The Scars we Normalize: Stop Forcing Compliance and use Assent-Based ABA and Remote Supervision

This post is for trainees and students looking for remote BCBA supervision, more unrestricted hours, and an assent-based ABA approach that rejects forced compliance outside true safety concerns.

It was a warm fall day. The kind of day you remember because everything feels calm on the outside, even if something inside you is shifting. I had just earned my BCBA certification. New credentials, new responsibility, and a deep belief that applied behavior analysis could be life-changing in the best way.

I was walking down the street with an older BCBA, someone who had been in the field for years, someone I looked up to. We were talking about the work, the realities, the “this is what it’s really like” stuff. Then she stopped.

She rolled up her sleeve with a look of pride on her face and showed me her scars. She told me those scars came from children who had injured her over the years. Like, somehow she was proud of her “battle scars.” It made my stomach turn, and I have never forgotten that moment.

It made me realize how easily our field can normalize force, normalize coercion, normalize “control,” and then call it “ABA.” That day planted a question in my head that never left. If ABA is a science of behavior change, why do so many people default to forced compliance first?

Assent-based ABA is not optional

The ethics language around assent became far more explicit when the current BACB Ethics Code went into effect January 1, 2022. And it is not a soft preference. The Code makes it clear that behavior analysts are responsible for obtaining assent when applicable. The BACB also defines assent as behavior that indicates willingness to participate for individuals who cannot provide informed consent.

Here is the issue. Even today, a shocking number of practitioners still treat assent like a “nice extra” instead of a professional obligation. If a client is communicating “no” through their behavior, and our response is to overpower, outwait, or outmuscle them as a default, we are not doing ethical ABA. We are doing compliance training. And that is exactly what too many of my trainees report they were taught at clinics all over the country.

They tell me that in prior clinic-based and in-home settings, they were trained to use things like:

• Blocking for elopement as a default

• Planned ignoring as a first move

• Extinction as the starting point

• “Follow through” regardless of distress
  

Not as careful tools used in limited circumstances, with strong teaching and reinforcement plans. As the main plan. That makes me furious. Because if you build a treatment culture around forcing participation, do not be surprised when your clients spend therapy trying to escape therapy.

I will never forget bringing up something like assent early in my career, without even using that word, because as an RBT I did not even know what it meant. I told my BCBA supervisor at the time that a client clearly did not want me there while we had been pairing for weeks, so I left. My supervisor looked at me like I had lost my mind.

But the logic is simple. If I am not reinforcing enough for a client to want me there, and if I am not functioning as a conditioned reinforcer, then I am out of there. We are not all matches for every single client, and we should have a choice in the clients we work with. If you are not provided choice with the clients you work with, I would run.

Autistic adults are telling us what forced compliance cost them

If you have never listened to autistic adult communities (adults with autism) discuss forced compliance and long-term fallout, go read and listen. Not to argue. Not to defend. Not to dismiss. To learn.

When large numbers of autistic adults (adults with autism) describe shared themes like being trained into submission, losing the ability to say no, and feeling unsafe in “treatment,” we do not get to wave it away as irrelevant. That is outcome data from real lives, and their stories are real.

Good ABA is environmental arrangement, not physical control

Here is the simplest truth I can say. Anyone can block a child. You do not need a graduate degree to stand in a doorway. You do not need the science of ABA to physically prevent a behavior. ABA is supposed to be better than that.

Applied behavior analysis is supposed to mean we can arrange the environment so the learner is more likely to choose the option that produces more reinforcement, because that option works better for them. Where did the science go? Where did motivating operations go? Where did arranging antecedents go? Where did reinforcement-based teaching go?

Because if we have the tools to make adaptive behavior easier and more valuable, why are so many people still reaching for coercion first? I don't get it!

Motivating operations are the steering wheel, not trivia

Motivating operations are not trivia for the BCBA exam. They are one of the most powerful levers we have. If a learner is refusing, escaping, melting down, or running, that is information about the environment:

• The task may be too hard right now

• The reinforcement may be too weak right now

• The demand context may have a history of conflict right now

• The learner may not have the skills to succeed right now

• The learner may not trust the adults in this setting right now
  

A lot of “noncompliance” disappears when you stop treating it like a character defect and start treating it like an environmental problem. That is what ethical ABA is supposed to do.

Blocking, restraint, and the safety line

Let’s be clear. If a child is about to run into a street, you intervene immediately. No serious person is debating emergency safety responses.

But there is a massive difference between:

• A brief, emergency safety action used to prevent serious harm, and

• A default treatment plan built around physical control outside of true safety risk
  

If your day-to-day plan is blocking, restraining, or overpowering outside of serious safety situations, you are not practicing high-quality ABA. You are practicing control-based compliance. And control-based compliance is not why this science exists.

The extinction-first trap (and the punishment tangent)

Extinction and planned ignoring should not be practitioners’ go-tos. They are serious procedures with predictable side effects and, when used poorly, can cause real harm, especially when they are used without first exhausting motivating-operation options. If we can help children make better choices by manipulating motivating operations and arranging the environment, why put them through extinction bursts at all?

The same goes for punishment. It is not that punishment is inherently “bad,” but most practitioners were not trained to use it ethically, carefully, and with assent. So it gets turned into a blunt instrument, and many clinics respond by banning it entirely.

It’s not that response-cost procedures should never be used in ABA (because that does not mimic the natural environment). It’s that when they are used, the learner should have a clear, immediate path to earn back what was lost in that same moment, with temporal locus in mind, through adaptive behavior, not “later,” not after the situation has already escalated, and not as a delayed consequence disconnected from the learning opportunity.

If your plan is basically “ignore it until it stops,” you are often manufacturing escalation and calling it “treatment integrity.” That is not advanced ABA. That is garbage.

What assent-based, reinforcement-based ABA looks like

Assent-based ABA is not permissive. It is not “do whatever you want.” It is designing treatment so cooperation is valuable, learning is safe, and refusal is treated as information.

In my remote BCBA supervision practice, it looks like this:

1) Make the right behavior pay better

If escape is working, build a plan where communication and cooperation work better than escape.

2) Make the task achievable right now

Shape with smaller steps. Use a task analysis. Create fast wins. Use behavioral momentum. Set a pace that reduces conflict instead of provoking it.

3) Make reinforcement powerful and immediate

Not generic praise. Not delayed systems that never compete with problem behavior. Reinforcement that actually functions.

If the learner is trying to get away from something, your plan should reduce the need for escape by making cooperation produce relief and success while still teaching skills.

And yes, some parents will say: “I’m not praising my kid for every single thing they do.”

First, reinforcement is not the same thing as praise. Second, positive reinforcement does not have to be tangible, and we know negative reinforcement never is. A powerful example is what I call “enrichment time,” where the learner gets access to a preferred activity with a parent who is fully engaged. No phone. No multitasking. Games, silly voices, play, connection.

A quick reinforcement story (that stuck with me for a decade)

I will never forget being at the dentist about 10 years ago. From the dentist’s verbal behavior, I could tell he was not thrilled that I was not flossing regularly. I brushed multiple times a day, but flossing was inconsistent. The dental hygienist chimed in and said how great my teeth looked from a plaque perspective. The dentist gave her a dirty look.

But here’s the thing. I still think about what she said, ten years later, when I brush my teeth. That one statement reinforced my behavior and it maintained. I have not had a cavity in 15+ years.

4) Teach replacements that beat problem behavior on speed and effort

If problem behavior produces quick outcomes, your replacement must produce quicker, easier outcomes.

5) Treat withdrawal of assent as data, then redesign

If the learner is saying “no,” your job is not to bulldoze. Your job is to analyze, adjust, and teach. In 2026, I should not have to say this. Yet this is still the culture coming out of too many clinics, based on what many of my trainees were taught before they started working with us.

Why remote BCBA supervision can produce better clinicians and better unrestricted hours

A lot of trainees are not getting high-quality supervision in traditional settings. They are experiencing the downstream effects of:

• BCBAs being overloaded with cases

• Supervision being squeezed into the minimum required time

• Systems that require changes to occur only within narrow billable presence windows

• RBT models where implementation is prioritized over real clinical thinking

  
  

Many trainees feel like they are not getting adequate fieldwork supervision, not because the BCBAs do not care, but because they literally cannot. It becomes structural. Most BCBAs are overloaded with client caseloads, required RBT supervision, and then trainees on top of that. And the kind of supervision trainees actually need, direct teaching, feedback, planning, reviewing work, and building clinical reasoning, is often time that cannot be billed to insurance because there is no client present. In other words, the company makes nothing from that time, and the BCBA cannot bill for it. So trainees become the lowest priority in many settings, not because anyone is evil, but because the system is built that way.

And it shows.

Remote BCBA supervision, done well, can be a corrective.

Remote BCBA supervision can allow a trainee to build a skill set around:

• Parent coaching

• Environmental arrangement (manipulating motivating operations)

• Assessment to intervention, FBA to BIP

• Reinforcement-based teaching

• Ethical decision-making with assent at the center

• Unrestricted hours that reflect BCBA-level thinking
  

And yes, this matters for the practical question trainees search every day:

How do I get more unrestricted hours without being trapped in a compliance-first clinic model?

If you want more unrestricted hours, you need more than “watch an RBT run programs.”You need to do BCBA work: assessment thinking, treatment design, caregiver training, materials development, data interpretation, and ethical decision-making. That is the point of unrestricted fieldwork.

If you’re being taught force-first ABA outside of true safety, run

If you are in a setting where these are normal, run:

• Blocking is the default strategy outside emergencies

• Restraint is treated like routine

• “Compliance” is described as the goal

• Distress is dismissed by default

• Extinction and planned ignoring are used as the main plan

• Staff talk like kids are opponents

That is not ethical ABA. That is not assent-based ABA. That is not why this science exists.

Why I built my supervision model this way

I built this company because I wanted to get away from this culture. I want to train clinicians who understand that ABA is about designing environments where learners can succeed without coercion. Assent is not a “nice extra.” High-quality ABA is not optional. Safety is real, but safety is not a blank check for force.

If you want remote BCBA supervision built around real BCBA-level work, ethical practice, and unrestricted hours that matter, you are exactly who I built this for.

Apply for supervision: www.appliedbehavioranalysts.com/contact Remote BCBA supervision model: https://www.appliedbehavioranalysts.com/remote-bcba-supervision

FAQ

Can I get unrestricted hours with remote BCBA supervision? Yes, if your supervision model is built around BCBA-level activities like parent coaching, treatment design, data interpretation, and ethical decision-making.

What are unrestricted hours in BCBA fieldwork? Unrestricted hours are fieldwork activities tied to BCBA-level responsibilities, not technician-style implementation.

Is blocking an ethical ABA intervention? Blocking can be appropriate in serious, immediate safety situations. Outside of true safety risk, relying on blocking as a default is typically a sign the plan is control-based rather than skill-based.

What is assent-based ABA?

Assent-based ABA prioritizes willingness to participate, respects withdrawal of assent as meaningful information, and designs teaching around reinforcement, choice, and dignity. (The BACB defines assent as behavior indicating willingness to participate for individuals who cannot provide informed consent.)

Why do some clinics rely on planned ignoring and extinction first? Often because it is easy to train and easy to enforce, even when it creates escalation and damages trust. High-quality ABA prioritizes skill-building and reinforcement-based alternatives through MO manipulation. If you're interested in how, join us.