At Mindcolor, we believe that providing the best possible care for children with autism requires more than just following established routines but requires a relentless commitment to Quality Assurance (QA). Because of this, we’re elated to announce that our team’s latest manuscript, “Strategies for Overcoming Barriers to Publishing Quality Assurance Research in Applied Behavior Analysis,” has been accepted for publication by Behavior Analysis in Practice (BAP)! BAP is a prestigious journal that publishes behavior analytic research that focuses on the Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) practitioner, tailoring their efforts to make evidence-based practice accessible to clinicians in the field.
While submitting a journal article might sound academic, the heart of this work is deeply practical and relevant to our goals at Mindcolor. Our work focuses on how we hold ourselves accountable to the highest standards to ensure the best outcomes for the families we serve and the professional growth of our team. Our team of clinicians are deeply committed to creating a culture of clinical excellence not just within our organization but within the field of ABA at large.
What is Quality Assurance (QA) Research?
In the world of ABA, QA research is the systematic investigation into how effective, efficient, and honest our services are for those who receive them. QA involves evaluating our standards to ensure we meet both professional and consumer expectations. By ensuring our clinical standards are rigorous, we can continuously strive for excellence that goes beyond expectations we may set for ourselves and seek to push the boundaries on the highest standard of care. Within QA, we measure fidelity to make sure our interventions are delivered exactly as they were designed to work. If they are not working, we change up our evidence-based approach to produce the outcomes we expect. When we evaluate that our interventions make their intended impact, we improve outcomes by identifying which strategies are most effective for our clients. We care deeply about our clients meeting their fullest potential
QA research, as discussed in our paper, is difficult to produce and publish for the majority of ABA providers. By contributing to the peer reviewed literature on QA in ABA, Mindcolor is at the forefront of ABA organizations, setting the bar for clients to receive care that is meaningful, effective, and of high-quality.
Why Transparency Matters to Your Family
The manuscript identifies several "barriers" that often prevent ABA providers and practitioners from sharing their data. These barriers include a fear of being judged or a desire to keep their processes private. However, our team has committed to transparency because it directly benefits the families we serve. By being an organization that is outcomes-focused, we can:
- Build Public Confidence: By openly reporting our findings and acknowledging limitations, we signal that our organization values ethical practices and continuous improvement. We want to be accountable to our clients and colleagues in the field by discussing our standard of care and seeking to always improve our services.
- Ensure Evidence-Based Care: Sharing QA research allows us to validate the effectiveness of our clinical approaches, ensuring that your child’s time is spent on strategies that truly work.
- Contribute to the Field: Sharing our data helps the ABA community improve the standard of care. We believe in access to quality ABA providers for all autistic individuals and contributing to the literature helps us have a greater impact on the autistic community.
How We Overcome Challenges to Better Serve You
Our paper discusses 10 specific strategies to use that can ensure QA work and research is rigorous and unbiased. This discussion paper may refer to barriers to publishing QA research but these barriers may be present during the initial stages of establishing QA practices in ABA settings too. By recognizing barriers and specific strategies to overcome them, clients receive quality outcomes. Here is how some of those strategies impact your child’s care:
- Minimizing Bias: We use strategies like engaging with external peers and establishing clear goals to ensure that our data interpretation is objective.
- Protecting Integrity: We use pre-publication anonymity during the peer-review process so that reviewers can evaluate our work solely on its scientific merit. Our goal is to allow quality work to speak for itself.
- Focusing on Outcomes: We align our QA goals with clinical efficacy, which means our QA processes are focused on understanding and improving behavioral interventions for the individuals we serve.
A Culture of Continuous Improvement
ABA is a scientific field rooted in interventions that are derived from evidence-based practices, of which are found in publications and journals published over the last several decades. Peer reviewed publications provide the foundation for quality interventions and improvements for clients in our care. By publishing in peer reviewed journals, Mindcolor is taking an active role in driving the field of ABA forward towards effective and thorough evaluation of quality assurance practices, helping to define what "high quality" looks like in practice.
Publishing this discussion paper is a milestone in our mission. By doing this we improve the lives of children with autism by prioritizing integrity, establishing accountability in our practices, and believing in our ability to use evidence-based interventions to create new possibilities for the clients in our care. By overcoming the barriers to sharing our work, we ensure that ABA remains a transparent, evidence-based, and ever-evolving field that prioritizes the well-being of the clients served.
Author: Hannah Jones, MS, BCBA, Vice President of Clinical, Processes and Training at Mindcolor Autism