Is your child's ABA program producing practical value—or just tidy graphs? The standard has existed since 1968. Here's how to use it.
Expect ABA to make a real difference in the real world., and you begin an applied behavior analysis program, a question quickly follows: How do I know this is actually working? It is a reasonable question—and it turns out the field of applied behavior analysis answered it more than 50 years ago. In 1968, Donald Baer and his colleagues published the paper that defined what ABA is and what it requires. One sentence has stood as the standard ever since: “If the application of behavioral techniques does not produce large enough effects for practical value, then the application has failed.” Practical value. That is the measure. Not whether your child is completing trials in a clinic room. Not whether their data sheets show upward trends on a graph. Whether the program is producing changes that matter in your child’s actual life.
Baer and his colleagues defined practical value as socially meaningful impact—change that registers in the real world, not just in a treatment setting. In 2026, the best translation of that standard is this: Practical value is whatever you define as meaningful for your child’s life. That might be eating at a restaurant without a meltdown 80 percent of the time. It might be asking for help when frustrated rather than hitting. It might be playing alongside another child for 10 minutes. The specific goal matters less than the principle behind it—the program should be changing behavior in the situations your child actually lives in, not just performing well under controlled conditions. This means data collected only at the clinic is insufficient. Quality ABA requires data from home, from school, from the community. A Board Certified Behavior Analyst running a rigorous program will work with you to collect that information—and will train you to collect some of it yourself. If your program has never asked you to gather data outside the clinic, that is worth raising directly.
Parents are not passive signatories on treatment plans. In a well-run ABA program, parent training is substantive—you should be learning what the behavioral terms mean, how to read a data graph, and how to evaluate whether a treatment goal is actually measurable. A goal like “will improve communication” is not measurable. “Will use a picture card to request a preferred item in three out of four opportunities at home” is. You should also feel genuinely encouraged to ask hard questions. A BCBA who responds to your questions with defensiveness or jargon is not serving you well. A BCBA who welcomes those questions—who teaches you how to ask better ones—is doing the job properly.
This is not unusual, and it is not a reason to abandon ABA. It is a reason to expect something specific from your treatment team: a genuine redesign. Not an explanation for why the original plan was sound in theory. Not a reassurance that progress takes time. A concrete modification to the behavioral strategies, with a clear rationale, aimed at producing the outcomes that haven’t arrived yet. That flexibility—the willingness to revise when the data demand it—is one of the defining features of quality ABA. If your program cannot offer it, it may be worth asking whether a different provider can.
If you take one thing from this post, let it be this: Ask your child’s BCBA to show you data from outside the clinic. Data that reflects how your child is doing in the situations that matter most to your family. If that data exists and shows meaningful progress, your program is working. If it doesn’t exist, you now know what to ask for.
Practical value. It has been the standard since 1968. You have every right to hold your program to it. Your child doesn’t have the time to waste on a program that doesn’t emphasize practical value
Kevin D. Arnold, Ph.D., A.B.P.P. Self Tests are all about you. Are you outgoing or introverted? Are you a narcissist? Does perfectionism hold you back? Find out the answers to these questions and more with Psychology Today.
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