One sentence from 1968 gives parents the standard they need — and the right to demand it.
When your child is diagnosed with autism and you begin an ABA program, a question quickly follows: how do I know this is actually working?
It is a reasonable question — and it turns out the field of applied behavior analysis answered it more than fifty years ago. In 1968, Donald Baer and his colleagues published the paper that defined what ABA is and what it requires. One sentence has stood as the standard ever since:
“If the application of behavioral techniques does not produce large enough effects for practical value, then the application has failed.”
(Baer, Wolf, & Risley, 1968, p. 96)
Practical value. That is the measure. Not whether your child is completing trials in a clinic room. Not whether their data sheets show upward trends on a graph. Whether the program is producing changes that matter in your child’s actual life.
What “Practical Value” Means for Your Family
Baer and his colleagues defined practical value as socially meaningful impact — change that registers in the real world, not just in a treatment setting. In 2026, the best translation of that standard is this: practical value is whatever you define as meaningful for your child’s life.
That might be eating at a restaurant without a meltdown 80% of the time. It might be asking for help when frustrated rather than hitting. It might be playing alongside another child for ten minutes. The specific goal matters less than the principle behind it — the program should be changing behavior in the situations your child actually lives in, not just performing well under controlled conditions.
This means data collected only at the clinic is insufficient. Quality ABA requires data from home, from school, from the community. A BCBA running a rigorous program will work with you to collect that information — and will train you to collect some of it yourself. If your program has never asked you to gather data outside the clinic, that is worth raising directly.
What Empowered Parents Do
Parents are not passive signatories on treatment plans. In a well-run ABA program, parent training is substantive — you should be learning what the behavioral terms mean, how to read a data graph, and how to evaluate whether a treatment goal is actually measurable. A goal like “will improve communication” is not measurable. “Will use a picture card to request a preferred item in three out of four opportunities at home” is.
You should also feel genuinely encouraged to ask hard questions. A BCBA who responds to your questions with defensiveness or jargon is not serving you well. A BCBA who welcomes those questions — who teaches you how to ask better ones — is doing the job properly.
When the Program Isn’t Working
Sometimes a program fails to produce practical value. Behaviors plateau. Skills don’t generalize outside the clinic. The goals on paper don’t connect to the life you’re actually living.
This is not unusual, and it is not a reason to abandon ABA. It is a reason to expect something specific from your treatment team: a genuine redesign. Not an explanation for why the original plan was sound in theory. Not a reassurance that progress takes time. A concrete modification to the behavioral strategies, with a clear rationale, aimed at producing the outcomes that haven’t arrived yet.
That flexibility — the willingness to revise when the data demand it — is one of the defining features of quality ABA. If your program cannot offer it, it may be worth asking whether a different provider can.
The One Question to Ask
If you take one thing from this post, let it be this: ask your child’s BCBA to show you data from outside the clinic. Data that reflects how your child is doing in the situations that matter most to your family. If that data exists and shows meaningful progress, your program is working. If it doesn’t exist, you now know what to ask for.
Practical value. It has been the standard since 1968. You have every right to hold your program to it.
References
Baer, D. M., Wolf, M. M., & Risley, T. R. (1968). Some current dimensions of applied behavior analysis. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1(1), 91–97. https://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1968.1-91
Cooper, J. O., Heron, T. E., & Heward, W. L. (2020). Applied behavior analysis (3rd ed.). Pearson.