Join us for the official kickoff of Midwest Symposium – Day 1 as we warmly welcome all attendees and set the stage for the day ahead. This brief session will highlight key information about the event and include helpful housekeeping notes to ensure a smooth and engaging experience. We’re excited to begin the day with you!​

The landscape of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy has increasingly shifted towards home-based service delivery, recognizing its unique advantages in fostering skill generalization within a child's natural environment.[1, 2, 3, 4] Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) operating in these settings play a pivotal role in designing and implementing individualized interventions. However, this critical role is accompanied by a distinct set of professional and personal challenges, including heightened stressors [1, 5, 6, 7], potential isolation, and complex ethical dilemmas inherent to the less controlled home environment. This report explores how reflective practice, grounded in established theoretical frameworks from John Dewey, Donald Schön, and Jack Mezirow, offers a profound and transformative solution to these challenges. By systematically applying various forms and depths of reflection, home-based BCBAs can significantly enhance their clinical decision-making, cultivate robust professional growth and self-awareness, build emotional resilience, strengthen supervisory and collaborative relationships, and navigate intricate ethical considerations. Ultimately, integrating reflective practice is not merely a beneficial adjunct but a strategic imperative for ensuring sustained clinical excellence and professional well-being within the dynamic context of home-based ABA service provision.​

This workshop will cover the components of PBIS along with effective treatment, IDEA rules and regulations, and finally review specific skills sets required of a clinician in order to effectively work in the school. The presentation will also tie in ethical considerations and BACB guidelines in order to ensure clinicians stay within scope of practice and moral obligation.​​

​This group supervision series is designed for student analysts seeking structured, high-quality guidance as they progress toward certification and the opportunity to earn unrestricted supervision hours. Each session covers essential topics from the BACB® task list, including assessment, intervention, measurement, ethical decision-making, and professional conduct. Through collaborative discussions, practical exercises, and real-world application, participants will deepen their understanding of behavior analytic principles while developing critical skills for both clinical and professional success.​

Join us for an engaging session designed to inform, inspire, and support your professional development. This presentation will offer valuable insights and practical strategies relevant to the field. Full session details, including learning objectives, will be added shortly. Stay tuned!

One of the manu skills behavior analysts are taught focus on our ability to analyze and assess environmental risk factors. We also evaluate whether certain assessemnts and interventions may cuase undue risk related to the client and other related parties. In our training, we are WARNED about these risks and given strategies for how to mitigate that, but do we ever receive formal training on how to use risk assessments effectively? In this talk, Dr. Shane T. Spiker will review risk assessments and how they may be used, ranging from selecting the right assessment through using assessments to inform decisions about treatment.

Take this time to enjoy lunch, recharge, and connect with colleagues.​​

An essential element of behavior analytic service provision is caregiver training, wherein providers provide rationale, information, modeling, and feedback to client caregivers. Although caregiver training is an important element of ABA services, behavior analysts often lack the critical skills to deliver effective caregiver training. Recent criticisms of behavior analytic providers have shed light on areas in which behavior analysts may be lacking when it comes to training and service delivery. For example, there has been an increased focus on the development of a “compassionate care" repertoire of skills for behavior analysts working with patients and families (e.g., Taylor et al., 2018). Further, survey data has suggested that behavior analysts may not be receiving adequate training in essential relationship-building skills that may enhance the level of care they are providing (i.e., Leblanc, Taylor, & Marchese, 2020). Furthermore, behavior analysts receive limited training in child development, which may provide insight into caregiver goals and training. Similarly, behavior analysts are often criticized for poor collaborative and consultative skills, particularly when working with those in other professions (e.g., Critchfield et al., 2017). While these skills have not historically been emphasized in behavior analysis, they are prominent in the field of psychology. Thus, this two-session professional learning experience will acknowledge our historical and theoretical psychological roots and discuss relevant and necessary skills from psychology in the four Cs of caregiver training: connection, child development, consultation, and collaboration. ​

​As analysts, we have many opportunities to work within the school setting. However, often analysts and RBTS find themselves in situations where they feel there is a lack of collaboration and communication. In addition, analysts and RBTs feel pressures from the families we serve advocating, to ending up more as an advocate during contentious situations. This talk will present discussions from both a BCBA school expert along with former district level school administrators on some of the pitfalls BCBA/RBTs engage in along with solutions on how to build positive relationships that both schools and families appreciate.​

This session will discuss the shift from paper to electronic data collection, the current trends, and recent research on advantages and disadvantages of both. ​ ​

It's true that our profession requires a lot of blood, sweat, and tears which can take up more space than it should in our day to day life. But how do we find balance between wanting to help others but also needing to help ourselves? This interactive workshop will allow participants to self-reflect and identify areas in their life that could use more attention for overall improvements to their health and wellbeing. Once identified, we will lay a blue print using OBM tools and techniques so that participants can walk away with a concrete plan for achieving their wellness goals. ​​

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This session will feature a case study featuring a parent and adult with autism who lives independently. They will reflect back on his experience with PBS, discussing the challenges with access to the least restrictive environment early on and discussing his progression with PBS Services, and fading of services. His transition to post high school education, gaining employment and building natural supports has led to a successfullly employed and very independent young man. ​​​​​​​​​ ​

Join us for relaxed evening of connection and conversation! Enjoy PBS-sponsored appetizers and unwind with two complimentary drink tickets. It's the perfect opportunity to network, mingle with colleagues, and celebrate a great day together.​