS) that represents behavior science in the United States federal policy making process. Several ABAI members have written articles for the FABBS journal Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences (PIBBS) summarizing the relevance of behavior analysis to issues of public policy.

Given the importance of contacting and participating in verbal communities that sustain you and ensure you remain current in science and practice, what other organizations align with your values? That is, what topics or issues will you dedicate your time, talents, or other resources to? 

Here are some of the domains to guide your focus:

• Within ABAI, there are 39 topic oriented special interest groups (SIGS; e.g., Behaviorists for Social Responsibility, and Neuroscience) and many affiliated chapters in the United States (e.g., Minnesota Northland Association for Behavior Analysis) and internationally that address the needs of behavior analysts at more local levels. 
• Outside of ABAI,  other practice organizations can support you in remaining current in your areas of science and practice (e.g., Association of Professional Behavior Analysts [APBA], the American Psychological Association [APA] has a Practice Directorate and many practice-focused Divisions,  and the Council for Exceptional Children [CEC]). 
• There are professional organizations that address issues related to practice regulations and advocacy at the national, state, and local levels (e.g., Kansas Behavior Sciences Regulatory Board, Behavior Analyst Advisory Committee), and advocacy organizations that focus attention on the needs of specific constituents and related policy advocacy (e.g., Gerontological Society of America [GSA]). 
• Importantly, within the large organizations, such as APA, there are divisions dedicated to particular topics (e.g., Division 25: Behavior Analysis, Division 33: Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities/Autism Spectrum Disorder, Division 40: Society for Clinical Neuropsychology just to name of few), which provide a forum for behavior analysts to interact with, inform, and be informed by other fields.

References

Heward, W. L., Critchfield, T. S., Reed, D. D., Detrich, R., & Kimball, J. W. (2022). ABA from A to Z: Behavior science applied to 350 domains of socially significant behavior. Perspectives on Behavior Science, 45(2), 327–359. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-022-00336-z