Are You Providing SUPER-vision?
Tyra Sellers
Professionals responsible for overseeing clinical service delivery to individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder and their families frequently provide supervision to therapists, paraprofessionals, and clinical supervisees who are responsible for direct service delivery. This supervision includes ensuring the acquisition and maintenance of skills and knowledge, the implementation of clinical services, and the collection of data. Many professionals may also be providing supervision to individuals seeking professional credentialing and licensure and who will, themselves, become supervisors in the future. Supervisors play a critical role in ensuring the skills of those providing direct therapeutic services, and in shaping the repertoires of future supervisors, but many never receive formal training on effective supervisory practices. Professionals in supervisory roles can implement specific strategies to ensure that their supervision is, in fact, super, resulting in positive client outcomes and securing a continued future of high-quality supervisors.
Presented at the 2018 Michigan Autism Conference
Dr. Tyra Sellers received her Ph.D. in Disabilities Discipline – Applied Behavior Analysis from Utah State University in 2011. She is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst, and a Licensed Behavior Analyst in Utah. She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation at Utah State University and the director of the Utah Behavior Support Clinic (UBSC). She and her team provide assessment and intervention services for individuals with severe problem behavior at the university-based clinic, in homes and schools across the state, as well as provide consultative support to build and train indistrict behavior support teams for school districts. She earned a B.A. in Philosophy and an M.A. in Special Education from San Francisco State University, and a J.D. from the University of San Francisco. Dr. Sellers has over 20 years of clinical experience working with individuals with disabilities, spanning from EIBI through adult services. Her research interests include behavior variability, assessing and treating problem behavior, and effective training and supervision. She has consulted with many school districts in the United States, and with several clinical organizations and schools in Brazil and Russia. She has published thirteen research and scholarly articles, has co-authored three chapters, and regularly presents her work at local, state, regional, national, and international conferences.
