5 Tips for Supervision

As a supervisor for trainees in supervision to get board certified, I often get asked for strategies on how to stay organized when completing supervision. These tips are specific to the field of behavior analysis, however; I think you can apply them to most coaching situations! Here are my recommendations:

1) Read the Guidelines

Read the experience documents on the BACB website. Make a list of specific questions from your supervisor about the rules of supervision.Watch the experience tracker youtube video from the BACB website to learn how to use the experience tracker.

2) The Experience Tracker

Fill it out starting from day one, and ask for feedback from your supervisor. At the end of each night, ask yourself "Did I do something behavior analytic today?" If yes, then before you go to bed, log your time in your tracker. (It may help to have it downloaded to your phone in the office excel app).

3) Create an Organization System

Keep a binder (or computer folder) with dividers for each assessment you learn to complete, relevant research you read, or sample data sheets/resources from your supervisor.

4) Help Yourself for Later

Something I have my supervisees do (because I wish I did this when I was in supervision), is from a sample assessment such as the VB-MAPP, PEAK, ABLLS-R, etc, create a generic "goal bank" from the assessment. Generate data sheets that would be tied to these goals. This should be done with feedback from your supervisor, and of course, individualized if you pull from it for future clients, but this is good practice in writing therapy/IEP/treatment goals, and will help you have something to reference when you pass the test and get out there into the field. This can also apply to other activities that you will do often after you become board certified…your supervisor can also give you some more ideas!

5) Practice, Practice, Practice

Ask your supervisor for "homework," if they aren't assigning you any, so that you can practice data analysis, graphing, assessment writing, and training others...because one day you will become the supervisor.

If you’d like to schedule a call to discuss remote supervision or your supervision questions, schedule here!

*PLEASE NOTE: THE BEHAVIOR ANALYST CERTIFICATION BOARD (“BACB”) DOES NOT SPONSOR, APPROVE OR ENDORSE SHAPING DEVELOPMENT, LLC, THE MATERIALS, INFORMATION OR SESSIONS IDENTIFIED HEREIN.

How Can Behavior Analysis Assist in the Study of Machine Learning?

Recently, we have been contemplating the relation between machine learning and behavior analysis.  Interestingly enough, this topic of the collaboration of machine learning and behavior analysis is not new.  William Huchison, in 1998, discussed "Computer Simulations of Verbal Behavior," and compared the learning of verbal behavior in computer simulations to that of a human learning verbal behavior, proving that "operant learning is sufficient to produce verbal behavior."  Fast forward to 2012, and in Huchison's work, "The Central Role for Behavior Analysis in Modern Robotics, and Vice Versa," it is observed that most computer "systems assume basic foundations of operant conditioning (Huchison, 2012)."

Howard Rachlin (2012) also discusses the similarities between the IBM computer, Watson, and a human being, in his work, "Making IBM's Computer, Watson, Human," outlining that the basic needs of humans and computers are the same:  we need an energy supply, protection from the elements, maintenance, and our bodies to be maintained at a reasonable temperature.  He theorizes that by creating a "Watson II" with more characteristics of human beings (i.e. being able to "override its own logical mechanism" after establishing "rules"), ultimately:

"those who would see Watson II as nonhuman because he was manufactured, not born, might go on to say that it would be worse for humanity were we all to be made as Watson II may be made. To me, this would be a step too far. We are all a conglomeration of built-in and environmentally modified mechanisms anyway. And no one can deny that there are flaws in our current construction." 

In both of these articles, Huchison and Rachlin, create a call to action, discussing the need for collaboration in computer science and behavior analysis, as computer science evolves to machine learning and artificial intelligence.

So how do we do this?  Ultimately, computer science majors interested in programming, should receive training in behavior analysis.  Currently, this is not happening, as most computer science programs have adopted more of a "pop psychology" background in their current research and practice (see Ink's article:  "MIT Researchers Use Reddit to Create World's First Psychopath AI).  What this further demonstrates, is not only a need for the dissemination and training of our science to the computer world, but also a need for a similar ethics code in the shaping of behavior when programming, as we do as behavior analysts working with human beings.

So what do you think? Comment below!

References:

Hutchison W.R. (1998). Computer simulations of verbal behavior for research and persuasion. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior. 15:117–120. 

Hutchison, W. R. (2012). The Central Role for Behavior Analysis in Modern Robotics, and Vice Versa. The Behavior Analyst, 35(1), 29–35.

Rachlin H (2012).  Making IBM's computer, Watson, human. The Behavior Analyst. 35:1–16