The behavior analyst today: Achieving its mission but still a long way to go!

Abstract

With the issue of BAT 2(4), we have successfully completed our second year. Publishing 3 (1), we begin our third year and indeed much has occurred to the world and our profession in that last year. Those of us who reside in the United States have witnessed a contested election, an ever broadening recession, and of course the vicious, unprovoked attack of September 11th. September 11th has bought the U.S. president has termed a new normalcy to this country. It is one that many abroad have become accustomed to: the idea of living with ever tightening security and the realization that at any moment, our lives can be determined by total strangers. On the issue of the recession, during this time it is critical for companies to increase productivity with fewer personnel then before. One way to accomplish this is through the use of performance pay systems. William Abernathy has provided us with a timely article on this subject matter and how to get started in the performance pay world. Calls for homeland defense have led us to ask over and over again, what is the role of behavior analysis in this new era? To this question, behavior analysts have much to offer. Indeed, we are planning a future issue for the Behavior Analyst Today to be devoted to Behavior Analysis and homeland defense. From the socialization of individuals with conduct disorders to ensuring that the 20% of gifted children who underachieve, receive the skills necessary to maximize their potential, behavior analysis has a say about change and about tolerance. On the tolerance issue, Skinner, Cautilli and Hantula offer a functionalist perspective on Ebonics and place the perspective in light of the changing culture of language studies. Even more locally in Pennsylvania, behavior analysis is still on the verge of adding its knowledge to redesigning the overly costly mental health system. Still many would oppose suggestions from behavior analysts in spite of the state's acknowledged claim that it wants to shift from a focus on service to a focus on treatment. As surveys of psychotherapists have taught us, the percentage of patients who receive behavioral (and even cognitive) treatments for anxiety disorders has decreased (Goisman, Rogers, Stekettee, Warshaw, Cuneo, & Keller, 1993; Plante, Andersen, & Boccaccini, 1999) in spite of the U.S. Surgeon General's (1999) report. We can think of no other area in medicine where the nation's leading doctor issue a list of interventions that are efficacious for particular problems and have such a general disregard by the health community to implement such suggestions. The explanations for the reasons behind this vary but one of the leading reasons is that practitioners are not trained in these techniques (Committee on Accreditation, 2000). Another is that clinicians are biased against using such practices (Addis & Krasnow, 2000; Sanderson, 1995). In Pennsylvania Best Practice Documents are listed on the Office of Medical Assistance and Substance Abuse Website, yet none of the documents list anything about functional assessment, contingency management or any of the other techniques that the Surgeon General has endorsed for the treatment of children. Part of this reason is that no one in Pennsylvania's Children and Adolescent Service System Provider Institute (CASSP Institute), the training wing for all mental health service providers, is certified in behavior analysis. They unfortunately see behavior analysis as only useful for developmental disabilities and have missed that the Surgeon General (1999, Chapter 3) has endorsed behavioral treatment techniques for childhood disorders as varied as anxiety (Goisman, Rogers, & Keller, 1999) and oppositional defiant disorder. Maybe readers should stop by the website and let them know otherwise. Behavior analysis has a place not only in the United States, but as the University re-opens in Kabul we need to think about we could provide to the Afghan people. …