Mr. Alan Tennyson:

A lot of professional communities bring that systemic perspective. As Ms O'Keefe noted, behavioural science has an outcome focus. There is a focus on empirical measurement of those outcomes and how we go about doing that. Sometimes that is not always possible. We cannot measure everything but that does not mean we should not measure some things. Some issues around engagement, participation and how well a person is doing can be measured. Conversely, one can also measure how not well they are doing, things one might be concerned about and how often they are happening. Those are specialist skills. Behavioural analysis and behavioural psychology bring those specialist skills into interdisciplinary teams. They focus on those outcome measures.

The systemic approach is also reflected in our positive behavioural support position statement where we talk about a tiered system to behavioural support. The bottom tier refers to everyone in a community, for example, a school community, university community or community, and the supports that should be in place at a universal level. We spoke about participation in the playground, for example. It is stepped up, with the top level referring to when someone needs a direct level of support in order to support his or her participation. This is similar to what Dr. Mulhern spoke about.