We support our clinicians in advancing through these levels to ensure consistent growth, confidence, and clinical excellence. By investing in their continued development, we create a team that’s prepared to meet the evolving needs of the individuals we serve. Each level of SBT certification builds on a foundation of trust, safety, and effectiveness—equipping our staff to deliver the highest quality of care.
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At MASC, we’ve seen how Skills-Based Treatment (SBT) helps children and families in real, meaningful ways. By teaching communication, flexibility, and self-advocacy, SBT helps reduce challenging behaviors and build lifelong skills. For our team, using SBT has made sessions more positive and effective. We’ve seen happier kids, less frustration, and more progress. Most importantly, families feel more supported and empowered. SBT isn’t just a treatment—it’s a way to help children succeed while strengthening the connection between families and our team at MASC.
I use SBT because it treats all of the people involved – the client, the caregivers, everyone – with love, respect, dignity. SBT focuses on relationships. It begins by showing respect for the problem behavior as the best way that person currently has to get their needs met, and the skill building flows from there.
I use SBT because it emphasizes trauma-informed care and upholds client dignity. This approach ensures that therapy is delivered with respect, fostering a safe environment for growth and empowering clients to achieve meaningful, lasting progress.
SBT is an approach that priortizes all means of communication so needs are met, while building flexibility to access meaningful experiences.Children that previously struggled with sitting at a desk, brushing teeth, cleaning up, showering, toileting, or haircuts, have learned these skills, thanks to SBT. This approach uses gradual exposure, and in my experience, has been essential for ensuring learner readiness, acceptance to the dreaded “NO”, and decreasing interfering behavior because SBT allows learner control, commucation, and choices. The power of Skill-based Training (SBT) has been foundational for teaching a variety of life skills.
At MASC, we’re committed to making a meaningful, lasting impact on the lives of our clients and their families. Understanding that each journey is unique, we take a personalized approach to treatment. As a clinician, I often use Skills-Based Treatment (SBT) because I’ve seen how effective and transformative it can be in teaching essential skills, addressing specific challenges, and applying them across different environments. This approach helps replace problematic behaviors with more adaptive, functional ones. With SBT, clients are often happier, more engaged, and enjoy the process, creating a positive atmosphere during sessions. One of the strengths of SBT is its collaborative nature—caregivers are involved at every step, gaining the tools and knowledge to apply strategies at home and in the community. As a result, families feel more confident and equipped to support their loved ones’ progress even after treatment ends.
SBT has been instrumental in my understanding of challenging behavior, embracing a trauma informed approach that focuses on building those crucial foundational skills in a therapeutic way that simultaneously builds trust through that process. I have see clients who would have a history of struggling with accepting no, giving up their reinforcer and transitioning and exhibiting aggressive or interfering challenging behaviors methodically build that skillset through SBT, when there were worlds of hurt when we used to embrace the full on extinction protocol, sometimes with more harm then good being done. It is a masterful shaping procedure that has changed my approach as a practitioner within ABA.
Compassionate care is important to me as a clinician and Skills-Based Treatment is exactly that. With the focus on rapport, safety, and dignity, clients learn communication and toleration in a way that intends to keep them happy, relaxed and engaged. The clients I have used SBT with seem happier and sessions overall are more fun and engaging. The progress is fun to see!
SBT has significantly enhanced my practice as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) by providing a structured, individualized approach to addressing severe challenging behavior with a trauma informed lens and promoting meaningful progress in clients’ lives. Through the consistent application of these evidence-based techniques and the emphasis on mastery of functional communication, toleration and relinquishing of preferred items, SBT has made my practice more holistic, client-centered, and effective in fostering lasting, positive change in the individuals I serve.
I have been in the field of education and behavior analysis for over 20 years. I have to say prior to using the Practical Functional Assessment/Skill Based Treatment (PFA/SBT) process I often felt uncomfortable with some of Applied Behavior Analytic procedures because to me, they felt less than child centered and in some cases an invasion of personal space. When I came across the PFA/SBT process I was a bit skeptic it’s ability to get results but after lots of training I soon realized this was the technology for me.
The PFA/SBT process puts the client safety, dignity, and respect in the forefront. This creates a unique opportunity to make impressive progress while partnering with the client and client family to address their concerns based on their individual values. This aligned my own personal values while at the same time utilizing all the best practices of applied behavior analysis to address concerning behaviors. This is a groundbreaking shift for the field and I personally apply the skills I learned from the PFA/SBT process with every client I have the privilege to work with.
The PFA-SBT process has had a transformative impact both on me, as a clinician, but also with my clients. The combination of creating a safe and compassionate environment while focusing on reducing maladaptive behaviors and increasing functional communication is so powerful. It is amazing how research-backed approaches like this can shape the way we practice ABA, helping not just with the client outcomes but also with our own growth and satisfaction in the field.
