Characteristics of effective collaborations include equal contribution at the professional level. Collaboration is used to refer two activities involving contribution at a professional level (Koenig, 2006). Evidence-based practice improving services for individuals with communication disorders, within a teamwork setting and within clinical settings. Within both settings, research, literature, and conference settings, etc. the benefits will apply to both fields to enhance services to support clients. The benefits of collaboration between the ABA and SLP professionals are that they may create better therapeutic approaches and practices through their combined expertise. Collaboration also makes it possible to improve support in all intervention teams. Specifically, where there are problems which have occurred previously. For example, both ABA and SLP professionals, within their own experiences, have both spoken to families that struggle implementing treatment to their family member in their home. They did not know how to integrate the recommendations from the professional consultants. In collaboration between the two professionals there would be better communication to the family about the complexities of the needs of their family member with disabilities. There is a waterdrop ripple effect when one part of the team contributes. They are supporting each other and in turn could show reduction of services needed by either professional, or neither professional had to start from scratch on their services. When professionals collaborate, they share ideas with each other and can create integrated programs at parallel levels. This helps others make effective progress as well, because there is then published proof or disproof of methods they may or may not want to utilize. Therefore, ABA and SLP professionals in this article game recommendations such as how to share treatment data and how to share innovative teaching procedures, ranging from basic information to experience of successful professionals within the applied environment. There are also suggestions for reading and researching within the profession and an emphasis on sharing collaborative discoveries with each other by breaking it down into understandable data. Creating effective collaborative relationships calls for embracing each other’s strengths. Behavioral medicine is an interdisciplinary field. Producing research and sharing ideas they have developed in their field from its very beginning has shown the need for integrating psychology with biomedicine (Greenwald, 2015). Biomedical science and Behaviorism are composed of similar characteristics and procedures including observation - direct and instrumental, transforming contacts and remote observation. Particularly within direct observation, behavior science has an important role. Some challenges with collaboration between these two fields are present because they are very different disciplines. Where behavior science emphasizes contextualism, biology emphasizes mechanism. Biology, in other words, identifies the parts, and psychology identifies the relationship of the parts. All of their philosophies however stem from scientific discipline which both have a lot to gain from each other. Seeing each other’s lack may be helpful as collaboration is in its infancy. Many ABA therapists are integrating biomedical treatments and working in collaboration with medical providers, and vice versa. If this continues, contemporary public health may improve in its cost effectiveness in both behavioral and medical health care. Both psychology and biomedicine are ideal evidence-based scientific practices. The administration of these programs through collaboration then will likely make more progress, and reducing the experimental aspects, trial and error treatment packages of both types. Clinicians will make large contributions to the prevention and treatment of diseases in both categories (Greenwald, 2015).

Collaboration within the field of ABA

Koenig, M., & Gerenser, J. (2006). SLP-ABA: Collaborating to support individuals with communication impairments. The Journal Of Speech And Language Pathology – Applied Behavior Analysis, 1(1), 2-10. doi: 10.1037/h0100180
Greenwald, A., Roose, K., & Williams, L. (2015). Applied behavior analysis and behavioral medicine: History of the relationship and opportunities for renewed collaboration. Behavior and Social Issues, 24, Article 23-38. https://doi.org/10.5210/bsi.v24i0.5448


University of Wisconsin - Superior

Supervisors can support staff in learning how to teach meaningful skills to their clients. They can do this in two main ways. Formal structured teaching in a classroom or training modules, on the job and face-to-face. They can also provide more informal daily activities that are learning situations to help staff gain an idea of how to teach. Some common problems may arise in which a supervisor may need to further train their staff how to improve their own proficiency, they can do this by checking in often for additional teaching moments. While a supervisor is training staff how to teach meaningful skills they should allow the staff to develop their own individualized plan for teaching their client’s skills. Then as the plan unfolds and there are openings for the supervisor to offer support they can offer ongoing supervision, monitoring, and support like correction, if needed. As long as the proof is showing that the staff is teaching their client’s well, the supervisor will recognize that the client is developing the skills they should. The skills would include two areas; Routine, or natural activities and the ability to repeat those tasks. If the client shows difficulty repeating tasks then another form of support can come from the supervisor which may include naturalistic, formal modeling or using group times to interact as staff with supervisor and model the examples of behavior for the staff to refresh and learn more. These forms of teaching supervision put the power to create a teaching plan into the hands of staff, keep them engaged and also keep them aware of their own development and progress as their client’s show the proof that they are successful. To prevent and reduce non-work behaviors situationally, non-work behavior may need an intervention which requires supervisor action. When that happens, the supervisor can focus on the activities that should be occurring, not those that shouldn’t. This indirect approach works well for staff morale and also gets the point across that there is work to prioritize. Sometimes the non-work behaviors are subtle, or minor and just need to be monitored in an indirect supervision approach. In that case, deterrents can help. Deterrents such as work schedules, the supervisor’s presence, monitoring, and feedback (redirecting focus) are subtle and effective enough to keep staff on track. Flexibility on the agency and supervisor’s part is important here too. There should be some room for creating time specifically for nonwork activities to fulfill staff enjoyment or on strenuous days, creating downtime from physically straining activities, such as hot days, cold days or physically challenging activities like a lot of mobility aid or cleaning. Utilizing formal agency, legal breaktime is essential, with additional breaks using the supervisor’s best professional judgement and staff voting. Lastly, it's important for the supervisor to remember that there is always a non-work behavior ratio every day. I hope the supervisor and staff can come up with a consensus as to how much is too much, making sure duties are getting done and done well.



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