Ongoing, Explicit, and Direct Functional Assessment is a Necessary Component of ACT as Behavior Analysis: A Response to Tarbox et al. (2020)

Abstract

Tarbox et al. (2020) offered preliminary functional analyses and practical guidelines for incorporating acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) within the scope of practice of applied behavior analysis (ABA). Although we agree that this is a needed goal, the approach taken by the authors gives rise to important conceptual, ethical, and practical concerns that warrant further discussion. In particular, we propose that explicit functional assessment of behavior (FA) is necessary in any intervention said to be ABA, and we wonder about the apparent omission of explicit FA throughout the article. We question what we read as the authors' tacit assertion that the functions of verbal stimuli can be inferred based on behavioral topography, that the function of verbal behavior can likewise be inferred based on form, and that behavior-behavior relations are both causal and predictive of behavior, irrespective of context. Furthermore, we consider whether a number of procedures for functional assessment presented in the article under consideration are consistent with established ABA best practices. Finally, we discuss the extent to which ACT interventions absent explicit FA in ABA interventions introduces the possibility that the interventions may do harm, arguing that further discussion around competence and scope of ethical practice for behavior analysts who wish to incorporate ACT into their work is needed. Keywords Applied behavior analysis. ABA. Acceptance and commitment therapy. ACT. Functional assessment. Behavior-behavior relations. Ethics It was perhaps inevitable that acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), which has been all but synonymous with clinical behavior analysis for the past 20 years, would eventually return to its intellectual roots by coming to the attention of professional behavior analysts. ACT was originally rooted in behavioral theory, but for the past two decades, ACT's focus on mid-level terminology and on training formulations designed for nonbehavior-analytic psychotherapists has perhaps left the model feeling unfamiliar to the very people who should understand it best. Today we see a growing number of behavior analysts eager to integrate ACT into their work-but how and why? One possible answer to these questions was proposed by Tarbox et al. (2020) in "Acceptance and Commitment Training within the Scope of Practice of Applied Behavior Analysis." This ambitious article sets forth some ideas about how ACT (rechristened as acceptance and commitment "training" rather than "therapy" in order to deemphasize the much-promoted psychotherapeutic aspects of ACT) might be properly applied within the accepted scope of practice of behavior analysts. We agree that these questions are important both to the future of applied behavior analysis (ABA) and to the ongoing fidelity of ACT (as a model of psychotherapy) to its behavior-analytic roots. We salute the work done by Tarbox et al. (2020) in preparing this sweeping vision for the scientific literature. Yet upon review of the article, we find ourselves