Stop Avoiding it: The Case for Treating Academic Skills as Behavioral Operants | 2 BCBA CEU Credits

Stop Avoiding it: The Case for Treating Academic Skills as Behavioral Operants | 2 BCBA CEU Credits

Original price was: $20.00.Current price is: $16.00.

This CEU explores the application of behavior analytic principles to the instruction of academic skills. Participants will learn to define academic behaviors as operants, align teaching strategies with the instructional hierarchy, and apply functional assessment methods to identify and remediate barriers to academic success. The course emphasizes the use of scope and sequence in academic planning and highlights practical tools such as Precision Teaching and data-based decision-making to improve learning outcomes. Through real-world examples and research-based strategies, behavior analysts will be better equipped to design, deliver, and evaluate effective academic interventions.

This course advances beyond the current BCBA and BCaBA Task Lists by framing academic skills explicitly as behavioral operants—merging instructional hierarchy frameworks (acquisition, fluency, generalization, adaptation), functional assessment, scope-and-sequence planning, and Precision Teaching methods—integrating areas not detailed in standard task list items. Its content remains behavior-analytic in nature, grounded in the three-term contingency (antecedents, behaviors, consequences), use of functional behavior assessment, and objective, data-driven instructional strategies. The course is purpose-designed for certified and aspiring behavior analysts, providing them with practical, research-based tools to systematically design, implement, and evaluate academic interventions within an evidence-based ABA framework.

This course provides 2 CEU credits for BACB, QABA, and IBAO.

BACB CEUs

2 Credits
IBAO CEUs

2 Credits
QABA CEUs

2 Credits
Type of Credit

Learning/General

Objectives

  1. Define academic skills as behavioral operants and describe how antecedents, responses, and consequences influence their acquisition.
  2. Identify similarities between academic and non-academic operants and describe how to apply the instructional hierarchy (acquisition, fluency, generalization, adaptation) to academic instruction.
  3. Analyze student performance data to develop functional hypotheses related to skill deficits, performance deficits, generalization failures, and instructional mismatches.
  4. Use scope and sequence analysis to prioritize and sequence academic skills, ensuring instruction is developmentally appropriate and behaviorally effective.

Speaker/Author

Jillian Dawes, Ph.D., NCSP, BCBA-D, is an Associate Professor of Psychology at The Citadel. Her primary teaching and research interests include the science of learning and behavior applied across academic and non-academic operants in school settings, as well as ethical considerations in training, research, and practice. She has published one book, one book chapter, and several peer-reviewed articles in the areas of ethical decision making and considerations, measure validation, and comparative math intervention research.

Instructor Qualifications

Dr. Jillian Dawes is exceptionally qualified to teach this course, with extensive expertise in the intersection of academic skills and behavior analysis. She has published multiple peer-reviewed articles on instructional strategies for improving math fluency and academic engagement, including work in Behavior Analysis in Practice, School Psychology, and Journal of Behavioral Education. Her research emphasizes the treatment of academic skills as behavioral operants and has been supported by numerous grants targeting math intervention and self-regulated learning. Dr. Dawes has also delivered national presentations and CE workshops on this topic, ensuring both empirical grounding and practical applicability in her teaching.

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