An Evaluation of a Culture Interview Checklist for Behaviorally-Oriented Clinicians

Abstract

In recent years, there have been calls from within the field for behavior analysts to develop awareness of the impact of client culture on treatment. The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a checklist as a tool for increasing the frequency of questions about client culture asked by behavioral clinicians during mock intake interviews. A multiple baseline across question types (diet, communication and reward/discipline) was used to evaluate the effects of a vague prompt and the Culture Interview Checklist (CIC). When instructed to ask questions about culture, none of the participants increased the number of questions asked to a socially significant degree. Two out of the three participants met the mastery criteria for each portion of the CIC after it was introduced. The third participant required an additional instruction to meet the mastery criteria. A tool such as the CIC may advance the field in a myriad of ways as behavior analysis embarks upon the challenge of becoming more culturally competent.