Early Intervention psychologist or ABA?

[DRCM]

Hello. Does anyone here work as a psychologist with early intervention or preschool children?

I would love to work with special needs children (especially on the autism spectrum) between birth to age 4. I'm just confused as to how exactly I should do that. I am thinking of getting a Ph.D or Psy.D in developmental psychology or a related area. I would love to do evaluations, make diagnoses, work in the preschool setting, etc.

However, since I'd like to work in early intervention, I'm thinking of possibly getting a doctorate degree in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) instead. I know it's not the same as psychology, and it's a narrower field, but I'd still be able to work in the early childhood setting with special needs children. (I'd also prefer a doctorate degree because I may eventually want to become a part-time professor or teach a few courses).

So can anyone offer any advice? Anyone work in Early Intervention as either a psychologist or behavior analyst? I'd love to read personal experiences on this.

Thanks!

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[deleted343839]

I'm not an early intervention specialist, but I've known some. The thing about being a BCBA is you're a bit of a one-trick pony. You have a powerful but narrow set of tools. That's fine if, say, you want to run an ABA clinic. As a PhD you have more breadth in your therapeutic repertoire, plus you are trained to administer a full battery of psychological assessments that are usually considered necessary for diagnosis. There are a lot of PhDs out there making very good livings essentially diagnosing development disorders for a living. If you actually want to do intervention work, (A) bless you because well trained people in this area are needed and (B) there is no reason you cannot also specialize in ABA as a full fledged psychologist.

A PhD in developmental psychology will prepare you more for research and evaluation careers. It sounds like what you're aiming for would be a doctorate in clinical psychology specializing in infancy and early childhood.

 

[futureapppsy2]

I've worked a lot in early intervention and know a lot of ABA PhDs. Like MamaPhD said, only do a doctorate in ABA if you are comfortable with just doing ABA for the rest of your career. In my experience, people who get ABA PhDs are incredibly dedicated to strict Skinnerian behaviorism and thus really have to be dedicated to doing "pure" ABA research, typically involving people with autism. ABA, of course, can apply to many, many things beyond autism, but the clinical (i.e., non-bench) side of ABA field really does seemed to have accepted its pigeonholing into the "ASD/DD field," for better or worse. People I've known with ABA-leaning interests but who didn't want to be locked into strict ABA research have gotten PhDs in special education, educational psychology, school psychology, and clinical psychology. This isn't to bash ABA at all--the ABA PhDs I know are really successful and do great work--but just to say if you want to get a PhD in ABA, you should be comfortable doing just ABA for the rest of your career. Also, I don't know what you mean by "evaluations," but keep in mind at BCBAs, even with doctorates, can't actually diagnose ASD or other disabilities. They can certainly do behavioral evaluations--and do so very well--but they shouldn't be rendering clinical diagnoses.

 

[ClinicalABA]

That is exactly what I do. I am a licensed psychologist (Ph.D. in clinical psych), as well as a BCBA-D. I spend a few days per week doing clinic-based diagnostic assessments for kiddos under age 3 suspected of having and ASD diagnosis. That's all billed under my psychologist licensure (required in my state- MA- for the diagnosis to qualify the child for ABA services.). The other days I do a combination of direct school based services (primarily pre-k and elementary schools with a focus on ASD, with a smattering of older kids and non ASD issues such as social skills training, school-refusal, and academic non-compliance) and supervision of home-based ABA services. School and home-based services are billed primarily under my BCBA credential, though an occasional school service is billed as a psychologist (e.g. formal assessment services). All in all, it's a pretty awesome combination of work.

I'd agree with what others have said about the BCBA credential. From a clinical standpoint, your limited (by reimbursement practices and, to a lesser extent, history and mythology) to primarily working with ASD and DD populations. Recently, many states have enacted licensure requirements for BCBAs. This may open up possibilities for more funding sources with non-ASD populations, but we ain't there yet. Note that the BCBA is a masters level credential, with Ph.D. programs in ABA being very much research and teaching focused (though with a wider variety of clinical and non-clinical populations than purely clinical ABA Master's programs). Currently, AFAIK, there are no formal additional clinical privileges afforded to ABA Ph.D.s (or BCBA-Ds for that matter). The combination of licensed psychologist and BCBA is pretty marketable and offers some good flexibility. Unfortunately, it's not a typical outcome of a single training program.

On another note- ABA is very much conceptually systematic and much of the science (and practice) evolved from the work of Skinner. However, to call it "strict Skinnerian behaviorism" is, while somewhat accurate, an all to often misunderstood (and pejorative) statement. Skinner was an experimental behavior analysis and philosopher (e.g. radical behaviorism), rather than an applied behavior analyst. He was a brilliant and prolific researcher and publishing, and a lot of what I do (e.g. assessing verbal behavior development in young children) is directly informed by his work and uses his terminology, specific clinical techniques come from other researchers who have applied his work. Also- people often mistakenly associate Skinner with a total rejection of private events, when this couldn't be further from the truth.

 

[futureapppsy2]

That is exactly what I do. I am a licensed psychologist (Ph.D. in clinical psych), as well as a BCBA-D. I spend a few days per week doing clinic-based diagnostic assessments for kiddos under age 3 suspected of having and ASD diagnosis. That's all billed under my psychologist licensure (required in my state- MA- for the diagnosis to qualify the child for ABA services.). The other days I do a combination of direct school based services (primarily pre-k and elementary schools with a focus on ASD, with a smattering of older kids and non ASD issues such as social skills training, school-refusal, and academic non-compliance) and supervision of home-based ABA services. School and home-based services are billed primarily under my BCBA credential, though an occasional school service is billed as a psychologist (e.g. formal assessment services). All in all, it's a pretty awesome combination of work.

I'd agree with what others have said about the BCBA credential. From a clinical standpoint, your limited (by reimbursement practices and, to a lesser extent, history and mythology) to primarily working with ASD and DD populations. Recently, many states have enacted licensure requirements for BCBAs. This may open up possibilities for more funding sources with non-ASD populations, but we ain't there yet. Note that the BCBA is a masters level credential, with Ph.D. programs in ABA being very much research and teaching focused (though with a wider variety of clinical and non-clinical populations than purely clinical ABA Master's programs). Currently, AFAIK, there are no formal additional clinical privileges afforded to ABA Ph.D.s (or BCBA-Ds for that matter). The combination of licensed psychologist and BCBA is pretty marketable and offers some good flexibility. Unfortunately, it's not a typical outcome of a single training program.

On another note- ABA is very much conceptually systematic and much of the science (and practice) evolved from the work of Skinner. However, to call it "strict Skinnerian behaviorism" is, while somewhat accurate, an all to often misunderstood (and pejorative) statement. Skinner was an experimental behavior analysis and philosopher (e.g. radical behaviorism), rather than an applied behavior analyst. He was a brilliant and prolific researcher and publishing, and a lot of what I do (e.g. assessing verbal behavior development in young children) is directly informed by his work and uses his terminology, specific clinical techniques come from other researchers who have applied his work. Also- people often mistakenly associate Skinner with a total rejection of private events, when this couldn't be further from the truth.

Oh, I know that! I've taken several doctoral courses on ABA theory and while they were applied, they were also strongly grounded in the tenants of radical behaviorism. I don't mean "strict Skinnerian behaviorism" in a pejorative sense at all. Rather, just that our ABA program--and others where we've gotten and sent faculty--are truly pure behaviorists. I come from a fairly strong behavioral orientation in psychology, but I've often gotten politely called out in ABA classes for not being a pure behaviorist in my explanations. In one class, we read skinner's work on private events, and I agree that it--and much of behaviorism-
-is greatly mischaracterized and misunderstood and that there's a lot of value in reading the primary source text. We definitely read people beyond Skinner but they were all strict behaviorists, and everything was always conceptualized in purely behavioral terms (we read some of Hayes' ACT/RFT work, with the caveat that it was only conceptualized in the strict behavioral sense--and Hayes identifies as such, so it worked). Prior to that, I'd taken psychology graduate courses with strong behavioral leanings, but they lacked the pure behaviorism that the ABA-program classes I've taken have had.

Having seen an ABA PhD program and a behaviorally-oriented psychology PhD program up close and being a (third-wave leaning) behaviorist myself, though, I still stand by my statement that even a strongly behavioral psychology PhD program is going to be a lot more flexible towards non-purely behavior orientations/conceptualizations than an ABA program.

OP, also consider school psych programs. Many have good opportunities for Early Childhood/Early Intervention field experiences and research.

 

[DRCM]

Thank you all for your responses. ClinicalABA, that sounds just like what I want to do. So I guess it'll be best to continue in (clinical or school) psychology, and just get certified in ABA. Thank you all!

 

[ClinicalABA]

Oh, I know that! I've taken several doctoral courses on ABA theory and while they were applied, they were also strongly grounded in the tenants of radical behaviorism. I don't mean "strict Skinnerian behaviorism" in a pejorative sense at all. Rather, just that our ABA program--and others where we've gotten and sent faculty--are truly pure behaviorists. I come from a fairly strong behavioral orientation in psychology, but I've often gotten politely called out in ABA classes for not being a pure behaviorist in my explanations. In one class, we read skinner's work on private events, and I agree that it--and much of behaviorism-
-is greatly mischaracterized and misunderstood and that there's a lot of value in reading the primary source text. We definitely read people beyond Skinner but they were all strict behaviorists, and everything was always conceptualized in purely behavioral terms (we read some of Hayes' ACT/RFT work, with the caveat that it was only conceptualized in the strict behavioral sense--and Hayes identifies as such, so it worked). Prior to that, I'd taken psychology graduate courses with strong behavioral leanings, but they lacked the pure behaviorism that the ABA-program classes I've taken have had.

Agree with you totally and no way thought you were being pejorative- just that the term "strict behaviorism" as applied to Skinner is often mistakenly believed to be the less flexible S-R methodological behaviorism of Watson et al. I never miss an opportunity to point out that ACT is behaviorism! Those guys two a relatively dense and concept (RFT), developed an effective and conceptually systematic intervention, and packaged it with a very marketable name. Masterful!

 

[ClinicalABA]

Thank you all for your responses. ClinicalABA, that sounds just like what I want to do. So I guess it'll be best to continue in (clinical or school) psychology, and just get certified in ABA. Thank you all!

Look for experience with the ADOS-2 (definitely including Toddler Module), as well as early childhood cognitive and language assessment instruments (Bayley; PLS). VBMAPP training is also very helpful. Come back around these parts come practicum and post-doc time.