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25 Essential Skills and Strategies for the Professional Behavior Analyst: Expert Tips for Maximizing Consulting Effectiveness
25 Essential Skills & Strategies for the Professional Behavior Analyst is a much needed guidebook for behavior analysts who want to become successful at consulting. Jon Bailey and Mary Burch present five basic skills and strategy areas that professional behavior analysts need to acquire. This book is organized around those five areas, with a total of 25 specific skills presented within those topics. Every behavior analyst, whether seasoned or beginning, should have this book.
344 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 26, 2009
46 people are currently reading
115 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 24, 2017
I picked up this book because, well, it seemed odd that I hadn't read it before.
I’m both a student and teacher, mentor and protégé. This book seemed to capture what I was looking for – a list of skills critical to success that might not be covered by the Task List or class lecture. I really wanted to like this book because, damn, how convenient would that be?
The tone of the book is one of exasperation (and patronizing) more often than not. Perhaps that’s not surprising – I know the amount of stupid bullshit I put up with every day and I can’t imagine the order of magnitude more of bullshit the authors deal with. But that is not a tone that I want in what is pretty much a professional self-help book.
I don’t know if the intended audience was pinned down before the book was written. The term Sdelta, something covered in Behavior Analysis 101, is explained….in the advanced consulting section. There’s constant, constant references to reinforcing people rather than behaviors. There’s a bizarre ABC diagram with the following:
Migraine (Setting Event) --> Unhappy Parents (Ant) --> Anxiety/Food Cravings (Bx) --> More anxiety & purchasing a ½ gallon of ice cream (Con)
There’s many, many moments that are tone-deaf, out-of-touch, or just baffling. We are encouraged to name-drop to build trust in our expertise, as if a parent or teacher with no experience in ABA would know or care who Brian Iwata is. (No offence to Brian, he’s awesome!) If you are not exercising, sleeping, or eating right, while you are working 60+ hours a week the advice is….just start doing it! Is your job at your current site too stressful, or too large a workload? The advice is, I’m not kidding, quit your job, move across the state, and start your own company. There’s sometimes phrases that make me, a known asshole, uncomfortable. For example, “There is a very good chance that their profession does not have anywhere near the commitment that we do to data-based decision making.” We are told to watch indie films specifically, as "The blockbuster films that occupy 90% of the screens in America don’t often provide us with food for thought; independent films do. Often made on low budgets by creative people with a very unique perspective on the world, these films portray human behavior in all its vast and glorious diversity. They capture human behavior under circumstances we could never imagine and challenge us to understand how and why people do what they do."
The book claims its tips are based on data (since we’re the only ones that care about data, right?), but it rarely ever cites actual scientific sources. Most sources are self-help business books. I would have liked to see more articles drawn from the scientific literature here. Much of the book is redundant. We are advised to read the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. It re-iterates the professional and ethical guideline of the field constantly as if they are foreign to us. The guidelines don’t represent ‘expert tips for maximizing consulting effectiveness’ – these are the basic guidelines we must all follow, a minimum standard. If my supervisee didn’t know these by heart, I would be deeply concerned. What troubles me is that often the guidelines are referred to as if they were rationale enough by themselves – we discharge clients appropriately because the guidelines say we should discharge clients appropriately. That’s not correct. We discharge clients appropriately because that means we aren’t wasting the client’s time and money, that we maximize those we serve, etc. Obviously we must follow the guidelines, but let us understand why we as behavior analysts created them in the first place.
Let's talk about the anecdotes. For a book like this, you need examples. Goofus and Gallant, ya know? But something felt....off…with them. I got this feeling that women were in more negative examples than men. So, I took data on the gender of each anecdote and categorized them into Goofus and Gallant. I would share some of the anecdotes with someone that hadn’t read the book (occasionally multiple people) and asked them if they thought this was, overall, what category that they thought it best fit in. Was this a perfect method? No, but shit, how many reviewers take IOA for their review? Give me some credit.
Over the course of the book, the anecdotes were split roughly 50/50 between men and women, although women had slightly more. This doesn't represent the actual makeup of the field, which is nearly entirely female. This was fine! When I looked at the data on categorization, I found that about 50% of the male examples were portrayed positively, compared to about 33% of the examples with women. Despite there being fewer male examples overall, there was a higher total of ‘good’ male examples than female ones. This isn’t me being nitpicky. You notice this skew while reading, and its distracting.
Beyond these anecdotes, there’s a lot of sexist language in the book. I doubt it was intended, I want to make that clear. But it’s a very “old school” frame of mind that seeps in, which has women stereotypically being pre-occupied with boyfriends, drowning sorrows in ice cream, and being emotional. One example has a woman rationalizing taking a larger caseload because she doesn’t have a boyfriend right now. That’s the primary concern.
I could give many more examples, but I’m just gonna need one. Here is the advice for women on how they should dress:
Emphasis mine. Drink in the tone. While many of those are largely unique to women, there’s quite a few that are not. No, that passage was not directed towards everyone, this is still the ladies’ section. The men’s section comes afterwards. Here’s the entire suite of advice for men:
I’m both a student and teacher, mentor and protégé. This book seemed to capture what I was looking for – a list of skills critical to success that might not be covered by the Task List or class lecture. I really wanted to like this book because, damn, how convenient would that be?
The tone of the book is one of exasperation (and patronizing) more often than not. Perhaps that’s not surprising – I know the amount of stupid bullshit I put up with every day and I can’t imagine the order of magnitude more of bullshit the authors deal with. But that is not a tone that I want in what is pretty much a professional self-help book.
I don’t know if the intended audience was pinned down before the book was written. The term Sdelta, something covered in Behavior Analysis 101, is explained….in the advanced consulting section. There’s constant, constant references to reinforcing people rather than behaviors. There’s a bizarre ABC diagram with the following:
Migraine (Setting Event) --> Unhappy Parents (Ant) --> Anxiety/Food Cravings (Bx) --> More anxiety & purchasing a ½ gallon of ice cream (Con)
There’s many, many moments that are tone-deaf, out-of-touch, or just baffling. We are encouraged to name-drop to build trust in our expertise, as if a parent or teacher with no experience in ABA would know or care who Brian Iwata is. (No offence to Brian, he’s awesome!) If you are not exercising, sleeping, or eating right, while you are working 60+ hours a week the advice is….just start doing it! Is your job at your current site too stressful, or too large a workload? The advice is, I’m not kidding, quit your job, move across the state, and start your own company. There’s sometimes phrases that make me, a known asshole, uncomfortable. For example, “There is a very good chance that their profession does not have anywhere near the commitment that we do to data-based decision making.” We are told to watch indie films specifically, as "The blockbuster films that occupy 90% of the screens in America don’t often provide us with food for thought; independent films do. Often made on low budgets by creative people with a very unique perspective on the world, these films portray human behavior in all its vast and glorious diversity. They capture human behavior under circumstances we could never imagine and challenge us to understand how and why people do what they do."
The book claims its tips are based on data (since we’re the only ones that care about data, right?), but it rarely ever cites actual scientific sources. Most sources are self-help business books. I would have liked to see more articles drawn from the scientific literature here. Much of the book is redundant. We are advised to read the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. It re-iterates the professional and ethical guideline of the field constantly as if they are foreign to us. The guidelines don’t represent ‘expert tips for maximizing consulting effectiveness’ – these are the basic guidelines we must all follow, a minimum standard. If my supervisee didn’t know these by heart, I would be deeply concerned. What troubles me is that often the guidelines are referred to as if they were rationale enough by themselves – we discharge clients appropriately because the guidelines say we should discharge clients appropriately. That’s not correct. We discharge clients appropriately because that means we aren’t wasting the client’s time and money, that we maximize those we serve, etc. Obviously we must follow the guidelines, but let us understand why we as behavior analysts created them in the first place.
Let's talk about the anecdotes. For a book like this, you need examples. Goofus and Gallant, ya know? But something felt....off…with them. I got this feeling that women were in more negative examples than men. So, I took data on the gender of each anecdote and categorized them into Goofus and Gallant. I would share some of the anecdotes with someone that hadn’t read the book (occasionally multiple people) and asked them if they thought this was, overall, what category that they thought it best fit in. Was this a perfect method? No, but shit, how many reviewers take IOA for their review? Give me some credit.
Over the course of the book, the anecdotes were split roughly 50/50 between men and women, although women had slightly more. This doesn't represent the actual makeup of the field, which is nearly entirely female. This was fine! When I looked at the data on categorization, I found that about 50% of the male examples were portrayed positively, compared to about 33% of the examples with women. Despite there being fewer male examples overall, there was a higher total of ‘good’ male examples than female ones. This isn’t me being nitpicky. You notice this skew while reading, and its distracting.
Beyond these anecdotes, there’s a lot of sexist language in the book. I doubt it was intended, I want to make that clear. But it’s a very “old school” frame of mind that seeps in, which has women stereotypically being pre-occupied with boyfriends, drowning sorrows in ice cream, and being emotional. One example has a woman rationalizing taking a larger caseload because she doesn’t have a boyfriend right now. That’s the primary concern.
I could give many more examples, but I’m just gonna need one. Here is the advice for women on how they should dress:
Emphasis mine. Drink in the tone. While many of those are largely unique to women, there’s quite a few that are not. No, that passage was not directed towards everyone, this is still the ladies’ section. The men’s section comes afterwards. Here’s the entire suite of advice for men:
March 4, 2013
Condescending, redundant, and blatantly sexist. Such a waste of time.
December 6, 2015
A very intense book; all 25 skills and strategies are explained through a behavioral lens. This makes sense considering the book is tailored for aspiring behavior analysts or those wanting to brush up their skills.
This book covers a range of topics from essential business etiquette to time management to coaching. I did not 'feel' that any information was redundant considering the explanation was more related to my field of study i.e. how to use what you know to change what is needed to change.
ANY reader would benefit from it and I hope embrace behaviourism.
This book covers a range of topics from essential business etiquette to time management to coaching. I did not 'feel' that any information was redundant considering the explanation was more related to my field of study i.e. how to use what you know to change what is needed to change.
ANY reader would benefit from it and I hope embrace behaviourism.
October 28, 2019
The best
Very helpful for all BCBAs, and a must read. This book and its authors help the BCBA examine their skills, learn how to improve them, and measure said improvement.
Very helpful for all BCBAs, and a must read. This book and its authors help the BCBA examine their skills, learn how to improve them, and measure said improvement.
September 1, 2020
Great overview and perfect for guiding supervision and trainings for BCBAs!
Read
April 26, 20220 stars. Redundant. Doesn't actually offer up solutions for how to emulate these 25 skills. Full of platitudes.
Read
June 23, 2025Since I read a book for studying it felt important to track it for my reading goal
July 19, 2025
➛ 25 skills ★★★★.5
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews