Disability-Affirming Supervision: Future Directions in Applied Behavior Analytic Supervision

Abstract

Various disciplines have undergone a shift towards increasing diversity, multiculturalism, and cultural humility in the past few years. In 2019, a Behavior Analysis in Practice special issue raised a collective call to action for increased diversity and representation within the field at both organizational and individual levels. Since that time, articles, discussions, and reports have been published providing heightened attention to cultural humility toward clients, stakeholders, and practitioners. However, little attention has been directed toward the diversity of individuals supervised by behavior analysts. In particular, effective and compassionate supervision of people with disabilities has not been addressed in the field. Practitioners and supervisors need to have the necessary knowledge and skills to be able to inclusively and effectively train and shape the behavior of supervisees with disabilities. The present article reviews the literature, research, and practices from the field of psychology and makes recommendations of tools to create a disability-affirming environment for supervision in the field of applied behavior analysis.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40617-023-00846-5.

Keywords: Applied behavior analysis; BACB; Cultural humility; Disability affirming; Supervision.