Essential Reading
In a seminal 1978 article, Montrose Wolf introduced behaviour-analysts to the term “social validity”. As you’ll know from your earlier lessons, it is requirement for ABA to be applied and effective. The concept of “social validity” complimented these dimensions and provided a basis for practitioners and researchers to measure and evaluate social importance.
As ABA has matured, many behaviour-analysts have questioned how our we should define appropriate outcomes of behavioral interventions. In this recent article, Schwartz and Kelly argue that we should consider the importance of goals with reference to quality of life.
Optional Watching
In the below video from Hacking ABA, you’ll be introduced to examples of how behaviour-analysts can measure some dimensions of social validity.
Conversation Exercise
In the bottom right-hand corner of your screen, you’ll see a conversation icon. Click on this to being the conversation exercise with FRED our AI-powered chatbot. Alternatively, click this link to open the chat interface directly.
If you have not already, read this article to learn how to get the most from your learning conversation with FRED.
Reflection Exercise Example:
Before this lesson, I thought that if an intervention worked and helped someone learn a skill, that was enough. But now I see that we also have to ask if the intervention is socially valid—does the person actually want to learn this skill? Is it being taught in a way that respects them? I thought the example of habilitation was really interesting because it made me think about how we sometimes assume independence is always the goal. I once worked with a young adult in a supported living setting who was taught how to make meals on their own. But they didn’t actually want to cook for themselves—they enjoyed eating with others and preferred meal prep to be a shared activity. That made me realize that promoting independence is important, but it shouldn’t ignore someone’s preferences. This lesson made me think more critically about how ABA should always respect the person’s right to choose and refuse, even if their choices seem ‘unwise’ to us. It’s about improving quality of life, not just changing behavior for the sake of it. There might be some things related to health and safety where we can’t let a client do something, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to maximise their control over their lives,
This also made me think about how social significance connects to the Applied and Effective dimensions from the last lesson. Just because a skill is generally practical or useful doesn’t mean it’s meaningful to the person. In my example, cooking was a useful skill, but it wasn’t socially significant or valid for that person because they didn’t value it in the same way. At the same time, an intervention is only effective if it actually improves someone’s life. If an intervention works (e.g., the person learns to cook), but they don’t use the skill because they don’t want to, then it’s not truly effective. This is where habilitation comes in—we have to think about both the benefits and costs of a skill in the person’s life. For example, forcing someone to practice independent cooking when they don’t want to might take time away from activities they actually enjoy. And cooking might become something they hate,  So the real challenge is making sure that the skills we teach are both socially significant and improve quality of life in a way that respects autonomy.  I can already see how this will change the way I think about behavior goals in my work!
You need to be registered and logged in to take this quiz. Log in or Register