Expanding the Role of Behavior Analysts

Abstract

Our goal is to highlight the applicability, the implementation, and the utility of behavior analysis across a wide range of socially meaningful domains. While a relatively narrow specialization in neurodevelopmental disorders has become the norm, historically behavior analysts trained broadly and took experimental methods from the lab to health service settings and beyond. The following introduction pays homage to these beginnings and calls attention to the behavior analysts who held concurrent leadership positions within behavior analysis and psychological organizations from 1966 to 1975. Since then, the impact of behavior analysis has grown steadily.

This book showcases behavior analytic work with many populations across a wide variety of settings. Contributors are experts in their fields. They describe their work in relation to the relevant licensing frameworks for their scope of practice and in terms of competencies for their profession, while considering behavior analytic benchmarks for training. We hope that their skillful applications of behavior analysis will surprise you, spur curiosity, and encourage you to learn more about behavior analysis and its applications. This book is an opportunity to see the multitude of possibilities this field holds.