The 60-Second BST Method for Corrective Feedback in ABA

The 60-second BST corrective feedback move is Dr. Tyra Sellers's mid-session scoop-the-materials demo: a one-minute spoken sequence where a supervisor walks an RBT (a Registered Behavior Technician) through a fix to a discrete trial without ever stopping the flow of the session. BST stands for Behavioral Skills Training: describe, rationale, model, rehearse, plan. Sellers's point is that those five pieces are not a checklist you save for a formal training. Once you are fluent, they fit inside a single minute of real talk with your supervisee.

This page is the short, practical version of that move. The full talk covers feedback contracts, timing, culture, and the PDC-HS. Here we stay inside one minute.

Why 60 seconds is the goal (not the limit)#

Sixty seconds is a target, not a ceiling. The point is fluency. When you have to deliver corrective feedback to a BCBA supervisee (a Board Certified Behavior Analyst) or to an RBT in the middle of a session, you usually do not have ten minutes. You have the gap between the trial they just ran and the one they are about to run.

If your BST is rusty, you end up either skipping pieces or stretching them out. Either way the feedback lands wrong. Skipping the rationale makes you sound bossy. Skipping the model makes the supervisee guess. Skipping the rehearse and plan piece is the most common miss, and it is the one that kills carryover into the next session.

Sixty seconds forces you to say only what matters. It also keeps the supervisee from sitting in discomfort longer than they need to. You praise the parts that were good. You name the one thing to change. You explain why it matters in one or two sentences. You show or describe the new move. You ask if they want to practice. Then you hand the session back. That is the whole shape.

A useful rule: if your corrective feedback is longer than two minutes, you are probably layering in a second piece of feedback. Save the second one for the next observation.

The five BST pieces, in order#

Sellers uses the standard BST sequence and squeezes each piece down to about ten seconds.

Describe. Name the behavior you saw, specifically. Pair it with what was already strong. "Your SD was great. Your reinforcement was great. The one thing I want to talk about is the materials sitting on the table at the end of the trial."

Rationale. One or two sentences on why it matters. Not a lecture. Two reasons is enough. "It is harder for the learner to tell the trial is over, and the materials can get grabbed or wrecked."

Model. Show or describe the replacement behavior. "Instead, once they have delivered the response, just scoop the materials toward you and into your lap."

Rehearse. Offer a way to practice. "Want me to show you what that looks like? Want to run a couple of trials together?" The offer matters more than the answer. It signals that practice is on the table.

Plan (and feedback loop). Hand control back. "Because this is a disruptor in the way you have been doing things, let me know if you have questions as we go." That last line is the plan. It tells the supervisee that you will keep watching, that questions are welcome, and that they are in charge of trying it.

Five pieces. About ten seconds each. One minute.

A full word-for-word example (the discrete trial scoop)#

Here is what Sellers actually said when she demonstrated the move in the talk. The setup: she is observing a supervisee running discrete trials. The supervisee is doing almost everything well. The one issue is that the stimuli stay on the table after each trial ends.

Hey, Matt, thank you so much for letting me observe. I want to talk to you about something I saw in most of your trials. Everything was great. SD, great. Delivering reinforcement, loved it. You were rocking it. You left the stimuli out on the table at the end of the trial. And there are some issues with that. From the talk — Dr. Tyra Sellers

That is the describe piece. Notice the order: thank you, specific praise, then the one thing to fix. The praise is not filler. It anchors the supervisee in what they already do well so the corrective piece does not feel like a verdict on the whole session.

Then the rationale and the model, woven together:

When the materials are still out, it is a little harder to discriminate that the learning trial is over. The individual might grab those materials. Materials can get wrecked. So instead, once they have delivered their response and you are ready to give them a high five or turn and take your data, just scoop the materials towards you. From the talk — Dr. Tyra Sellers

The rationale is two reasons, not five. The model is a single move: scoop. A specific physical action the supervisee can picture. Then the rehearse and plan piece:

Do you want me to show you what that looks like? Do you want to run a couple of trials together? Or do you want to practice just so you get a feel for what it is like? Because it is a little bit of a disruptor in the way you have been doing things. And ask for questions, right? From the talk — Dr. Tyra Sellers

The rehearse piece is offered as a choice. The plan piece is one line at the end: ask questions as we go. The whole sequence is under a minute when you say it out loud.

What to say when you do not have a model ready#

Sometimes you see something off but you have not thought through the replacement behavior yet. You do not have a clean model in your head.

Two options. First, you can be honest. "I want to flag something I saw, and I want to think for a minute about the cleanest way to do it differently. Can we talk about it at the end?" This is fine. It also keeps you from giving sloppy guidance you will later have to walk back.

Second, you can use a thinking-out-loud version. "Let me see what would happen if you tried it like this." Sellers uses a version of this in the talk. You are not modeling a fully formed solution. You are inviting the supervisee to test something with you. This works well when the supervisee already has a strong repertoire and you trust them to problem-solve in real time.

What you do not want to do is fake a model. Half-formed corrective feedback that gets walked back later costs trust.

Live feedback vs debrief feedback: which BST elements change#

The five pieces stay the same. What changes is the model and rehearse portion.

In live feedback, you can demonstrate physically. You can step in for a trial. You can run one yourself while the supervisee watches. The model is a real action. The rehearse can be the very next trial.

In debrief feedback (after the session, often the same day), you cannot demonstrate in vivo. So your model becomes verbal or video. You describe the move. You might pull up a recording. The rehearse piece becomes a plan to practice before the next session. "Before Tuesday, run through the scoop a few times with a stuffed animal or a colleague."

Sellers makes one more point about timing in the talk: the gap between feedback and the next chance to practice the behavior can be too long. If you give feedback on a Thursday and the next session is Tuesday, the feedback can fade. A short bridging note on Monday night, just a sentence reminding the supervisee what to focus on, can carry the feedback across the gap.

Practice this in your car before you do it on the job#

Sellers's most practical tip in the whole feedback section is this: practice corrective feedback out loud, in your car, to no one. Pick a specific issue. Run the full BST sequence. Time yourself.

Most BCBAs are pretty good at the describe piece because they have been writing programs for years. The rationale piece is where people overshoot. The model piece is where people get vague. The rehearse and plan pieces are where people stop too early.

A car-rehearsal that helps: pick a specific RBT and a specific behavior. Say their actual name. Run all five pieces out loud. Time it on your phone. If you came in at 90 seconds, find the place where you said three sentences when one would do. Run it again. Get it under 60.

This sounds silly. It works. Fluency on the components is what lets you actually use BST in the moment. Without that fluency, you default back to whatever feedback shape you grew up with. Often that is the feedback sandwich, or vague corrective with no model, or worse, no feedback at all because the supervisee seemed busy.

The 60-second BST move is one of the highest-payoff supervisory behaviors you can build. Build it the way you would teach any skill: rehearse it cold, in low-stakes conditions, until the components come out fluently. Then take it to work.

Frequently asked questions#

Can I do BST corrective feedback over Zoom?

Yes. The describe, rationale, and plan pieces are exactly the same. The model and rehearse pieces shift a bit. For the model, share your screen or use a quick recording. For the rehearse, ask the supervisee to walk you through how they would do it. If you both have a camera on, you can model physical moves too, like the materials scoop. Zoom actually has an advantage: you can record the feedback delivery and rewatch it later to check your own BST fluency.

What if the supervisee gets defensive in the middle of the sequence?

Stop and acknowledge it. Defensiveness usually means the feedback landed as a verdict on the person, not on the behavior. A line that works: "I can see this is landing harder than I meant it to. I am not saying your session was bad. I am saying this one move is worth tightening up." Then check in. Do they want to keep going now, or come back to it in your next meeting? Pushing through a defensive moment to finish your sequence rarely helps. The point of BST is behavior change, not getting through the script.

How is 60-second BST different from the feedback sandwich?

The feedback sandwich is praise, corrective, praise. The 60-second BST has praise inside the describe piece, but its real backbone is the model and rehearse pieces, which the sandwich does not include. The sandwich tells someone what to fix. BST shows them what to do instead and gives them a way to practice it. That is the gap that closes the loop on behavior change.

Keep going#

The 60-second move is one piece of a bigger feedback system. The contract you set up at the start of the relationship shapes how this feedback lands. The timing of when you deliver it shapes whether it sticks. And when feedback keeps failing to produce change, the PDC-HS gives you a structured way to figure out why.