Our approach is not too different from the one in the article although there is some nuance I think that article missed and it comes from some other fields than ABA. One area I think that is super important is the conceptual formulation of "Serious Leisure", this is a phrase that captures the intensity of leisure that moves beyond, "things that fill time". Full article: Serious leisure and people with intellectual disabilities: benefits and opportunities , I think this one is really good on some of the variables to consider that can expand on the article posted above! I will have to dig through some old folders to find some of my other favorites, but if there is a single conceptual approach to leisure that shaped how I think about it and where we may go wrong, this one probably holds the most space for me. We had a socialization and leisure program for adults for 7 years and some of the most challenging things was moving from schedule fillers to meaningfully engaged prolonged leisure that comes with-recognition, global skill development, meaningful social communities, purpose extended over time- etc. In our program we landed on a blend of types of offerings that accomplished experiential exposure to various types and opportunities to move in to "serious".

Sounds like awesome summer plans to me! I have a bit of experience designing community based programs and functional living programming for group programs, so if you want to bounce idea’s off of any one feel free to reach out!

loved this one! great presentation, even if you can't get credits it is 100% worth it!

@Matt Harrington for sure, I do not think we need to dictate how that role plays out as different organizations will select the features that work for their system. Also, some of my most willing to learn front line staff ever were transitionary hires, exploring different fields with no intention to progress in the science- so it's not even a "perfect" indicator of motivational alignment for improvement. However in research we should be identifying these features and calling them out especially when they are confounds, IE if a small practice with an RBT to BCBA conversion rate of 90% uses this that's fine if the confound was present. However, if a provider in a rural area who has a conversion rate of 15% tries and the confound is present that could be a huge resource suck. So if there are clear demarcated features of likely motivators relevant to an intervention, then we should have transparency for that. Part of why I am sensitive to this, is the history of OBM work with behavior analytic populations being a niche of the university system and their access to populations that are drastically different than typical operating systems, creates false standards for practice. Given their introduction and orientation to the previous interventions resource heaviness exceeding what is common in practice, I was hopeful they would have more transparency to these features =).

@Matt Harrington 100%! An intern acknowledgment on the credential and affiliated t-codes would be a wonderful addition to our field!

Awesome- mine is to figure out a systemic approach to relieving some tensions for late life diagnosis autistics and advocates of level 3 (“profound”/etc) learners.