4.25 Reason #6: Responsible Supervision Part 3

The supervisor is somewhat accurate in drawing attention to the unit director’s reactions and resulting client non-compliance. However, her placement of the EO inside the clients—by calling them a condition of deprivation or aversion—is imprecise. In addition, she omitted speaking about both effects of an EO.

Aspiring behavior analysts fulfilling their supervision requirements by working in that residential setting could adopt this misapplication of the behavioral conceptualization of motivation. After supervision is finished and the certification exam passed, the new BCBA may seek employment elsewhere or possibly start their own practice and take with them flawed ways of discussing behavior. This is an example of the pitfalls of a flawed conceptualization and later description of others: placing the EO inside a person distracts attention from environmental variables. Furthermore, it is overlooking the opportunity to explore a change up or down in reinforcer value (the second effect of a MO) for treatment options.