Jon Bailey (1)

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." Please take a moment to recall that Cannibal Holocaust is an indie film. A foreign indie film, no less.

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:


Acceptable attire for women in the day-to-day job as a behavior analyst includes what is generally referred to as “business casual” attire: oxford cloth shirts, dressy knit tops, scarves, blouses, vests, fitted or dress sweaters, and blazers or sport coats with business casual khakis or slacks and business casual skirts and dresses. If your consulting firm has a polo-style shirt with the company logo, this is fine too.

Examples of unacceptable attire include suggestive, risqué, or revealing attire; clothing made of sheer or see-through fabrics; sweatshirts and T-shirts; athletic wear; stiletto heels; oversized
sweaters; sundresses; crop tops; midriff tops; tube tops; tank tops; sleeveless tops; undershirts; flannels; miniskirts; halter tops and halter dresses; sweatpants; jeans; leggings; stretch or stirrup pants; convertible slacks and shorts; cargo pocket pants and slacks; tightfitting pants (we don’t need to know if you are wearing a thong); spandex or Lycra anything; nylon jogging suits; novelty buttons; baseball-style hats; gaudy jewelry; and similar items of casual attire that do not present a businesslike appearance. You might have a tendency to think jeans and T-shirts are OK in settings such as preschool classrooms “because that is what the staff wears,” but remember that you are trying to establish yourself as a professional, and “student clothes” will not help you gain the respect and credibility you need.

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:


For men, oxford cloth shirts, clean and pressed polo shirts, and blazers or sport coats with business casual khakis or slacks will usually be acceptable. Not acceptable are jeans, T-shirts, tennis shoes, and baggy pants with underwear showing. For men it is expected that any facial hair will be neatly trimmed.
… (mehr)

"But Kaitlynn, you already know how to think like a behavior analyst!"

I picked up this book because I 1) Admire Jon Bailey and the work he's done to promote the field, and 2) to find out how a more experienced BCBA responds to questions we commonly get from clients and caregivers.

Gotta say, this book nailed it. All of the questions were common and the answers accurate and concise without using difficult terminology. I'll definitely be stealing some of his examples in the future. The organization of the book and how it is written makes it a lot more approachable for use by families curious about ABA services.

The last sections cover how to get into an ABA program and what to expect, as well as pop culture or philosophical questions. In particular I liked how he handled determinism vs. free will. That is a hard topic for a BCBA to discuss with a non-BCBA without putting them off.

The very final question was how to deal with the people that, upon learning you are a behavior analyst, reply with "Are you analyzing my behavior right now?" I laughed out loud at this questions inclusion and appreciated how it was handled, with several suggestions for humorous replies and an admonition that questions like that, even joking, set us up to represent our science and our field.

At the end of each question is a list of terms whose purpose I couldn't figure out. Am I supposed to use them in Google searches? Look them up? Check them off as mastered? These were followed by exercises. Many of these were great: Search online, read an article, observe behavior, try reinforcement. Many of them included looking up professionals in the community and scheduling time to chat with them, and that seemed like a very hit-or-miss approach that, at worst, might be extremely expensive. I would have liked to see more book and article recommendations, for those who want to learn more but do not want to get into an ABA program.

TL;DR: This short and to-the-point book by a major behavior analyst has excellent answers to common questions on ABA, a valuable resource for laymen and professionals alike.… (mehr)