genArete: To Teach or not to Teach!

Abstract In the final talk of his three-part genArete series, Mark Malady, BCBA, addresses what clinicians should do after a skill-based assessment identifies underperforming skills. He begins with target selection in the context of the whole person, revisiting Wolf's (1978) three levels of social validity and noting that only about 17-18% of JABA studies from 2010-2020 included any social validity measure. He challenges the standard definition of skill acquisition, arguing that all new skills are built by leveraging existing skills, and that assessments should identify functional skills within a hierarchy rather than treating developmental and functional approaches as a dichotomy. Using an example of a learner with 83 skills below the presumed functional range, he presents a five-way sorting framework: leave conditions the same, use environmental arrangements, create and use accommodations, build foundational skills, or build the target skill. He details when accommodations are appropriate, their functions (increasing reinforcement in historically aversive settings, reducing corrective feedback, establishing early self-advocacy through mand-tact repertoires), and myths about foundational skills, including how topography-based targets like eye contact led to coercive practices. He closes with component-composite skill relations, requirements different teaching strategies place on learner repertoires, realistic time-to-mastery commitments, termination criteria that incorporate caregiver report and quality-of-life indicators, and anticipating side effects of new skills, such as joint attention potentiating socially maintained challenging behavior.