Sarah Heller

By Dr. Sarah Heller, Ed.D., BCBA, LBA-NY · Meaningful Metrics There is a particular kind of exhaustion that sets in somewhere around month two of your post-exam life as a BCBA. The studying is over. The acronym is behind your name. You survived, told approximately everyone you know, and updated your email signature with appropriate gravity. And then you sit down to write your first independent behavior plan and realize something quietly unsettling: you now have to know what you are doing ....

By Dr. Sarah Heller, Ed.D., BCBA, LBA-NY · Meaningful Metrics You have a behavior plan. It was written thoughtfully, reviewed by the team, explained to the family. Maybe you even had professional development on it. And yet ... here you are, three months in, watching the exact behaviors it was supposed to address continue to occur, possibly with more enthusiasm than before. Before anyone suggests rewriting the plan from scratch, it is worth asking a different question: is the plan actually...

By Dr. Sarah Heller, Ed.D., BCBA, LBA-NY · Meaningful Metrics If you have a neurodivergent child, there is a good chance you have sat across a table from a teacher, a principal, or a well-meaning school psychologist and heard some version of the following: "It's interesting, because in school we really don't see that." And if you are the parent in that scenario, you have probably done one of two things. Either you smiled politely while something inside you quietly snapped, or you started to...