What's included?

Course Description
Social media has become a common place for behavior analysts, RBTs, students, parents, and other stakeholders to ask questions, share resources, discuss workplace concerns, and seek professional support. Although online forums can provide access to helpful information and community, they also create ethical risks related to confidentiality, public statements, client dignity, scope of competence, case-specific advice, supervision, and professionalism.

This ethics CEU reviews the article The Ethical Landscape of Behavior Analysis Forums on Reddit and uses the findings as a foundation for discussing how behavior analysts should engage in online spaces. The article examined public posts across ABA-related Reddit forums and found that most user engagement aligned with the Ethics Code, while some posts raised ethical concerns related to confidentiality, giving advice without adequate assessment, practicing outside one’s scope of competence, supervision concerns, and workplace issues.

Participants will apply ethical standards to realistic examples involving Facebook groups, Reddit, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, professional pages, company marketing, and online consultation. Emphasis will be placed on identifying ethical risks before posting, responding appropriately to concerning online content, and teaching supervisees and staff how to engage professionally online.

Learning Objectives
By the end of this event, participants will be able to:

• Describe common ethical risks associated with behavior analysts’ use of social media and online forums.
• Identify how online posts may create concerns related to confidentiality, public statements, dignity, scope of competence, and treatment recommendations.
• Differentiate between appropriate general professional discussion and inappropriate case-specific consultation.
• Apply ethical decision-making strategies to realistic online posting and commenting scenarios.Develop practical safeguards for social media use by behavior analysts, RBTs, trainees, and ABA organizations.

Participants should review the following article before or during the event:

Price, R. A., Martin Loya, M. R., Folkerts, R., & Haidar, B. S. (2025). The ethical landscape of behavior analysis forums on Reddit. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 18(3), 842–851. doi:10.1007/s40617-024-00921-5