From Newly-Minted to Confident Practitioner: ACSS 6

The Behavioral Observations Podcast with Matt Cicoria

In the 6th installment of the Apollo Case Study Series, I'm joined by my regular conversation partner, Dr. Jim Moore, along with Christina Nylander. Christina is a BCBA who works at Apollo's Lawrenceville, GA clinic.

In this episode, Christina opens up quite a bit and describes how she encountered Applied Behavior Analysis, her early experiences as an RBT, the mentoring and supervision she's received as a BCBA in the early stages of her career, the value of learning about typical child development, the successes she's had as a clinician, learning the PEAK curriculum, and much more.

Christina quite vulnerably discussed juggling the immense challenges of being a working mother in our field as well. From sleep deprivation to feeling like one is never fully caught up... she candidly describes how she navigated that process.

Throughout the podcast, Jim related Christina's points to Apollo's unique clinical and supervision models. If you are interested in learning more about what they do, you can find more information here.

Here are some of the resources we discussed:

• Prior Apollo Case Study podcasts.
• Making the Science Part of Your Practice, Session 167.
• Rapport Building and Instructional Fading Prior to Discrete Trial Instruction: Moving From Child-Led Play to Intensive Teaching (Shillingsburg, et al., 2019).
• Last year's Verbal Behavior Conference. For those who are interested, the 2023 VBC (disclosure: VBC is a podcast sponsor).

In parting, I have two requests:

First, if you have any questions about this episode or any other ACSS podcasts, I encourage you to hit Jim up on LinkedIn.... even if it is just to say hello. Second, please share this show with friends and colleagues. I think Christina's story is highly representative of many people in the field right now, and this podcast may be helpful to quite a few BCBAs out there.