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The Masquerade of Support: Applied Behavior Interventions in Special Education Classrooms
Read more: The Masquerade of Support: Applied Behavior Interventions in Special Education ClassroomsWhen schools describe behavior monitoring as “support,” what does that actually mean for children? This article examines how applied behavior interventions—especially student self-scoring—can satisfy legal…
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Automatons of ABA: When Training Becomes Treatment
Read more: Automatons of ABA: When Training Becomes TreatmentIn 2022, Karie John submitted her dissertation Training Board Certified Behavior Analysts via Telehealth to Conduct the Trial-Based Functional Analysis to the University of South…
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What’s the Function? Sindy Sanchez and the Institutional Logic of Functional Analysis
Read more: What’s the Function? Sindy Sanchez and the Institutional Logic of Functional AnalysisSindy Sanchez’s 2018 dissertation, What’s the Function? Assessing Correspondence between Functional Analysis Procedures, was submitted to the University of South Florida’s Ph.D. program in Applied…
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What Makes Jasper Tick? When ABA “Interventions” Are Really Experiments on Distress
Read more: What Makes Jasper Tick? When ABA “Interventions” Are Really Experiments on DistressEvery morning, 7-year-old Georgia started her school day the same way: by sitting in her chair. Not just any chair — the same one, in the same…
Writing Pillars
A Public Record of What Counts as “Evidence” in Applied Behavior Analysis
Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is routinely described as the “gold standard” of autism intervention. That description appears in state statutes, insurance mandates, professional marketing, and academic programs. It is rarely examined at the level where it is produced.
Misbehaviorist exists to examine it there.
Misbehaviorist exists to examine it there.
This site publishes critical, document-based analyses of doctoral dissertations, credentialing standards, and institutional texts that form the foundation of ABA’s claimed evidence base. Each article asks a simple question with far-reaching consequences:
These articles do not summarize research claims. They evaluate them.
- Line-by-line analyses of ABA doctoral dissertations
- Plain-language reconstructions of experiments and methods
- Audits of how autism is defined, assumed, or omitted
- Examinations of what outcomes are measured versus implied
Why Dissertations
Doctoral dissertations are where professional authority is minted. They shape who is credentialed, what counts as expertise, and which practices are later described as “evidence-based” in law and policy.
Yet most dissertations are never read outside the field that produces them.
Misbehaviorist treats dissertations as public documents with public consequences—and analyzes them accordingly.
This is critical commentary, not peer-reviewed research. The goal is transparency, not neutrality.
All analyses on this site are:
- Written for parents, policymakers, journalists, and future practitioners—not just academics
- Grounded in primary documents
- Explicit about what is descriptive versus interpretive
- Focused on systems and standards, not personal character
For short reflections, emerging ideas, and cultural pulses.
When a field’s evidence base is dominated by:
- Small-N or single-subject designs
- Behavioral proxies for complex human experiences
- Research that optimizes compliance, speed, or data fidelity rather than development or well-being
…the public deserves clarity about what those studies can—and cannot—support.
Claims of scientific authority should be proportional to the evidence that exists.
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