ABA Exam CoachLessons · E. Ethical and Professional Issues
E.3 · Maintaining professional competence
Your skills don't stay sharp by themselves. Research moves on, methods get better, and the people you serve change, so let's look at how behavior analysts keep their competence current, and how to tell maintaining competence apart from expanding it.
Key takeaway
Under Ethics Code Standard 1.06, maintaining competence is an active, ongoing duty. You do it through professional development: reading current peer-reviewed literature, going to conferences and workshops, taking extra coursework or training, getting consultation, supervision, coaching, or mentorship, and keeping your credentials current. If you're staying sharp in work you already do, that's 1.06. If you're moving into a new population, setting, or procedure, that's 1.05, scope of competence: get training and supervised experience first, or refer.
Under Ethics Code Standard 1.06, maintaining competence is an active, ongoing duty. You do it through professional development: reading current peer-reviewed literature, going to conferences and workshops, taking extra coursework or training, getting consultation, supervision, coaching, or mentorship, and keeping your credentials current. If you're staying sharp in work you already do, that's 1.06. If you're moving into a new population, setting, or procedure, that's 1.05, scope of competence: get training and supervised experience first, or refer.
Members get the full lesson video, notes and a 5-question test
The video walks through the idea, worked examples, the trap people fall into and an exam-style question. The notes and the checkpoint come with it, and your results feed your Where to focus plan.