Program

Dr. Sonia Levy, Ph.D. ABA, BCBA

Sonia obtained a master's and Ph.D. in ABA through The Chicago School of Professional Psychology (on-ground) and has over 10 years of experience in the field.

Sonia’s primary areas of focus include providing ABA services for individuals with various needs, DEI training and support for organizations to provide culturally humble and inclusive services, and using the science of behaviour to better understand the world around us. At Impact Village, she provides the clinical direction and oversight for individuals receiving ABA support services, as well as training and supervision for therapists, empowering them to provide socially valid and culturally humble ABA services. She is an active member in her ABA community: attending and presenting at conferences, writing and publishing various research and theoretical papers, and loves to collaborate with others in the field. She recently became a member of the editorial board for Behaviour and Social Issues Journal, and enjoys working with local academic institutions to support course development. Overall, she hopes to use the science of behaviour to make her community, both local and global, a better, safer, and more accepting and inclusive place. 

Sessions

Cultural Humility and Inclusion in ABA & Education
Thursday November 1st, 2024 @ 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM

One of the many things that makes Ontario so beautiful is our diversity. We are fortunate to be able to live and grow up in such a diverse and multicultural community, where we have access to so many different ethnicities of food, can hear different languages spoken in our neighborhoods, and can observe different cultural and religious practices. The beautiful diversity that we see in our communities is not always reflected in our public school classrooms and curriculum, or in supportive therapies, like ABA therapy. The standard lesson is often used for all children, regardless of their learning histories, cultural identity, family dynamics, or religion. While the field of education, and of ABA, are working towards becoming more diverse, equitable, and inclusive, there are many ways that we, as individual educators, can support our learners. In this presentation, I will review concepts such as cultural humility, learning history, and social validity and discuss how they can be applied to education - both in the classroom, and in ABA therapy, by supporting students with their unique learning histories and identities, including their disability, culture, religion, and social community. By doing so, we can support our learners (e.g., students, clients, etc.) with thriving in their own unique environment, rather than only providing lesson plans to meet a standardized view of what an individual, their family, and their cultural factors should look like.  

 

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