Supporting the Adult Population as a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA)
Tip #110: Constructional Approach-Stop Fixing What’s Broken: Start Building What Works
Imagine managing a case where staff or caregivers consistently push back on treatment plans. Data collection is inconsistent. Each new intervention feels like an uphill battle. Then monthly reports roll around, and suddenly you’re scrambling—trying to piece together documentation that should already exist.
If that scenario feels familiar, you’re not alone. This is one of the most common challenges BCBAs face in adult services.
And yet, our instinct is often to correct, retrain, or add more procedures—when what’s actually missing isn’t skill, but alignment.
Shifting the Lens: The Constructional Approach
Rather than asking, “What’s wrong here?” the Constructional Approach asks:
“What’s already working—and how can we build from it?”
In adult services, both the individual supported and the caregivers already possess well-established repertoires. Resistance is rarely about incompetence. More often, it reflects competing contingencies, unclear expectations, environmental barriers, or a history of being excluded from decision-making.
The Constructional Approach, originally articulated by Goldiamond (2002), emphasizes building new behavior by arranging environments that support success, rather than focusing on deficits or errors. This framework is especially relevant in adult ABA, where dignity, autonomy, and collaboration must remain central.
This shift is also a critical step toward minimizing ableism in our systems. When we assume deficits, we inadvertently reinforce power imbalances. When we assume capacity, we create partnership.
Why This Matters Ethically and Practically
BCBA Task List (6th Ed.) – B.22
Utilizing behavioral momentum to understand and foster response persistence reminds us that sustainable change occurs when we build from existing behavior—not when we attempt to replace it wholesale.
BACB Ethics Code 2.01 – Providing Effective Treatment
Ethical treatment requires interventions that are conceptually sound and designed to maximize meaningful outcomes for all stakeholders—including caregivers and staff implementing the plan.
When caregivers experience interventions as collaborative rather than corrective, treatment integrity improves naturally. Buy-in increases. Data quality improves. And the system becomes more resilient.
Application: What This Looks Like in Practice
Applying a Constructional Approach in adult services may include:
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Identifying caregiver strategies that already work and formalizing them
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Adjusting data systems to fit real-world workflows
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Designing interventions that align with staff values, schedules, and capacity
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Reinforcing participation and effort—not just perfect implementation
Instead of asking caregivers to do more, we engineer environments that make the desired behavior easier to sustain.
This is not “lowering standards.”
This is engineering success.
Recommended Resources
To deepen your understanding and application of this framework, explore the following:
Watch:
These resources provide both conceptual grounding and applied examples relevant to adult services.
A Closing Reflection
When we meet people where they are—and build upward from there—we don’t just improve outcomes. We reduce resistance, strengthen collaboration, and move closer to truly inclusive, ethical practice.
If you’re noticing recurring friction in implementation, it may not be a compliance problem.
It may be an invitation to build—not fix.
I’d love to continue this conversation and explore how a Constructional lens could strengthen your current systems, teams, and outcomes.
To collaboration over correction,
From the one and only... Shanda J Your BCBA
Author Credit: Meme and article modified and enhanced with support from my AI tool ChatGpt aka Gem.
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