Round 14: What Is the Goal of a Functional Assessment?
Round 13: Is ABA Inherently Trauma Informed?
Round 12: Online Education or Traditional Learning? An Inside Look at the Future of Higher Education
Round 11: Praise Be! A Critical Look into a Common Practice
Round 10: The Ethical Implication of Treating Stereotypy
Round 9: Are BCBA Owned Businesses at an Ethical Disadvantage?
Round 7: Let’s Get Physical with Prompts
Round 6: The Science vs. Religion Debate with an ABA Twist
Round 5: Are We Providing Super-vision or Just Okay-vision?
Round 4: Restraints are not appropriate to use regardless of the severity of the behavior.
Round 3: Behavior analysts should not accept gifts because it creates a dual relationship.
Round 2: When to Include Parents as Active Participants in Implementing the Behavior Plan
Round 1: Practical Functional Assessment (IISCA) vs. the Traditional Functional Analysis
Precursor to Round 1: Practical Functional Assessment(IISCA) vs. the Traditional Functional Analysis
Welcome to ABA Ultimate Showdown – a podcast promoting constructive, respectful, and professional discourse to advance the field of behavior analysis.
During our debates, we construct defenses of both sides to present the audience with a comprehensive and balanced view. A lot of hours went into researching, collaborating, publishing, editing, and citing the resources used in our episodes.
If you have ideas or topics for future debate, have respectful suggestions on ways we can improve this podcast, or if you are interested in being a guest debater, please email showdown@grahambehavior.com
Round 14: What Is the Goal of a Functional Assessment?
Published on: April 20, 2023
Round 14 of the Showdown debates the motion: The goal of a functional assessment is to identify a function that will inform treatment. Our debaters, Dr. Jeffrey Tiger and Dr. Mahshid Ghaemmaghami, are influential contributors to the field of behavior analysis. You can find their work in behavior analysis’s leading journals and they have helped shape and guide countless professionals throughout their careers. Our field owes each of them a great debt and we couldn’t be more excited with the insight they shared through this debate.
During this debate, Dr. Tiger and Dr. G constructed defenses of both sides to present the audience with a comprehensive and balanced view.
This round is worth 1.5 general CE credits for BACB certificants!
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Dr. Jeffrey Tiger |
Dr. Mahshid Ghaemmaghami |
Round 13: Is ABA Inherently Trauma Informed?
Published on: October 20, 2022
Round 13 of the Showdown debates the motion: ABA is inherently trauma informed. Our debaters, Rosalie Prendergast and Saundra Bishop, are actively disseminating their passion on a wide scale to professionals around the world.
This round is worth 1 ethics CE for BACB certificants!
Rosalie Prendergast |
Saundra Bishop |
Round 12: Online Education or Traditional Learning? An Inside Look at the Future of Higher Education
Published on: March 30, 2022
Round 12 of the Showdown debates the motion: Higher education is ideally delivered in a traditional format. Our debaters, Dr. Katie Croce and Dr. Joe Novak, are passionate and well versed, both having experience teaching in both traditional learning and online education formats in higher education.
 Joe Novak |
 Katie Croce |
Round 11: Praise Be! A Critical Look into a Common Practice
Published on: July 29, 2021
Round 11 of the Showdown debates the motion: Using behavior specific praise to reinforce learners’ behavior is best practice. Our debaters Ashley Kemmerer and Jacqueline Koppa bring up a lot of valid points that you can use to better inform your practice.
This round is worth 1 general CE credit for BACB certificants!
Round 10: The Ethical Implication of Treating Stereotypy
Published on: April 14, 2021
Round 10 of the Showdown debates the motion: Stereotypy as a symptom of autism does not need to be treated. We welcome our first guest debater, Amy Gravino, who joins Angela DiPoce in debating Ashley Callahan.
This round is worth 2 ethics CE credits for BACB certificants!
Round 9: Are BCBA Owned Businesses at an Ethical Disadvantage?
Published on: November 5, 2020
Round 9 of the Showdown debates the motion: It is possible to ethically and effectively market ABA businesses within the guidelines. We got a lot of great feedback from social media regarding the challenges facing both BCBA owned and privately owned ABA companies. Bonus is that it includes a lot of great tips for ethically marketing your business!
Special thanks to Connections Behavior Planning & Intervention for your thoughtful review of our podcast. We heard your feedback so we recorded this one all together. Hope you enjoy the interactive banter! You will also be able to watch this round on our YouTube channel!
This round is worth 1 ethics CE credit for BACB certificants.
Round 8: Crash and Burnout
Published on: July 23, 2020
Round 8 of the Showdown debates the motion: BCBAs have enough resources to ethically and effectively manage their caseload. This debate dives into several important topics that support behavior analysts’ mental health and job performance, including ACT, burnout, OBM, and ethics. We also provide a TON of resources in a variety of mediums!
This round is worth 1 ethics CE credit for BACB certificants.
Round 7: Let’s Get Physical with Prompts
Published on: May 20, 2020
Round 7 of the Showdown debates the motion: Physical prompts should be avoided. The debate primarily discusses whether or not it’s appropriate for professionals to use physical prompts. This round also delves into additional forms of prompts, video modeling, and trauma informed care.
This round is worth 1 ethics CE credit for BACB certificants.
Round 6: The Science vs. Religion Debate with an ABA Twist
Published on: March 5, 2020
Round 6 of the Showdown debates the motion: Behavior analysts can compartmentalize their beliefs. They can be both religious or spiritual and effectively practice ABA. We delve into determinism, reference scientists from other disciplines, and explore the interactions of science and religion or spirituality. We conducted our own survey with 189 respondents.
Round 5: Are We Providing Super-vision or Just Okay-vision?
Published on: November 23, 2019
Round 5 of the Showdown will debate whether or not the current BACB supervisory system is sufficient to train effective behavior analysts. We draw analogies to other disciplines, discuss how autonomy and variation affect the supervisory experience, and debate whether or not the system takes advantage of supervisees. We conducted our own survey with 134 respondents.
This round is worth 1 supervision CE credit for BACB certificants.
Round 4: Restraints are not appropriate to use regardless of the severity of the behavior.
Published on: September 17, 2019
Round 4 of the Showdown attempts to respectfully cover the frequently debated topic of restraints. Since this topic is so controversial within and outside of our field, we were very careful about our wording and opinions. We cover primarily mechanical and physical restraints and whether or not it’s appropriate to use on our clients to keep them and their surrounding family and staff safe.
This round is worth 1 ethics CE credit for BACB certificants.
Round 3: Behavior analysts should not accept gifts because it creates a dual relationship.
Published on: August 1, 2019
Round 3 of the Showdown attempts to answer that longstanding question – to accept gifts or not to accept gifts? We cover the legendary glass of water question, compare us to other disciplines, and bring up a lot of points you may not have thought of. Most importantly, we attempt to help practitioners in the field make ethical decisions surrounding gifts. Join us as we debate whether or not behavior analysts should accept gifts.
This round is worth 1 ethics CE credit for BACB certificants.
Round 2: When to Include Parents as Active Participants in Implementing the Behavior Plan
Published on: July 3, 2019
Round 2 of the Showdown is slightly less controversial but an important discussion for practitioners in the field. Our second topic covers when to include parents as active participants in implementing the behavior plan – from the beginning or after the staff has established instructional control.
Special thanks to Dr. Max Lindeman for consultation!
Round 1: Practical Functional Assessment (IISCA) vs. the Traditional Functional Analysis
Published on: May 21, 2019
Round 1 of the Showdown will discuss the hotly debated practical functional assessment that includes the interview-informed, synthesized contingency analysis, or IISCA, vs the traditional functional analyses, or FA. We are covering this topic across a precursor episode and one round. We put over 100 women hours over five months into this particular podcast and spent many a late night and early morning trying to fairly and accurately portray both sides and perfect the final product. During this debate, we will construct arguments for both sides to present the audience with a comprehensive and balanced view of two sides of a controversial topic.
This round is worth 1 general CE credit for BACB certificants.
Round 1 Resources
Precursor to Round 1: Practical Functional Assessment(IISCA) vs. the Traditional Functional Analysis
Published on: May 21, 2019
We are stoked to be able to bring you this precursor episode of the Showdown. Our first topic will be the hotly debated practical functional assessment that includes the interview-informed, synthesized contingency analysis, or IISCA, vs the traditional functional analyses, or FA. We are covering this topic across a precursor episode and one round. As we stated in our introductory episode, good debates include definitions of any relevant terms to ensure that the debate is focused on the motion and not on parsing words. This debate requires slightly more than a few definitions so we created this, aptly named, precursor episode to include more detail. Enjoy learning a little more about the traditional functional analysis (FA) and about the practical functional assessment, which includes the interview-informed, synthesized contingency analysis (IISCA)! We put over 100 women hours over five months into this particular podcast and spent many a late night and early morning trying to fairly and accurately portray both sides and perfect the final product.
Introductory Episode
Published on: May 20, 2019
We use this introductory episode to discuss three main topics: the inception of this podcast, the general format that will be used for each debate, and how we hope this podcast will influence behavior analysis as a field.