SPE563 TL5 Self Evaluation Summary- C Hughes

Carlie Hughes

Arizona State University

SPE 562 Personnel Supervision and Organizational Behavior Management in Educational

Settings

Dr. Samuel DiGangi

CI Danielle Youhana

February 27th, 2024

 This is the fifth BACB self-assessment that I have had to complete, and my last one was

completed in August 2023 in course SPE562 – Concepts and Principles of Applied Behavior

Analysis. When looking at my previous assessment, I can see that I had scored myself low in the

sections E – Ethics, two questions in section G – Behavior-change Procedures (G18, G19), one

question in H – Selecting and Implementing Interventions (H5) and scored myself low on 1

question in section I – Personnel Supervision and Management (I8).

Since last August, I did end up taking my SPE 567 class on Ethics, however I was not able

to score myself higher in section E – Ethics in my most recent BACB self-assessment. I have

noticed that when I was taking the coursework, I felt confident in my knowledge, and I felt as

though I am retaining the information. However, I have noticed, not just with this assessment

but on the previous ones as well, if it is a section that I don’t get to utilize in my everyday work

life (sections B, C and most of G for example), I don’t maintain the skills that I was taught. The

SPE 567 ethics coursework discusses the ethical guidelines set forth once you are a BCBA, and

currently I am still operating as an RBT and actively following the RBT ethical code. I feel that

this contributes to my lack of maintenance within section E because I am not having to actively

recall the BCBA ethics codes or even utilize them. Along with this, I am currently accruing my

BCBA hours, but my current clinical director has not focused my unrestricted hours on the

ethical requirements of being a BCBA but has instead focused my supervision hours on

implementing behavior change procedures, and being able to review current progress to ensure

that we are giving our client’s the best interventions that we can. I also feel that because of this, I

have not been able to maintain my knowledge in the Ethics portion of the self-assessment.

In section G – Behavior-change Procedures, I was able to score myself higher on G18,

but was not able to score higher on G19 (contingency contracting), and actually scored lower on

G10 (teaching simple and conditional discriminations) and G20 (self-management strategies)

on this assessment. I currently work with children who are between the ages of 2 and 6 (early

intervention), and we do not utilize contingency contracts with my clients at my clinic. I feel as
though I scored low on G19 on this assessment is because I have actually never created a

contingency contract or have even seen one in person other than when I had to create one for a

previous course, so being able to recall what one is or how to use one has been difficult. As for

question G10 (simple and conditional discriminations), this is something I have reached out to

my BCBA about and have sat with her and discussed this topic. This is one of those topics that

confuses me, and when we discussed it only one example was given. I feel as though I can begin

to explain it, but not in a way that I feel confident enough to be able to actually teach this topic

to another person. Question G20 (self-management strategies) was another one that I scored

low on during this assessment, and that is also due to the fact that I feel as though I have a basic

understanding of what this would be, but I haven’t been ablet to use any of this in my everyday

work because none of my client’s utilize self-management strategies at this time.

On my last assessment, from August 2023, I scored myself low on H5. On the most

recent assessment I still scored myself low on H5 (Plan for possible unwanted effects when using

reinforcement, extinction, and punishment procedures. This is another one of those topics

where I can explain and teach what each of these terms mean (reinforcement, extinction, and

punishment) but I don’t completely understand what it means to plan for unwanted side effects.

It could be that this is something that we do at my clinic, but it is written within the target

protocols and has never been pointed out as “we do ____ to plan for unwanted effects on

____”. I think if I were to be shown that certain procedures are implemented because of this, I

would be able to see exactly what it means to plan for unwanted side effects. I would like to be

able to see this and how it pertains to our current clients, so that I can gain a better

understanding, and I will reach out to my BCBA to do so.

I also noticed that on the last assessment and the most recent one, I still scored myself

low on I8 (evaluate the effects of supervision) and have actually scored myself lower on I6 (use

functional assessment approach to identify variables affecting personnel performance), and I7

(use function-based strategies to improve personnel performance) on the recent assessment.

With I8, I feel as though this is another topic that I do not get to discuss with my BCBA as it’s

not something we touch on when doing our current supervision. We do get supervised, and I can

understand why supervision is important, but I cannot fully explain the other factors that we

need to take into account when evaluating the effects of supervision. I feel that the lack of

discussion with these topics during my current supervision also attributes to why I have scored

myself low on I6 and I7. We do not use any of the formal performance diagnostics at my clinic,

but we do send out surveys every quarter that as how the employees feel about work and if they

are happy. However, it does not really address what issues they have, or how to improve on

them, and so I have not had any experience with a true performance diagnostic in person yet,

and that is why I scored myself low on that topic. The same goes with I7, because we do not use

any formal diagnostics, I feel as though we don’t really address the function of behavior when it

comes to the employee’s performance. We do have open communication, so we do get feedback

about how people feel, but we have never formally sat down and had a discussion of “why is your

performance this way” and “what can we do to help”. Recently, as of this last week, my clinical

director has actually assigned me a task to sit down and do mock supervisions with the

employees and their clients to see what they struggle with, how to better serve them as the

technicians, and what we can do to make their job more enjoyable. I am hoping that with this

task, I may come to the understanding of why employee’s performance is the way that it is, and

hopefully be able to address it in the future with the guidance of my clinical director.

The last section that I noticed I scored lower on due to not maintaining the skills is

section D – Experimental Designs. This is another section that I don’t get any experience with at

my clinic. I feel that experimental designs aren’t always used unless you are actively conducting

research. However, I do feel as though this may be something I could come in contact with if my

BCBA chooses to compare interventions with a client, but I feel as though this would have to be

a very specific opportunity that may not arise.