QOL Domains
This QOL domain focuses on giving clients choice, control, and autonomy.
What is self-determination? (Schwartz & Kelly, 2021)
This term describes a learner's ongoing, observable willingness to participate in therapy.
What is assent?
Allowing a client to choose between several tasks supports this QOL domain.
What is self-determination?
This term refers to lifelong commitment to self-reflection, openness, and reducing power imbalances.
What is cultural humility?
Offering breaks, sensory tools, and comfortable seating supports this QOL domain.
What is physical well-being?
This domain includes safety, comfort, and emotional regulation as essential parts of a good life.
What is physical well-being? (Schwartz & Kelly, 2021)
This occurs when a client complies with a task given a prompt but shows flat affect, tension, or avoidance (meaning the session is not truly voluntary).
What is learned compliance / lack of assent?
A client's comfort, joy, and positive affect during a session reflects this domain?
What is emotional well-being?
This term describes subtle, often unintentional, comments that communicate stereotypes of bias.
What are microaggressions?
Allowing clients to access meaningful personal items helps support this QOL domain.
What is material well-being?
This domain relates to clients feeling valued, included, and having a sense of belonging.
What is rights & inclusion? (Schwartz & Kelly, 2021)
An ABA session prioritizes this when the RBT adjusts demands in response to distress signals.
What is compassion?
or
What is compassionate care?
According to Brown and Brown (2009), this behavior is essential to self-determination and QOL.
What is choice-making?
According to Wright (2019), cultural humility focuses not on mastery, but on this ongoing process.
What is accountability, self-reflection, and/or lifelong learning?
When RBTs celebrate effort, allow exploration, and promote new skills, they enhance this domain.
What is personal development?
This domain emphasizes the importance of supportive relationships with caregivers, peers, and therapists.
What is interpersonal relations? (Schwartz & Kelly, 2021)
RBTs demonstrate this ethical stance by pairing, honoring boundaries, and treating emotional cues as meaningful data.
What is client dignity and respect for client welfare?
This occurs when the RBT ignores a client's withdrawal of assent and prioritizes task completion over emotional safety.
What is coercive practice?
This QOL domain is strengthened when client's cultural identities and communication styles are honored in sessions.
What is interpersonal relations?
Adjusting the environment (lighting, noise, pace) shows that the RBT is attending to this important aspect of client care.
What is comfort / sensory regulation?
This QOL domain is strengthened when learners are given opportunities to grow, develop skills, and gain independence.
What is personal development? (Schwartz & Kelly, 2021)
This essential component of compassionate ABA requires RBTs to adjust their behavior based on the client's emotional cues, repairing rapport, and prioritizing the client-therapist relationship over task completion.
What is therapeutic sensitivity?
or
What is responding compassionately to emotional cues?
This describes the connection between autonomy and emotional regulation. When learners feel they have control, they experience more of this.
What is safety, engagement, and/or emotional stability?
According to Matsuda et al. (2020), racism can be understood as a system of contingencies influenced by this behavioral process.
What is social reinforcement?
This guiding question helps RBTs reduce coercion and promote dignity: "How can I make this session feel..."
What is "... safe, predictable, and meaningful?"