Article archive / October 1, 2012
Originally published: . Volume 4, No. 2. Source pages: 1, 3.
The “Behavior Analysts Licensure and Regulation Study Commission” met Friday, September 21, and decided that behavior analysts are to be licensed in Louisiana.
This is the first major decision coming from the group. It was one of the issues contested in the spring legislative battle that prompted Senator J. P. Morrell to propose the resolution establishing the Commission, a 17- member task force charged with developing “baseline framework for licensure and regulation of behavior analysts.”
The issue of whether or not state regulation was needed for behavior analysts was discussed in testimony from both sides this past spring. The topic was one of several issues emerging during a series of bills authored by Senator Dan Claitor on behalf of the Louisiana State Board of Examiners of Psychologists (LSBEP). The bills would have placed behavior analysts under the psychology board, but the effort came to an end on May 1, when the Senate sent the measure back to committee.
Last week, Commission Chair Ashley Munn explained to the Times, “As a group we came to an agreement that BCBAs [Board Certified Behavior Analysts] in Louisiana were going to be licensed.” BCBAs are certified by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board, a national group.
Munn explained that the group will next be addressing specifics about standards and credentials, but that they would delay discussion about which board the group might finally reside under in the state.
She said that the next steps would help to “… decide how we are going to do that, instead of who.”
The “who” could be a major hurdle for the group. According to various testimony in the spring legislative battle, the psychology board and some of those in the behavioral analyst (BA) community disagree about whether the BAs should fall under psychology, establish their own board, or fall somewhere else in the state structure, such as under medicine or counseling.
Munn told the Times that the Commission members have discussed the standards that will be used in the future regulation, and this has included items about current national standards. “Many of these mirror those of the national group,” Munn said, “and many of the behavior analysts are nationally certified.”
“The next meeting we have to tackle the ‘assistant to the behavioral analyst’ issue,” she said. “This could be a challenge.”
The national group, the Behavior Analyst Certification Board, certifies both a Behavior Analyst and an Assistant Behavior Analyst. However, the state psychology board does not certify any assistants.
The Commission has been slow to make concrete progress, Munn indicated, because of the diversity of the members, saying that commission members represent a group with many different views and opinions. The team includes 17 members representing state government, treatment agencies, education, practitioners in behavior analysis and psychology, and consumers.
Munn told the Times that the group has met three times, with the first meeting being an administrative meeting and the second meeting was for the various members to express their views and concerns. Munn explained that while not much of a tangible nature had been accomplished, she discovered that many of the members wanted and needed time to state “their side of the issue.” She said that while time- consuming, this had turned out to be very important.
Minutes are not yet available, Munn explained, because the group decided that everyone needed to a correct and approve them before they were published, and this process has been slow so far.
Munn said she is optimistic about the final outcomes from the commission. "There has been a lot of contentious debate, but we feel confident that we will be able to present a position to the legislature,” she noted.
The next meeting is scheduled for Friday, October 5th at 10:00am.
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.