Development of the Values-Centered Assessment Tool (VCAT) to Inform Culturally Responsive Behavioral Services

Taking an individualized approach to cultural responsiveness is essential when collaborating with families to deliver behavior-analytic services. One way behavior analysts can start this process is by asking caregivers and other relevant individuals informed and targeted questions that would allow behavior analysts to make cultural adaptations to services that are provided. However, there is a lack of well-developed resources that are specific to behavior-analytic practice and designed to assist behavior analysts in facilitating conversations regarding values and cultures of clients and their families. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop the Values-Centered Assessment Tool (VCAT) to offer a way for behavior analysts to assess a wide range of potential adaptations that may be incorporated into the process of behavioral assessment, training, and intervention. To develop the tool, rigorous standards were adopted, including an extensive review of the literature, in-depth interviews with service providers (behavior analysts), and evaluation by an expert panel. The final version of the VCAT included questions about stakeholders, cultural practices, communication, client-professional relationship, accessibility, and parenting/behavior management. Results showed that the VCAT was representative of the content being assessed (S-CVI = .89) and demonstrated high content validity indexes for relevance (I-CVI = .99) and clarity (I-CVI = .98) of items. The VCAT was determined to be a content-valid tool that can be used to design individualized behavioral services with consideration of values and cultures of families who are from diverse cultural backgrounds.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40617-024-00945-x.