Motivation, Movement, and Mindset: With Dr. Mallory Quinn,, Part I

ABA on Tap is proud to brew with Dr. Mallory Quinn (Part 1 of 2):

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Mallory Quinn, a Ph.D., BCBA-D, and entrepreneur who is revolutionizing the intersection of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), health, and fitness. Dr. Quinn, the owner of ABA Sports Innovations and ABASI Dance Lab, shares her personal journey, applying behavior science to create a fulfilling career outside of traditional clinical paths.

Join us as we dive into:

• The Science of Movement: Discover how ABA principles can be applied to improve performance and overall well-being, whether you're a competitive dancer or a busy professional.
• Combatting Burnout: Learn the strategies Dr. Quinn uses to help other BCBAs and high-achievers protect their energy and set healthy boundaries.
• A Non-Coercive Approach to Health: Explore how Dr. Quinn's positive, data-driven methods move beyond old, coercive training practices to promote safe and effective long-term results.
• Building a Meaningful Career: Get inspired by Dr. Quinn's entrepreneurial path and how she helps others find their niche in the field of behavior analysis.

Whether you are a behavior analyst seeking to diversify your career or simply looking for a new perspective on health and wellness, this episode offers practical tools and inspiration for redefining your relationship with movement.

MORE ABOUT DR. QUINN:

Dr. Mallory Quinn, Ph.D., BCBA-D, is a recognized expert in the field of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), specializing in its application to health, sports, and fitness. As an entrepreneur, she has established two successful companies: 
ABASI Dance Lab and 
ABA Sports Innovations. Her work is dedicated to applying behavior science to improve performance, health, and wellness in a non-coercive, positive manner.

Dr. Quinn earned her Ph.D. in Applied Behavior Analysis from the University of South Florida. Her published research focuses on using behavioral methods, data, and feedback to enhance performance, particularly in competitive dance. Through her work at ABASI Dance Lab, she provides professional training for dancers and musical theater performers, prioritizing positive mental health and non-coercive coaching. 

Through ABA Sports Innovations, she offers consultation services and guides other Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) who want to enter the health, sports, and fitness field. This includes providing supervision, training, and mentorship workshops. As a business coach, she helps other BCBAs build meaningful careers outside of traditional clinical

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:10

Welcome to ABA on TAC, where our goal is to find the best recipe to brew the smoothest, coldest, and best tasting ABA around. I'm Dan Lowry with Mike Rubio, and join us on our journey as we look back into the ingredients to form the best concoction of ABA on tack. In this podcast, we will talk about the history of the ABA brew, how much to consume to achieve the optimum buzz while not getting too drunk, and the recommended pairings to bring to the table. So without further ado, sit back, relax, and always analyze responsibly. All right, all right.

SPEAKER_05: 0:52

Welcome back to yet another installment of ABA on tap. I am your ever grateful co-host, Mike Rubio, along with my esteemed partner, Mr. Dan Lowry. Dan, how are you doing today, man?

SPEAKER_03: 1:04

Doing great, doing great. Learn I'm gonna learn how to dance today. Is that what we're talking about?

SPEAKER_05: 1:08

If that's possible, can you can you learn how to dance? Are you teachable? Is the idea? Anybody can do it. If anybody can teach Dan how to dance, the Doctor of Dance today. We have the official Doctor of Dance and ABA, the dance-ABA combination. Uh, really, really happy to continue with our series and interviewing uh professionals who are taking ABA outside of the autism treatment realm, which I think is very exciting. And uh our guest today is doing that indeed. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce Dr. Mallory Quinn. Dr. Mallory, how you doing?

SPEAKER_00: 1:52

I'm doing well. Thanks so much for having me.

SPEAKER_05: 1:54

Fresh off the coal plunge. You've already worked out this morning. I mean, you're good to go. You are ready for us. Two hours of discussion, and we got to make the dance ABA link, which has never been done on ABA on tap ever before, or any ABA podcast. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that. We're gonna be the first to do the dance ABA connection. Uh, we're really, really uh grateful for your time. Uh really appreciate you accommodating our recording schedule. We like to do it on Sunday mornings, afternoons. We're gonna get you back to your uh nice Tampa uh sun soon, we hope. Uh if it if it stops raining. Uh, but we like to start from the very beginning and go to the origin story. Some everybody somewhere has that past in the autism intervention and then maybe you know goes off and takes an offshoot, it takes a different road, and I think that's where you're coming from. So if you don't mind, take us back to the beginning. Let us know about all your experiences and bring us to the current day and and what you do with ABA because it's all very exciting. So go right ahead.

SPEAKER_00: 2:54

Sure. Okay. This is gonna be a long one. Um please, we're we're here to listen.

SPEAKER_05: 2:58

Please take your time.

SPEAKER_00: 3:00

All right. So um I grew up in Tampa. I've been a performer since I was literally like two years old. Um, I grew up dancing. I ended up shifting to musical theater once I was in middle school. I went to a performing arts high school. It's actually a relatively well-known high school. Doce just came from there. If you guys know Dochi, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03: 3:26

But um We lived 10 years ago again.

SPEAKER_05: 3:29

Um I bet your kids would know him. Yeah, I'll I'll have I'll ask my teenagers.

SPEAKER_00: 3:36

She just won the Grammy for uh best uh female rap artist, so yeah. Okay. Um yeah, it's probably why you guys don't know him.

SPEAKER_03: 3:45

Oh man.

SPEAKER_05: 3:46

Age, genre, yeah. You've kind of yeah, okay, continue.

SPEAKER_03: 3:49

His son's in a band, so it's he'd probably know.

SPEAKER_00: 3:53

So uh went to a performing arts high school. It's always been a huge part of my life. Uh dancing musical theater, started teaching dance at a young age as well and fitness classes and things of that nature. And then um, once I started school, I was majoring in psychology. I was always very interested in behavior and why people do what they do. I think that's actually a common thing for artists and um actors and things of that nature, is an interest in human behavior and learning about that. So um I found ABA really early on. Luckily, I was 18 years old and I started in the field at 18 while also teaching dance and teaching fitness and things of that nature. And then I was just at the right place and the right time. I would say I was at USF, which ended up having a really amazing ABA program. And I met with Dr. Miltenberger, who was my incredible mentor very early on when I was 18. And um I told him that I was interested in learning about behavior analysis with uh dance. At the time, I was looking at like art therapy, was what I was looking at, and he was very open-minded. He did not shut me down, but he explained to me how there were routes that I could go that were more scientific where I could still integrate into the arts and things of that nature and kind of explained the differences for me. So uh started grad school under his mentorship and did a lot of research with ABA and dance instruction. So we looked at different types of antecedent manipulation, consequence manipulation. Uh, for my dissertation, we took it a step further. I ended up writing and publishing a manual and training dance instructors to do the interventions themselves versus just me as an analyst going in and doing it. So that was my track throughout grad school. And then, sorry, I told you guys this is gonna be a long story.

SPEAKER_05: 5:58

So we're we're intrigued. I got my notes already written down. Oh, he's already got like 12 questions. I continue.

SPEAKER_00: 6:04

Yeah. So then while I was in grad school, I was working at a lot of these places, and a lot of these dance instructors were like, this stuff is really cool. It's really uh helpful. We see the effects of it, we see the growth of the dancers. Like, you should make a business doing this. And I was never I never thought about having a business or having a PhD. Those were just things I never thought about. But um, so I was like, you know, it's either me that's gonna make this business or someone else is gonna make this business off my work. So I decided um at 26 years old that I was gonna start my consultation company. Uh, we were the first company that I know of in ABA and health sports and fitness. That was back in 2016. And um, I ended up opening a brick and mortar fitness studio where we had yoga, bar, uh hit classes, cardio classes, and then also a dance studio right next door where we had dance for kids. We we are a non-competition dance studio. A lot of my research centers around kind of the negative effects of dance competition and using ABA to help mitigate that. So um I have a dance studio for kids. I also see competition dancers from other studios for therapeutic services. We also have a therapeutic line of services for kids with special needs. Um, we're now in year six of the dance studio. Um, we have over 150 kids. It's very successful, lots of therapy clients. I have a full-time therapist and manager on staff who's an RBT. And um yeah, I've also shifted a little bit more in my journey into the wellness area as well. Um, I had a lot of health issues after graduate school just from the nature of um that kind of hustle, stressful life. And then going right from that into being a business owner of three businesses during COVID was very, very stressful. Yeah. And I ended up having a lot of health issues. And um, a couple of years ago, I really shifted my life completely as far as um managing my stress and what I do day to day, a lot of holistic things that we were talking about before we started. Um so now I work a lot in the health space as well. I coach women, BCBA entrepreneurs who are starting their own businesses outside of ABA and autism. I work with them a lot on reducing burnout, setting their business up in a way that they uh can live a life that's more enjoyable and values-based and less just focused on that grind and hustle. So, yeah, I do supervision as well. I have an online school, quite a bit of stuff, quite a bit of stuff going on. But just let me know what you guys are interested in and I can talk about that.

SPEAKER_03: 9:06

Yeah. Wow, that's a lot. First of all, congratulations on you said 150 uh people in your dance program.

SPEAKER_00: 9:14

Thank you. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 9:15

It's amazing. It's exciting.

SPEAKER_00: 9:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 9:17

Well, we've got a ton of questions after all that. We do. That's for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 9:21

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 9:22

I guess I'll I'll start off with um I mean it sounds perfect when you think about something like dance. Uh I I won't call myself a musician, but I like to play instruments. Uh, and I'm not formally trained, right? So um something like ABA could be very useful, say, in formal training for a musician in terms of you know, road practice, these things that are gonna build your technique and and your chops. And then having played from the other end of things, I know plenty of very skilled musicians who know how to read music, but they don't exactly hit that feel. So they play really precisely, but they don't sound great. I guess first question would be how do you mitigate that? Because I can see that being part of your dance instruction where the ABA part is pretty good at the precision part and and getting people to um you know repetitively practice certain things to really hit the mark on something, and then you still have to hopefully help somebody become a good dancer. What's the yeah, what's the what's the fine line there? What what's your secret?

SPEAKER_00: 10:24

Yeah, well, that's that's a great point because a lot the research that I published in like improving dance skills is very just acquisition-based, right? And there are certain things that are kind of a hybrid of like artistry and athleticism. Dance is one of those, very well, music, things of that nature. Um, so yeah, you hit the nail on the head. Most of most ABA really just uh addresses the skill acquisition component. Uh, but what I will say is that I integrate act coaching with every dancer that I work with one-on-one, as well as every woman business owner I work with, every supervisee. So that's one thing is like I work with different populations of people, but I use the same concepts with all of them. So um act coaching really does get into values work. And if you think about a dancer who um maybe has great skill but has trouble connecting, if you really were to work with them on a deeper level of why they dance, so looking at values, um, you know, these different areas of the hexaflex and act, present moment awareness, right? If they learn to really connect with the music more and really listen to the music and ask themselves why they're dancing and breathe with the things that they're doing, right? That has to do with present moment awareness. Um, that's going to enhance their artistry. So a lot of the artistry components are addressed in that act coaching, which is really nice. It's a nice little package.

SPEAKER_03: 11:57

And can you speak to that a little? I mean, I guess you did with the being present um without giving away any of your secrets. Can you speak to some of the specific so act is acceptance commitment therapy? Is that I get that correct? Um, we've had a couple people come and speak to that, and I think Mike and I definitely resonate with that premise a lot. But can you speak to maybe some specifics from the uh ACT um strategies that you utilize?

SPEAKER_00: 12:20

Sure, yeah. So in ACT or ACT, there's different areas of this hexaflex. Um, there are different processes that contribute to psychological flexibility. And the idea is that the more that you work on these different processes in tandem, the more psychologically flexible you are, or the more uh you're able to adapt to ever-changing environments, situations, those kinds of things. So, one way that I utilize that a lot in my work is if I have a competition dancer who's working with me in therapy from another studio, maybe for something like audition anxiety. Um auditions can be very anxiety-producing because you can't control the situation, right? Um, so a lot of these things in the act hexaflex can help that specific client. For example, let's just look at acceptance, right? Acceptance is one part of the act hexaflex, and that has to do with um accepting what is happening and really letting go of that need to control or um hold things so tightly, right? So maybe they're in an audition and they have a thought of like, I'm not gonna get the role that I want, I'm not a good enough dancer. One act of acceptance would be to notice and name that thought as just a thought and not hold on so tightly to it that it lets it affect their performance. So that's just a really small fraction example of something, one part of the hexaflex that I might use with a dancer who comes for that kind of coaching. Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 13:55

What one more question? Before I interrupted you earlier. Um the hexaflex, I've I have not heard of that before. Is that representing the six like Yes? What can what what are those if you can speak to them at all? I've never heard we've had like four or five people bring up act and nobody's mentioned the hexaflex that I'm aware of. So can you speak to it?

SPEAKER_00: 14:13

Yeah, it's just like a little shape and it has like the different processes in it. Um, let me see if I can remember them all um without cheating. Okay, you can but um like contact with the present moment is one. So again, if we're working with a dancer, the more that we can help them be in the here and now, the more they're able to connect with the music and connect with their body, right? Um, values is why you're doing something, right? Uh it can also help dancers a lot because when we're in competitive settings, they're very goal-focused. And being goal-focused can lead to a lot of disappointment because there's always going to be a best dancer and everyone else, right? Or the person that gets the role and everyone else. And oftentimes we're not the best dancer in the room or we're not the best performer in the room. So if you can work with athletes and help them be values focused versus goal focused, um, they can have a lot more pride and happiness in what they do, right? Because maybe their value is I'm going to show up to this audition and be brave because I want to be a better dancer. And every audition that I go to, I'm growing as an artist. That's a value versus a goal. I'm going to go to this audition. We had Lion King auditions at my studio. So I'm going to use a lot of Lion King references, but I'm going to go to this audition and I want to get Simba. And if I don't get Simba, I must suck, right? That's that's kind of where the goal thinking can go. Um, so values is really important. Um, what else do we have? I said contact with the present moment, right?

SPEAKER_01: 15:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_00: 15:54

We have um diffusion. So diffusion is being able to see your thoughts as just thoughts, stepping back from them, or we call it unhooking an act. So again, maybe a negative thought comes up and you the client learns these different coping skills or practices that they can implement when that thought comes up. So it doesn't affect their behavior as much. Um, we've got self as context. That's a little bit of a more difficult concept, but basically self as context has to do with being able to step outside of your mind or yourself and see that there's a greater thing happening. So for a dancer, self as context work, a lot of it has to do with helping them learn that they are more than just a dancer, right? So there it's a little bit, that's the little bit woo-woo one of the exoflex. Sometimes behavior analysts are like, uh, I don't know about that. Because it has like a little, a little connotation of like spirituality to it, of like, there's a little bit more than just you and your mind, there's more than that kind of thing. Um gosh, what else do we have? Acceptance. Okay. So being able to accept the things that happen to us. So uh one tenet of ACT is that when it comes to psychological suffering as humans, a lot of that isn't what happens to us, it's how we react to it, right? So our expectations, what we do with that. Okay. One more you guys are stressing me out because I'm trying to remember all the time.

SPEAKER_03: 17:28

I I pulled it up um if it helps, because I'd never heard of it. So you said acceptance, there's acceptance, committed action, values, self as context, being present, and cognitive diffusion.

SPEAKER_00: 17:41

I think you've got to do that. Oh, yes, okay. So I called it diffusion instead of cognitive diffusion. Okay, cool, cool. Yeah, so that's just a little bit of an example of how we could use all of those processes with a dancer. Um, and as you guys can probably think about, like uh because I work a lot with business owners, like all of those concepts apply to business owners too, of things that can hold them back in starting their business.

SPEAKER_05: 18:07

So these um constructs uh perhaps are a little bit less quantifiable than our usual procedures and protocols in ABA. Tell us a little bit about how that pans out. So you just kind of walk people through these exercises that are more act-related. You're not necessarily taking data on this, or what what's uh I guess what's what's the mark that you're trying to hit in terms of uh realizing that somebody may have cognitively diffused or may have reached acceptance. How do you determine that?

SPEAKER_00: 18:36

Sure. Yeah, the data definitely is it's just a little bit different, I would say. It's not that there isn't data, it's just collected in a different way. So we do um sometimes we do like intensity rating scales um of so like what I like to do when I do assessments is I have questions that address different areas of the hexaflex, and I have them do like Liker rating scales of like thoughts that that relate to the subject that we're talking about from the different areas of the hexaflex, and I measure it is self-report because right, we we don't have a way to measure Oh my goodness. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 19:13

Qualitative measures? Oh goodness, Dr. Malie.

SPEAKER_00: 19:17

Yeah, you can look at um those measures before and after. Uh one thing I love to collect data on is like a percentage of opportunities as far as like a coping skill. So I might teach a client a coping skill in a session, and then I will teach them when I want them to use that coping skill. And then something we can collect data on is like, okay, they went to an audition, right? The trigger was present, the opportunity was present. Did they implement the coping skill? What happened after those kinds of things? Um, we can use BST when we teach the coping skill. So I write out very detailed and length in my behavior intervention plans how I'm going to teach each of these skills. So you have a task analysis, you have this kind of breakdown. Um, but there are a lot of things in ACT that are very database. It's just different from standard ABA in that sense. So it just requires like, again, this is where that supervision comp component comes in. You learn all these things in supervision, like all these different ways that you can collect data. But something that I I like to talk about that is like a kind of a it makes people uncomfortable. But as someone that works outside of ABA and autism, full-time behavior analyst in this space for 10 plus years, I can tell you guys that a lot of our clients like really don't care about BIPs and like that the data that we value so highly. And I know that's a very controversial thing to say. And I'm sorry for everyone that that makes uncomfy, but they really don't. They just want to see the change. Like they just they just want to see, like, oh my gosh, my kid went on stage and didn't have a panic attack. My kid went to an audition and like did really well. I feel like a lot of times the data is like insurance motivated, and I don't, I don't work with insurance. So I'm not saying that I don't, I don't care about data as a behavior analyst. Of course, like I have a PhD in ABA. I love data, I love research, I love all the things, but my parents that I work with, they don't they just really don't care about it.

SPEAKER_05: 21:25

They don't we appreciate that statement very much on ABA on tap. In fact, it's our plight currently is still providing autism treatment um to try and posit data. Um, we work a lot with our RBTs, with you know the younger professionals in terms of trying to capture what the data's for, the idea of sampling data. I don't need you to recreate the entire session and data points for me because if you do that, that means you spent less time with the client than I wanted you to spend. Because your focus is on the data points. Uh so yeah, no, we we really appreciate that, and it's something that we are continually trying to figure out how to do better. The idea that I want to capture a quick snapshot of these things happening behaviorally, and then we want to spend a lot more time teaching and interacting and engaging and building those skills. We like to say in ABA, uh, traditionally we love to plant a seed and then we start measuring the sprout even though there's just dirt in the pot. We like to we like to wait until we see a sprout and then we start measuring.

SPEAKER_03: 22:26

So are you trying to say that it's it's okay for her to not do 10 consecutive dance recitals over 80% of opportunities across three different sessions to get incredible data? Right, right. Is that what you're saying? Is that idea? She has to do 10.

SPEAKER_05: 22:40

And then she has to exit her clients out of her dance studio, right? You can't come in my dance studio anymore.

SPEAKER_00: 22:45

Yeah, like I I still write beautiful BIPs and FBAs, but honestly, it's mainly for like my supervisees so they can see like how I collect data and things of that nature. The again, the parents don't care. Like, I send it to them, I they don't, they don't read it, they don't want to read it. They just love to see the change that's happening in their child and they get they get what I'm doing because I talk to them about it and they get the point, and their kids talk to them about it. And I'm like, hey, these are things I want you to do at home to reinforce the work that we're doing here. And again, just like that example we talked about, like the goals versus values. It could be something really simple of like, when your kid comes home from rehearsal, how can I, you know, I'll talk to the parent about values. What's a values-based statement you can say versus did you get your triple pirouette? Did you get the, you know, even something like that. We're gonna focus on process-oriented language versus goal-based language. Like just it's simple. And that's again, it's a controversial take, but that's in my opinion, a mistake that I see a lot of businesses that are outside of ABA and autism. And I'm I'm going to speak on this because I've had a very successful, profitable business in ABA outside of autism for 10 years. And I think a big mistake a lot of people make is they're marketing to other behavior analysts and they're not marketing to the clients, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03: 24:07

Yeah, it does. So you brought up the concept of like a pirouette or different dance moves. Um, do you feel like because an ABA, like you've talked about, Mike, sometimes we get so task analyzed that we might teach all of the different dance steps, but then never really put them, and I guess this is kind of what you were asking earlier, never put them together in anything that makes sense. So there's an importance of being able to teach every dance move because you might have to do that within a choreograph scene or whatever. But if all I ever do is teach them out of context, then you haven't you just have these anecdotal dance moves. Um do you have any thoughts on that? Um, in terms of maybe whether it's top-down or bottom-up or just like the over-task analyzation of of how we present a lot of things, and maybe you don't because you're not in the A ABA ASD field that we are over task analyzing things.

SPEAKER_05: 24:56

I guess one way that or one way to ask your question is how do you measure mastery, right? That might be a way to consider it. That was literally and again, uh and balancing that with artistry, uh, you've given us a really good insight. So I'm really curious to hear your your perspective on this. But yeah, that's the qualitative piece you're describing, I think, is is is capturing something that we oftentimes miss in ABA because we're so focused on the quantification. And then artistry is all about quality, right? Mastery in terms of a beautiful uh dance move or or or some choreography, much more of that is gonna be qualitative in nature, but there's quantifiable moves within every of that. Yeah. Speak a little bit more to that balance. How do you how do you look at a client and go, yep, you've mastered this move or this dance or whatever it is? That that yeah, that that's interesting. How do you do that?

SPEAKER_00: 25:44

Yeah. Um, something I try to do within my dance studio to make it more ABA based than a typical dance studio is um we have very specific like level placement um outcomes that they have to meet before leveling up or down. So I would say that's one example.

SPEAKER_01: 26:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 26:02

Um we have a very clear like checklist, like you have to be able to do these components of these different movements in order to move up and down. Um, again, back to that data analysis. It's really only something you can do in private lessons. It's it's very hard to implement um in a dance class, but some ways that we do implement ABA into dance classes. Um, for example, last year we did a whole semester in one class of the good behavior game. Um, we implement behavioral training for our teachers. So all of our teachers have like a base knowledge of ABA, um, what to do if a child with special needs, you know, if these kinds of things happen in your class, um, what to do if a child runs out of class crying, um, how you can integrate values-based work, um, those kinds of things. So we do like specialized training for our instructors as well. Um, but yeah, again, a lot of the beautiful things that I publish in research, I really just sprinkle them into the day-to-day. I don't sit there with a task analysis and like like I did in research and go through every step with the student because again, people wouldn't it it wouldn't be profitable and enjoyable that way. Um, I would again, I would just be doing that that's just me being a behavior analyst. And again, like I see a lot as the marketing to behavior analysts and not focus, it's not client focused.

SPEAKER_03: 27:33

So that enjoyable piece, I know we've talked about it, right? We've taken games and my turn now. You say your turn now, do you take the turn? Now you say my turn now, and it just it it loses the the total enjoyment. Yeah, um you say something that I think is really um relevant to what you've been talking about, um, Mallory, is that so you talk about kind of going in in and out of the research, that you've done the research and you know where that comes from and you have that basis, but you don't need to continue to reprove the research. Um and like you said, right? Skinner and Lovos, they did the research. So we know reinforcement works. We know these strategies work. We don't have to constantly re-prove it with every client in every session that these processes work. They work, so let's just use them and get the outcomes that we want rather than have to try to set it up in the same exact lab-oriented way into somebody's living room or into a dance studio that is in the Skinner lab or the Lovas lab. Like it works. We don't have to continue to do that. I think you've talked a lot about that.

SPEAKER_05: 28:31

Well, it's the idea of experimental control, right? And I think that it is, and and and you know this, uh Mallory, but uh the notion that that all our training in terms of empirically validated research takes a great deal of experimental control. We talk about instructional control, and then to to Dan's point or the greater point here, well, we a lot of these things we don't do under experimental control. We don't do it in a laboratory setting. So we have to count on the empirical validation with a certain margin of error, realize that we're taking that margin of error and increasing it because we're taking it out of a certain amount of control, and then we do our best. And I think you're capturing that qualitative piece very nicely, and it's cool that you're doing dance and things like that that do require a bit more of an artistry, which is much more qualitative in nature, but it is built upon these very quantifiable moves. Uh that's really neat. That's a good combination. I think there's a lot to learn from that uh in terms of autism treatment. The idea that oftentimes what Dan was explaining, uh, we're creating these uh play scenarios with kids, for example, but our task analysis gets the best of us, and all of a sudden we're trying to impose or employ this vision of this behavior that we've already uh you know preemptively planned on, and and kids are doing something different, and they're doing a lot of things that would be differentially reinforceable or correct toward whatever target behavior, but because we already have this one track mind of what it's supposed to look like, we're offering corrections in instead of shaping. So you must do. A lot of shaping and differential reinforcement through. I mean, that's that's basically all you're doing. And tell us a little bit about what that might look like or sound like in terms of um. So I I I think you you probably use uh tag teaching a little bit, and you I know you try to sprinkle it. Yeah, you've done a little bit of uh I think some of your research has looked at um, I guess some coercive aspects of teaching or other ways that that uh people more naturally resort into teaching. Will you talk a little bit about that? Uh sort of the importance of shaping and differential reinforcement as you work toward artistry and how tag teaching and and uh being mindful of of coercive parameters is is helpful to you in your day-to-day.

SPEAKER_00: 30:40

Yeah. Um, so like I said, I I see quite a bit of therapy clients from outside studios who come to me because they have audition anxiety or performance anxiety. And um I don't really get on a soapbox and explain to the parents where that comes from because it's not, again, this is this is like all aligned with what we're talking about. Um, it's I could do that as a behavior analyst, but that's not helping my client, because then they just won't work with me, right? It's not helping my business, all those kinds of things. So um what I do in my one-to-one sessions with the dancers is is I work a lot with, again, these psychological flexibility components, right? Because I can't control the environment that they're training in. If these teachers are yelling at them, they're yelling at them. If their parents are putting pressure on them, their parents are putting pressure on them. But what I can teach that child to do is to be more psychologically flexible and to be able to respond to those things in a way that they hopefully won't have that same audition anxiety or performance anxiety. And I could even teach them advocacy skills that if they do feel that they are being, you know, berated or whatever, they could speak up and for themselves. And I I work with those dancers on having those skills and really exploring, like, you know, is this a right fit or a not right fit? Those kinds of things. So um a lot of that comes from the coercive coaching, and yeah, we don't have that coercive coaching at our studio, but it is something that I help a lot of dancers respond to, the ones that are in that environment, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_05: 32:26

And that can be pretty common in dance, right? I mean that that I I don't want to just boil it down to ballet, but uh you know, you see any sort of uh ballet scene in a movie and there's all sorts of yelling and correction and things that are very pre uh things that are are geared towards precision. So you're saying you behaviorally speaking, you can help somebody understand how to use that toward motivation, and then sometimes some of the there's some people that just aren't gonna be able to tolerate that environment. Is that fair to say?

SPEAKER_00: 32:56

Right, right. Yeah, because I I give the parents uh suggestions who I work uh who I work with, but again, if if I'm trying to think of the best way to say that. We appreciate your uh your effort to be um there, I mean, there's only so much we can suggest for for change, right? Um, so again, like helping the kids have that power within themselves and those skills within themselves to be able to respond to those things. Um, but yeah, at our studio, we are very focused on artistry. A lot of people we get all the time ask us why we don't compete, because we have a lot of higher level dancers, and there's this perception in society that if you're a higher level dancer, you have to be competing. And if you're not competing, you're not as legitimate of a dancer. And that's a very warped perception that I think in 10 to 20 years is going to start to fade away. We're just kind of at the beginning of that. Um it's a values-based thing, right?

SPEAKER_03: 34:00

It just depends on what you value.

SPEAKER_00: 34:02

Yeah. Yeah. My dancers are very focused on artistry. And um they dance because they love to dance and they they want to be professional dancers, but we just we don't do competition because there's just so many, again, back to the research, there's so many negative aspects of it. It leads to um a lot of attrition, anxiety, lifelong anxiety, not just performance anxiety, but anxiety in all aspects of life. Um, lifelong injuries, uh, just all kinds. There's a laundry list of effects. So um it's hard and difficult to focus on the artistry when you're just like, okay, I'm trying to get 40 tricks in a solo so that I can get a high score. You know?

SPEAKER_05: 34:45

Interesting. Wow, that's a really interesting combination between, again, another example of where quantifying and then the qualitative piece. Because you're right, in terms of competition, there are those technical scores that need to be quantified. You have to hit certain marks, and then it's got to look good at the same time. Wow, that what a what a perfect circumstance to to explore ABA in. I mean, that's that's fantastic. Um, so I'm trying to think here in terms of uh repetitive movement, somebody that's very driven, very motivated, trying to hit the mark on certain movements, then the idea that repetition is gonna lead to fatigue, fatigue can lead to injury. You mentioned that a little bit. What are your tri without giving your your secret sauce away? What are your tricks in helping uh you know dancers and kind of saying, okay, you need to stop now? I see you're driven to keep going on practicing this move or this this piece of choreography, but I'm actually gonna stop you because you're done. If you push anymore, you might get injured. Do you do you find you have to define that line sometimes?

SPEAKER_00: 35:43

Yeah, we don't we don't have that issue too much in our studio because most of those types of people don't really gravitate towards us. It's just not like we're not really values aligned with those kinds of people. Um, but yeah, like when, for example, in my research and when I did the tag teach sessions, they were always kept very short, so like no more than 15 minutes. Um, logistically, there's a lot of things you can do, like equipment you can purchase. Like we have a lot at our studio for that helps um decrease fatigue so they can do movements over and over. For example, we have air floors and like like poppers where they can do jumps over and over and over and work on that technique without that same fatigue. So logistically, they're like we do some of those kinds of things, but um, I would say we don't really have a problem with like those types of scenarios in our studio.

SPEAKER_03: 36:34

Good. Excellent.

SPEAKER_00: 36:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 36:36

So you talk a lot about values. Um, and I I think that's interesting because we had uh Maggie Hara Buddha. I'm not sure if you're familiar with her, she's uh BCBA with autism, um, or autistic B C B A. And um she talked about kind of strength-based versus deficit-based um role rating that you know traditionally ABA and with autism has been predominantly deficit-based, right? Child can't say name, okay. We're gonna work on saying name, or child can't use three-word man, so we're gonna work on that. But it seems like the values-based that you talk to talk about um is much more similar to the strength-based model that we're trying to bring to our company specifically, and hopefully the field is maybe transgressing a little bit into that, which hopefully brings a little bit more self-efficacy for the clients, uh, some more self-esteem, which is gonna be super important, I'm sure, for dance, because number one, dance should probably be fun. I'm sure there's a lot of parents or people that put pressure on their kids where it doesn't become fun, but ideally it's fun, and you don't want to just be constantly beating people down of like, you can't do this, you can't do that, you can't do this. So the strengths base seems like it kind of vibes with your values base of ACT and the way that you deliver it. Can you speak to that? Or do you have any thoughts on that at all?

SPEAKER_00: 37:51

Yeah, um, I think our field is so uh treatment focused, right? Like treatment, treatment. And it's like there are so many things you can do in ABA that aren't treatment focused. Like you can just help people live better lives. They don't like interesting. It doesn't have to be a vinyl score. Yeah, like um, I I've posted about this a little bit on my consultation page too, and BCBAs like laugh, but BCBAs that I work with are usually the hardest clients when it comes to any kind of coaching, like whether it be wellness coaching or business coaching or anything of that nature. And I think what it goes back to that idea of we're almost like conditioned to think that ABA is a treatment and I don't need ABA, I don't need a treatment, right? But it's like, no, it's just it's helping you live a better life, it's helping you get out of your own way, it's helping you notice these things that you know the rest of the world doesn't really view coaching the way that we view coaching, I feel like. So it's just it's a little odd to me. I I could go on for hours about a BCBAs and the rigidity, and I I'm not I'm honestly not really around BCBAs much because it's just it's it's very rigid, the mindset, a lot of things.

SPEAKER_03: 39:16

And um Yeah, and the ones you're around are the newer ones too, right? Nobody knows more than a new BCBA. We've we've talked about this, so I won't I won't beat this up, beat this up because we've talked about this a lot on the pod. But just bringing you up to speed, at at a previous company that we worked at where we Mike and I, and then two other people kind of ran the company. We went through a transition, um, where we were we were really trying to look at how we did things, and you know, every ABA company says they're innovative, and it's like, well, in order to be innovative, you have to have philosophic doubt and question things. And um, there was a lot of turmoil, especially with newer BCBAs, when we would bring up, like, are we sure we need to be taking data on every single trial? Like the beans brought example. Can we just teach a little bit and then take data? Or, you know, and people would be like, No, no, you have to take if you're not taking data on every trial, you're not doing ABA. And the rigidity, I mean, we lost staff over it for sure, especially if the the newer BCBAs of like this is how we we learned it, and it has to be done this specific way. If you're not doing it this exact way, basically trying to replicate that skinarian lab into somebody's living room, you're not doing ABA and therefore you're being unethical. So, totally feel you on that. We went through that. I don't know if you want to speak to that, but we went through that.

SPEAKER_05: 40:30

You mentioned uh process orientation, um, and we talked a lot about that, the idea of process versus product, and our data becomes the product, this one little behavior that we're looking at occurring. And again, I think oftentimes so we we made a shift, for example, to be get be more specific in my example. We made a shift from the idea of percentage of opportunity to just frequency. So we we're waiting for something to happen from the client, and whenever it happens, just count it. Just count it and reinforce it and make it happen again. Uh well, but uh, what if we weren't the uh what if we weren't the provider of the SD? Well, who cares? We're not the only providers of SDs. There's a whole environment around the child that provides SDs. And if if some other SD that you didn't emit leads to the desired uh behavior or some form of it, approximation of it, shouldn't that be reinforced? And it was really difficult. I mean, again, we lost people. Um, people were very keen on that. No, well, if you're providing treatment, you have to deliver all the SDs. Okay, I disagree. I disagree. I think if there's a treatment environment and it's enriched, there should be more than one source of SDs, and we should be able to respond, uh, you know, if not reinforce uh any given response that approximates or is in line with what we're trying to teach. And that was, I mean, that was near impossible for a couple folks. Uh, it was just like, no, no, you guys are blasphemy, right?

SPEAKER_00: 41:53

Yes, and this I've posted about this before too, but just because something is different doesn't mean it's unethical. Just because I practice ABA differently than another person practices ABA, my ABA is not unethical. I'm I'm still following the ethics code. What I think is actually more unethical is being so rigid that you that you can't look at other things to help your client. But it's just a difference of opinion, right? Apples and oranges. And this is the thing like, as I've done a lot of self-work and I've I've moved a little bit from that very rigid academic mindset, I'm not for everybody. My service is not for everybody, and that's okay. Again, I'm not I'm not centering my business around proving to people that I'm a great behavior analyst. I don't need to do that.

SPEAKER_03: 42:45

Which is yeah, and we so much appreciate that. That's why we've had so many people over, especially the last six months from you know, sports side of ABA. We just had a sexuality and ABA, like all sorts of different health is a big mental health piece right now. Outside of just the, you know, doing ABA with kids with autism. I'm trying to expand that. Um, because for some ABA was never about kids with autism. It just somehow got, you know, Lovos said that we could work with that, and then insurance has picked it up.

SPEAKER_00: 43:11

That's where the money is, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 43:12

So it just became Let me ask you that the insurance piece, because we are so you said your ABA wasn't um for everybody, which again we resonate. Our ABA isn't for everybody, which we found out with a recent peer-to-peer review uh uh last week. Oh man. Uh we won't go into that.

SPEAKER_05: 43:30

Uh oh, I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_03: 43:33

But but I bring that up because in some ways, with a lot of the current service delivery, it is tricky because the funder has this like templated ABA of it has to fall within this template, the funder being medical insurance. It has to fall within this template of ABA in order for us to fund it, which I totally get. Um, and there is validity of that because you can't just be doing total foo foo stuff and be getting reimbursed. But it also does limit the creativity or the you know, they would never fund a dance in ABA because that's not part of the medical necessity. The core deficits.

SPEAKER_01: 44:08

I don't want them to fund me.

SPEAKER_03: 44:10

No, I I agree a hundred percent. We want them to fund you, we want them to fund you, and we want to work on that. So the point being that I appreciate that. And can you speak to anything about breaking outside of the medical model? Because it's really, really challenging to get funding outside of the medical model for a lot of people. And when you're within the medical model, you kind of have to do your creativity, is very limited.

SPEAKER_05: 44:32

Yeah, I imagine you help people that are going through this too, in terms of business owners that are inevitably gonna be part of this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 44:39

So that's what I was gonna do. That's where I was going. Yeah, it it takes a lot of skills that you don't learn in grad school. So I'll just put it that way. It takes a lot of skills, a lot of um practice, learning from people who are in similar situations. Um, so that's where the business coaching and the supervision, if you are going outside of ABA, in my opinion, is a hundred percent necessary. Um, because it's just it's not anything you learned in grad school. And a lot of the work that I do with people, I don't want to say I'm helping them like unlearn things from grad school because obviously we want all the conceptual things there, but unlearn a lot of mindset issues that are holding them back or things that are just different in in this kind of practice. And um yeah, it's just it's different.

SPEAKER_03: 45:32

Can you speak to any of the mindset? So you said unlearn some of the mindset issues. Totally agree with you. Can you speak to any of the ones that you run into a lot that you might advise that that people exploring other avenues might might benefit from unlearning or some mental traps that people fall into?

SPEAKER_00: 45:50

Definitely. Well, we talked about one already. Um, I think the idea of like proving ourselves as behavior analysts to other behavior analysts. I don't I don't know about y'all's graduate school experience, but I think that's a very common graduate school experience of like everyone's trying to prove that they're very competent and um very scientific and all these. I mean, I I still see it. Like when I go to conferences, like it's it's still very present in the room. And I think that's one mindset shift of like you don't need to constantly prove your knowledge. You don't need to speak a certain way to a parent or to a staff member. Like, actually, that's the exact opposite way that you should speak. Um, so I think that's one thing. Um, I think the imposter syndrome is a big one, right? That we I think it's more of a woman thing than a man thing. But from graduate school, like that imposter syndrome of like, should I be here? Like, am I allowed to take up space? Like, am I allowed to be doing this kind of thing? And and again, back to our field being so rigid. Sometimes it feels like whenever you are stepping outside of that box that you're doing something wrong, or people make you feel like you're doing something unethical when you're not. Um, so that's like a mindset shift. Um, I had to work a lot on my money mindset in business for sure. Um, like my financial mindset of like what I'm worth and not worrying about what other people are charging or what other people are doing, like those kinds of things. So a lot of things come into play, but those are the ones that I can think of like off the top of my head. Um, I'm very, very passionate too about teaching, especially women BCVAs, like about self-care. And like I know self-care is like a buzzword, but um I'm just very, very big on like the more you pour into yourself, the more your business flourishes. And I feel like it's the most like under talked about thing. And I actually did a whole presentation about this last month in Women in Behavior Analysis, the conference. Um, but when you really start pouring into yourself and you learn boundary setting and you learn emotional regulation and you learn all of these things, it actually makes your business profit and flourish in ways that is just it's wild. And my coach, who's outside of ABA, like told me that, and I was like, nah, no, that's not a thing. And then, like, when I really started doing it and was forced to do it, um, I really did see the profits soar. And um, I oh, and I think another big one is like authenticity too. Like, that's again something that I feel like is a little bit discouraged in grad school, right? You know, like don't wear those things, don't show your tattoos, don't speak this way, don't. And in business, businesses thrive on authenticity. And that's how you profit as a business. And I a lot of these ABA outside of autism businesses, again, they're they're very sterile. And people don't want sterile, they don't want to buy from sterile, they want to buy from someone who's authentic and speaks to them and those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_03: 49:02

That's an interesting point because anytime you are authentic, you are gonna alienate some portion of an audience, right? But that's actually really, a really good point. Obviously, we we try to be very authentic with um with what we deliver, and that's why you know people have followed us through various companies because of that.

SPEAKER_05: 49:18

Um you mentioned um, I mean, you you have to maintain your continuing education units. Um how does that look like for you? Because most of these conferences are gonna be centered around some sort of autism treatment. Uh so you're doing a lot of you're doing workshops, which allows you to gain some of that. You're teaching, which allows you to gain some units. But you know, you go to any given ABA conference. How do you how do you choose your sessions? Tell us a little bit about your secret there. Because what what interests you, what pops out, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 49:47

So Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of ABA conferences. I can imagine.

SPEAKER_05: 49:51

I need neither are we, and we're actually in autism treatment. I always feel like we I always feel like I mean, this is gonna sound a little bit arrogant, but I feel like I get there and I see some incredible title for a session, and then you go to the session and you're like, really? This is what you're talking about? Like, this is this is ABA 101, like day two. Like, and why are we rehashing this stuff?

SPEAKER_00: 50:14

Again, it goes back to people are scared to really give their opinion on a situation, right? They're scared to like really have that raw because people want like a raw conversation, but people are scared to do that because they don't want someone in the in the audience raising their hand and being like, well, actually, in this research, you know, like because that's what it is. That's the vibe. That's literally the vibe. So we get so scared to like that's actually something I'm gonna say I loved about the WIBA conference last month. Um, that conference was not that way, and it was very different. And um I I liked that about it. It was very more comfortable. Um, people were not in the audience to try to point out something that the presenter might have had a snafu on or whatever.

SPEAKER_05: 51:01

Like you It sounds like you're relaying some personal experience here with the hand raised. Do you want to share an anecdote? Because I think you're I think it's really important is it because you're right. That that's what we that's what we're afraid of. That's what we've faced too, and and not using the technological terms just so or we're pretty cruel. We're we're kind of like crabs in a can as behavior analysts. We're not looking to lift each other up. A lot of times we're looking at correcting each other. And so I'm sure you've hit that. I don't know if you've got any any anecdotes present.

SPEAKER_00: 51:31

Please tell us. Yeah, no, after the WIBA conference, um, I had I had lunch with a friend who was uh she had just moved to where the conference was and she has a PhD. And um, we went to some similar programs and things of that nature, and we were talking, and I I said to her what I said to you guys, I was like, Yeah, it was so nice. Like everyone was so supportive. And she was like, I know exactly what you're talking about. She's like, because I was at ABAI last month, she's like, and that happened at two different presentations I was in. Someone was presenting, and at the end, someone in the audience tried to make the presenter throw them off or make them look a certain way at the end. And and I was like, all right, well, I wasn't even there, but there we go, right there. I mean, there it is. So um, yeah, just Oh, so sorry, Dr.

SPEAKER_05: 52:19

Quinn. I have to stop you there. As this concludes part one of our interview, please do return for part two.

SPEAKER_02: 52:28

And always analyze responsibly.

SPEAKER_04: 52:32

ABA on tap is recorded live and unfiltered. We're done for today. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. See you next time.