SEXABA 2027
CONFERENCE
SESSION INFO
9AM - 12PM CST
Workshop 1 - Announcements Coming Soon
Presenter Announcements Coming Soon
3 Hours
3 BACB CEUs
Workshop Description:
Announcements Coming Soon
Workshop Objectives:
Announcements Coming Soon
1PM - 4PM CST
Workshop 2 -
Announcements Coming Soon
Presenter Announcements Coming Soon
3 Hours
3 BACB CEUs
Workshop Description:
Announcements Coming Soon
Workshop Objectives:
Announcements Coming Soon
5PM - 6PM CST
Conference Plenary: Lies and Deception: The Public Health Impact of Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPC)
Dr. Gemma Skuraton DrPH, MPH, CHES, CDE, CDP, SHRM-CP, LAT, ATC, CWP, USAW, CPT, FMS, RYT-200, & Dr. Gabriella Barrientos PhD, MAE, BCBA, CDE, LBA, IBA, CSSC
1 Hours
1 BACB Ethics CEU
Workshop Description:
Crisis pregnancy centers; also referred to as CPCs or "fake clinics" are clinics or mobile vans that look like real health centers, but they're led by anti-abortion activists who target pregnant people with lies about birth control, reproductive health and abortion healthcare. CPC’s primary goal is to shame, pressure and frighten pregnant people from accessing abortion healthcare. These centers are highly organized and disproportionately target historically marginalized communities, including rural and low income areas. This training will conceptualize the legality vs. the ethics of CPCs, teach professionals how to identify a CPC as well as outline the public health impact of these agencies. This presentation will meet ACE standards for ethics CEUs, consultation with other providers (3.06), advocating for appropriate services (3.12), and cultural responsiveness and diversity (1.07). Presentation is facilitated by a subject matter expert: doctor of public health, certified victims advocate, past president of Georgia Society for Public Health Education (GASOPHE) and strategy committee member for Georgia’s Fake Clinics Suck advocacy campaign; Dr. Gemma Skuraton and Dr. Gabriella Barrientos (BCBA).
Workshop Objectives:
By the end of this presentation participants will be able to:
1. Examine signs indicating a clinic might be a crisis pregnancy center (CPC).
2. Conceptualize why CPCs are legal but unethical.
3. Discuss the public health impact of reproductive health disinformation perpetrated by CPCs.
9AM-12PM CST
Workshop 3 - Announcements Coming Soon
Presenter Announcements Coming Soon
3 Hours
3 BACB CEUs
Workshop Description:
Announcements Coming Soon
Workshop Objectives:
Announcements Coming Soon
12:30PM-1:30PM CST
Conference Kickoff:
Foreplay Begins After The Orgasm: A Preference Assessment For Your Pleasure
Dr. Camille "Cammie" Williams, DBH, MSC, BCBA, LBA, ABS
1 Hour
1 BACB Learning CEU
Presentation Description:
Behavior analysis has long relied on systematic preference assessment to identify what functions as a genuine reinforcer for an individual, rather than relying on guesswork, assumption, or third-party report. This presentation translates that same methodology, paired-stimulus (PS), multiple-stimulus without replacement (MSWO), and free-operant formats, into an underexplored but highly relevant domain: solo and partnered sexual pleasure. Just as caregiver opinion has repeatedly been shown to be a poor predictor of what functions as reinforcing for an individual (DeLeon & Iwata, 1996), women in particular have been shown to prioritize partner pleasure over their own, often absent a systematic process for identifying and communicating individual preference (Reis et al., 2021). Sexual pleasure itself is increasingly understood not as a single reinforcer but as a multifaceted taxonomy of distinct rewards, physical, emotional, and relational, that vary meaningfully across individuals (Werner et al., 2023), while dispositional and interpersonal traits have been shown to meaningfully predict preference for different sexual acts (Peterson et al., 2011). This session reframes pleasure as a reinforcer class, subject to habituation, satiation, and idiosyncratic variability, and demonstrates how systematic preference assessment formats can be adapted to identify high-preference sensory, relational, and activity-based reinforcers for consenting adults, solo or partnered. Attention is given to staff (or self-) training in accurate assessment administration (Roscoe & Fisher, 2008) and the ethical necessity of ongoing, non-coercive consent as a precondition for any assessment involving another person. Attendees will leave with a step-by-step, adaptable protocol for building their own solo or partnered preference assessment, grounded in decades of peer-reviewed behavior analytic and sexual health methodology.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this presentation participants will be able to:
1. Define sexual pleasure as a multifaceted reinforcer class and distinguish state versus trait sexual pleasure.
2. Identify and describe systematic preference assessment formats and explain how each could be adapted to assess solo or partnered sexual preference.
3. Outline a step-by-step protocol for administering a preference assessment for sexual pleasure, incorporating ongoing, non-coercive consent.
2:00-3:00PM CST
How Behavior Analysts Can Support the Sexual Rights of Disabled and Neurodivergent Patients From an Integrated Care Perspective
Dr. Valeria Parejo, DBH, BCBA
1 Hour
1 BACB Ethics CEU
Presentation Description:
Historically, behavior analysts have worked with disabled and neurodivergent populations, supporting their pursuit of autonomy to enhance their community participation and quality of life. ABA providers have contributed to enhanced access to medical services to ensure that physical health is not a barrier to inclusion. However, support and services related to sexual health have remained taboo due to ableist beliefs, lack of training and education, and a fragmented healthcare system. The sexuality of people with disabilities is often perceived through the lens of problem behaviors or potential risk of exploitation rather than an expected part of the individual’s life This presentation examines how behavior analysts can contribute to the protection of the sexual rights of disabled individuals, adopting an integrated care approach to the services they provide, and emphasizing person-centered planning and interprofessional collaboration with medical and residential providers.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this session participants will be able to:
By the end of this presentation participants will be able to:
1. Describe 2 contributions to the sexual health and well-being of patients when behavior analysts working within an interprofessional team.
2. Describe 3 advantages of an integrated care approach in the healthcare field.
3. Describe similarities between the recommendations of an integrated care approach and the ethical guidelines presented in the BACB ethics code.
3:30-4:30PM CST
Beyond 'I Want a Girlfriend/Boyfriend': A Behavior-Analytic Curriculum for Teaching Dating & Healthy Relationship Skills
Falicia Flynn, BCBA, LBA
1 Hour
1 BACB Learning CEU
Presentation Description:
“I want a boyfriend/girlfriend" is one of the most common goals expressed by autistic and IDD clients, yet it is rarely programmed for. This session provides a behavior-analytic framework for teaching dating and healthy relationship skills. Participants will learn to task analyze dating into six teachable stages: identifying partner values, initiating connection, reading reciprocity and disinterest, planning dates, navigating physical boundaries and ongoing consent, and coping with rejection/breakups. Strategies include BST, video modeling featuring neurodivergent actors, community-based practice, and data collection that measures autonomy, not compliance. We will address common barriers including caregiver/staff bias, LGBTQ+ inclusive goal-setting, and balancing safety with self-determination. Attendees will leave with a sample curriculum outline, data sheets, and practical tools to start teaching connection skills that are socially valid, affirming, and aligned with client-stated values.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this presentation participants will be able to:
1. Task analyze dating into at least 5 component skills and identify natural community teaching opportunities for each.
2. Describe 2 strategies for teaching recognition and response to disinterest/rejection that promote safety and self-esteem.
3. Identify 2 common personal or caregiver biases that block relationship goals and one strategy for navigating values conflicts while centering client autonomy.
5:00-6:00PM CST
The Emotional Reactions and Opinions of Inclusive Post Secondary Education Students to their Co-Created Healthy Relationships Course
Stephanie Marie Barr, M. Ed., M.A.T.
1 Hour
1 BACB Learning CEU
Presentation Description:
Co-creation, the principle that students should have a more active role in their education and work with their instructors as participants in the educational process, has not often been applied to comprehensive sexuality education courses meant for young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This presentation would discuss research done as a pilot study to determine the emotional effects of a healthy relationships course on enrolled students taking the class as part of their inclusive post secondary education program as well as their opinions on the content and formatting of the course. This is a qualitative study based on interviews with the students in order to emphasize the important of student voice.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this session participants will be able to:
1. Verbalize how co-creation principles can be applied to comprehensive sexuality courses designed for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
2. Understand the emotional reactions of enrolled students to the course as well as their opinions on course content and formatting.
9AM-10AM CST
Spoiler Alert: Anti-Blackness is Why You Are Sexually Repressed
Dr. Camille "Cammie" Williams, DBH, MSC, BCBA, LBA, ABS
1 Hour
1 BACB Ethics CEU
Session Description:
This presentation examines the historical and structural relationship between anti-Blackness and sexual repression, arguing that dominant norms around sexuality, modesty, and "acceptable" desire in the United States were built substantially through the policing and pathologizing of Black bodies. Drawing on the Jezebel archetype, this session traces how controlling images constructed Blackness as simultaneously hypersexual and requiring control. Empirical research confirms this stereotype's ongoing weight, showing that Black women adapt clothing and sexual behavior in direct response to Jezebel-related sexual scripts (Leath et al., 2021), and that target race measurably increases rates of sexual objectification (Anderson et al., 2018). This repression has not stayed confined to its origins. It has been repackaged into contemporary wellness and self-care culture, which often centers individualized, consumer-driven models that exclude the systemic and communal frameworks Black communities actually rely on for healing (Wyatt & Ampadu, 2021). This presentation aims to argue and prove that behavior analysts cannot claim social validity while remaining silent on anti-Blackness. Drawing on emerging behavior analytic scholarship, this presentation applies critical race theory and cultural responsiveness frameworks directly to clinical practice (Mathur & Rodriguez, 2021), and grounds recommendations in the lived experiences of Black caregivers navigating ABA services (Čolić et al., 2021). Participants will leave with a framework for identifying anti-Black roots in seemingly race-neutral discourse about liberation, wellness, and desire, plus concrete, ethics-code-anchored strategies for addressing bias in their own practice.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this session participants will be able to:
1. Identify at least two historical controlling images (e.g., the Jezebel stereotype) and explain their documented influence on Black clients' and stakeholders' sexual socialization, shame, and self-protective behavior.
2. Describe how uninterrogated anti-Blackness in clinical, wellness, and "neutral" therapeutic frameworks constitutes a bias risk to the populations behavior analysts serve.
3. Apply a self-assessment framework to identify at least one discriminatory pattern in their own service delivery, documentation, or goal-writing practices, and outline a corrective action step.
10:30AM-11:30AM CST
Inform, Empower: ABA's Role in Supporting Transgender Youth in Obtaining Gender-Affirming Medical Care
Dr. Gabriella Barrientos PhD, MAE, BCBA, CDE, LBA, IBA, CSSC
1 Hour
1 BACB Learning CEU
Session Description:
Transgender and gender-diverse youth experience significant disparities in mental health outcomes, largely driven by stigma, discrimination, and barriers to affirming care. Decades of research demonstrate that access to gender-affirming medical care is associated with improved psychological well-being and reduced rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidality. Yet misinformation surrounding gender-affirming care continues to influence public discourse and clinical practice, creating uncertainty for behavior analysts who seek to provide ethical, evidence-based services.
This presentation will dispel common myths regarding gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth by reviewing the current scientific literature, established standards of care, and the role of interdisciplinary collaboration. Participants will examine how applied behavior analysis can support—not direct—client decision-making by teaching the component skills necessary for informed consent. These skills include understanding the potential impacts of medical interventions, identifying and weighing potential risks and benefits, clarifying personal values and goals, evaluating alternatives, and making autonomous, values-based decisions about one's own future.
The presenter will introduce practical strategies behavior analysts can use to teach these decision-making repertoires while maintaining client dignity, autonomy, and self-determination. Resources and implementation tools from the presenter's peer-reviewed Affirming Transgender and Autistic Youth Toolkit will be shared to help clinicians develop affirming, neurodiversity-affirming, and culturally responsive interventions. Through case examples and practical applications, attendees will leave with evidence-based strategies to support transgender and gender-diverse clients in navigating healthcare decisions, advocating for themselves, and accessing affirming services within an ethical ABA framework
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this presentation participants will be able to:
1. Analyze the current empirical evidence regarding gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth and distinguish evidence-based findings from common misconceptions and myths.
2. Apply principles of applied behavior analysis to teach the component skills of informed consent, including understanding treatment options, evaluating potential risks and benefits, and supporting client self-determination in healthcare decision-making.
3. Evaluate strategies for implementing affirming, ethical, and culturally responsive ABA practices that support transgender and gender-diverse youth using resources from the Affirming Transgender and Autistic Youth Toolkit.
12PM-1PM CST
Access Before Mastery: A Behavior-Analytic Framework for Differentiating Sexuality Education for Learners With Extensive Support Needs
Alexis Boatright, MS, RBT
1 Hour
Possible, But Not Guaranteed
In alignment with our conference values, this presentation has been programmed even though the presenter does not meet the updated BACB ACE criteria for providing CEUs. Presenter preference will determine whether a co-presenter is selected, and additional bonus CEUs will be announced if this occurs.
Should the presenter present solo, the conference reaffirms the value of their expertise and the place of this knowledge in the cohort of presentations for SexABA 2027.
Presentation Description:
People with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), particularly those with extensive communication, adaptive, or instructional support needs, remain underrepresented in sexuality-education research. Conventional curricula often rely on fluent speech, literacy, abstract verbal responding, group participation, or adaptive repertoires that can become de facto prerequisites for instruction. Yet difficulty accessing a conventional lesson does not necessarily mean that chronologically and socially relevant sexuality education is inappropriate or unteachable. This presentation introduces Access Before Mastery, an evidence-informed behavior-analytic framework for differentiating sexuality education without making mastery of conventional instructional prerequisites a condition of access. The framework distinguishes instructional access from mastery, readiness for sexual or relationship activity, and legal or clinical capacity. Instructional planning is organized around five questions addressing socially relevant outcomes, functionally useful component repertoires, valid response and measurement arrangements, stimulus control and generalization, and learner control. Applications involving privacy, refusal and disclosure, puberty and menstrual care, and relationships and dating will illustrate how practitioners can analyze response modalities, prompting, examples and nonexamples, generalization, and measurement while preserving chronological-age dignity, privacy, voluntary participation, and professional scope. The presentation will also examine limitations of the current evidence base, including the underrepresentation of learners with extensive support needs and the frequent gap between knowledge demonstrated during instruction and functional performance outside the teaching context. Access Before Mastery is presented as an instructional decision framework rather than a validated intervention package.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this presentation participants will be able to:
1. Differentiate among instructional access, mastery, readiness for sexual or relationship activity, and legal or clinical capacity when planning sexuality education for learners with extensive support needs.
2. Apply the five-question Access Before Mastery framework to identify a functionally relevant component repertoire and to select an accessible, valid response and measurement arrangement for a sexuality-education goal.
3. Evaluate a sexuality-education plan for appropriate stimulus control, generalization, and learner control, including opportunities to refuse, pause, modify, or withdraw from instruction.
2PM-3PM CST
Ethics in Sex Education with Autistic Learners: Actually Autistic Expertise Panel
Moderator Janani Vaidya, MS, BCBA, IBA & Panelists
1 Hour
No BACB CEUs
In alignment with our conference values, this panel has been programmed to center Autistic expertise, and to decenter behavior analytic perspective in a way that deeply aligns with our ethical obligations, but which does not meet the updated BACB ACE criteria for providing CEUs.
The conference reaffirms the value of their expertise and the place of this knowledge in the cohort of presentations for SexABA 2027.
3:30PM-4:30PM CST
The Ethical Landscape of Behavior Analysis Forums on Reddit: Sex Education
Dr. Elaine Gilmartin, BCBA, Ph.D. & Dr. Richard Price, BCBA-D, Ph.D.
1 Hour
1 BACB Learning CEUs
Presentation Description:
Sex education is a topic increasingly encountered by behavior analysts supporting autistic individuals and their families, yet no published research has examined how this content is discussed within public social media forums or whether such discourse aligns with the BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts. This study replicates the content-analytic methodology developed by Price et al. (2025), who examined the ethical alignment of posts across three ABA-themed subreddits. The present study narrows this framework to posts responsive to three sex-education-related search terms selected to reflect common entry points families and practitioners use when seeking guidance. Findings and Implications for organizational training, supervision practices, and stakeholder-facing guidance on sex education within ABA service delivery will be discussed, along with recommendations for practitioners engaging with this topic on social media platforms such as Reddit.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this session participants will be able to:
1.Identify the BACB Ethics Code standards most relevant to sex-education-related discussions occurring in public, non-clinical spaces (e.g., confidentiality, scope of competence, providing effective treatment).
2.Differentiate between ABA-related social media content on sex education that aligns, potentially misaligns, or does not align with the Ethics Code, using Price et al.'s (2025) coding framework.
3. Describe practice recommendations for behavior analysts and organizations to ethically address sex-education topics when supporting families, including appropriate boundaries around treatment recommendations and referral to the empirical literature.
5PM-6PM CST
Supporting Sexual Health for Those with Significant Support Needs
Landa Fox, MA, MACP, BCBA, RBA (Ont), CSHE, RCC (BC)
1 Hour
1 BACB Learning CEUs
Presentation Description:
Behaviour analysts work to support a wide variety of clients. Often, those clients have significant support needs across a variety of domains, including daily living skills and educational needs, and may have multiple disabilities (e.g., autism, intellectual disability). While sexual health and safety education and support are universal needs, many behaviour analysts struggle to effectively assist clients and their supporting communities when significant support needs and sexuality intersect. This workshop will review why this support is essential, regardless of support needs, and provide clinical suggestions for how to assist those with significant support needs and their support teams most effectively.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this session participants will be able to:
1. Identify at least 2 reasons why sexual health and safety support is essential for everyone, regardless of support needs and understand how to apply that rationale to gain buy-in from communities of care.
2. Recognize potentially effective strategies using teaching in context and contingency-based learning to support safer sexual behaviours.