Visualizing the Growth of Applied Behavior Analysis in Europe
Nadia De Georgia
Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), although it can be applied to any human behavior, is most commonly known as an evidence-based therapy applying the science of learning and behavior to individuals with disabilities. Historically established in the US and currently the only autism intervention covered by US insurance, ABA is much more widely established and accepted in the US than in most other parts of the world. On December 30, 2019, the Behavior Analysis Certification Board released an announcement that as of 2023, they will no longer certify people living and practicing outside of the US and Canada. This decision was based on the extensive growth and demand for professionals outside of the US, the need for more tailored ethical standards, and credentialing best practice. The next few years will thus be critical for the European ABA community to establish new regulatory systems in order to manage future growth ethically and sustainably. After having worked as an Registered Behavior Technician across the world and as I plan on attending graduate school for ABA in Europe next year, this topic has particular relevance to my personal interests and my future career.
Nadia, as a Psychology major, I love the integration of the psychology field into the GIS world. I would be interested to see how the heat maps might be spatially correlated to other mental health related variables such as amount of funding placed into mental health services, or perhaps the level of accessibility to mental health resources citizens from each area have. I’m sure that would be interesting to see if they were truly as strongly correlated as one might think.
Thanks for your comment, Alli. You’re point on accessibility is interesting. In the US, being covered by insurance was a stepping stone to getting more people access to ABA services through mainstream channels. I’d be curious to look at the correlation between the number of BCBAs (or psychologists) in a given country and the ease of access to behavioral health services, which I’m guessing is based on the medical and insurance infrastructure of a country/region.
Very clearly presented, Nadia. The time series shows a clear growth trend in only a few European countries. I wonder why that might be? Were there other accrediting standards in other countries, or was this the standard across the EU? If the latter, then it would be interesting to see if there is evidence for improved outcomes for autism and related conditions in those areas (England, Ireland, Italy) compared to the rest of western Europe, such that retaining some/many/all of the standards for BCBA accreditation moving forward. Thanks again.
This is a very interesting topic. I love the way you integrate animation into the cartographic design and it helps a lot to visualize the trend of data in a straightforward way. I would like to see the discussion of why the growth trend concentrates only on a few countries in western Europe and how it could be related to the VCSs pass rates. Thanks!
I was also interested in exploring this – why is growth highly concentrated in the UK, Ireland and Italy? I was planning on running a Geographically Weighted Regression based on some factors I thought might explain this trend, including length of time since the first BCBA in the country, national language, US military presence, average national education level, and income per capita. However, based on the data I had, I found no relationship between the number of professionals in a country with any of these factors (not to say the relationship doesn’t exist but I didn’t detect one).
In regard to the VCS pass rates, I wonder what’s driving the correlation between number of professionals and number of VCSs: do high quality programs attract professionals to the area? Does having more professionals in the area strengthen the quality of the program? Does having other similar programs nearby improve the quality of a program?
Hello Nadia
I am impressed by the way you applied GIS to your field of interest and the dynamic way you chose to present your results.
I wonder if the cluster trend in the UK and Italy has something to do with the training centers that offer those VCS’s Master programs? do you know how many training centers in ABA with VCS’s programs are in Europe and where?
Hi Maria. Yes, there are 30 VCSs in Europe as of right now and their locations are shown in Map 1, where each masters program is represented by a yellow star. I’m especially curious to see how the field continues to grow in the future. Perhaps these areas that have built up strong training programs and professional communities will remain hotspots that train professionals from all throughout Europe. Or perhaps, more masters programs will emerge and the clusters of professionals will disperse more evenly throughout the continent. I personally hope to contribute to establishing more of an ABA presence in Germany as I think it’s important to have local experts and local buy-in!
Hi Nadia! This poster is very interesting, and I love the way you presented your information in the time series map as a gif. I noticed you weighted Verified Course Sequences with high passing rates twice as heavily, what did you consider to be a high passing rate, and were there many programs in this category? thank you for sharing!
Thanks, Alyssa! Good question – pass rates are not released for programs younger than 4 years old or if fewer than 6 people from the program sat for the exam that year. I originally wanted to include the pass rates of all the VCSs but found the vast majority had no data released, which shows how young and small most of the programs are!
Of 30 VCSs total, 7 programs had consistently reported scores (which ended up being all of the programs in the UK and Ireland, range 57%-100%) and those were the only ones I counted as having a “reported and high pass rate”. Only 1 VCS had a reported pass rate of 33% over two years, which I did not consider high enough!
I am very impressed with your animated poster, well done! I also like your topic, ABA is super important. Do you know why the board is making the UK and EU fend for themselves?
Hi Nadia! Great work! Very well explained, it’s very clear why this research is both relevant and important after reading your poster. A couple of questions that come to mind for me:
Does there seem to be serious movement in the European ABA community to build the needed regulatory infrastructure, and where (if you know) does the momentum for that seem to be coming from? For example, does there seem to be evidence that the presumed regulatory bodies are pulling their organizers from the UK and Italy?
What effect (if any) do you think broader European politics (specifically Brexit) will have on the creation of this regulatory infrastructure since so many BCBAs come from the UK?