Chapter 12 – Determining the Next Step

This is the final chapter in the section on professional judgment. Once a treatment has been implemented and new sources of evidence have been collected (e.g., target behavior data, satisfaction, feasibility, etc.), evidence-based practitioners facilitate the process of deciding to retain, adapt, or reject a treatment. When all parties are happy with a treatment and it produces the necessary improvement, it is still necessary to develop a plan to fade an intervention. Furthermore, some level of adaptation may be needed to produce an effective and sustainable treatment. Strategies for negotiating the adaptation process are described. Finally, despite the effort and energy exerted by evidence-based practitioners and the target, stakeholder, and leader clients, a treatment may prove inappropriate. This may be due to poor client progress but it could also be due to unanticipated problems with feasibility.