WHY IS DICK MALOTT SO WEIRD--PART XVII A Practitioner Model II Then I got this critique from a FaceBook friend and colleague, after I’d posted the above paragraphs: I think clinical interest is found in replicating the effect, so you can believe the treatment was responsible for the effect observed. Left at that however, the treatment is just another trick in the therapy bag. When the treatment can be related to behavior principles, it becomes much more useful, because when the treatment doesnt work, the therapist can change the parameters of what we know about those principles to get a therapeutic effect. Basic research helps expand the precision of those principles, and it is absolutely necessary. But any work that creates an effect, even if it cant be related to behavior principles, is research. It is just more useful to everyone and better for the field of behavior analysis, if replicated effects can be related to behavior principles. At least I took it as a critique; so let me elaborate, in an attempt to clarify. I agree with my friend’s, previous paragraph. And I want to make it clear that the practitioner model I’m advocating is neither anti-intellectual nor anti-behavior-analytic. Instead I believe we should think deeply about everything we do and our deep thinking should be in terms of the principles and concepts of behavior analysis. However, what I am saying is that often, perhaps usually, we have a conflict of interest between doing research that will end up in a journal and provide the foundation for more grant support, on the one hand, and actually helping the specific kids we’re working with, on the other hand. E.g., putting half the kids in the control group, when we’re fairly confident that the experimental condition would help all the kids. Or straining to resist confounding by teaching impractical skills in an unrealistic context, rather than teaching practical skills at our autism center, even though the natural reinforcement contingencies may also be teaching those same skills at home and thereby confounding our experiment. Or consider the kids whose insurance funding will only allow them to spend a few precious weeks or months at a major hospital and research center. Should a large portion of that time be devoted to research demonstrating that the researchers are able to significantly reduce the kids’ self-injurious behaviors in that highly controlled research environment, knowing full well that these dangerous behaviors will return to their previously high rates, when the kids leave the hospital? I believe this is a major moral/ethical issue we behavior analysts should consider in our training and research. And I can testify that I also have trouble always sticking to my own practitioner model when helping my students design their theses and dissertations. It ain’t easy. Conclusion I am not done ranting, but I’ll pause for a while to give someone else a chance. And thanks ever so much for bearing with me. FaceBook friends, I’ve greatly appreciated your FaceBook comments and corrections, as I’ve been assembling this. And I’d love any more thoughts anyone would care to share.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 15:30:07 +0000
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