When teachers work with students exhibiting academic failure, they may look to factors outside of instruction such as a student's home life or perceived disability as explanations. Placing the locus of control outside of the instructional context becomes a convenient way to escape culpability for unsatisfactory outcomes. A more functional approach to addressing academic deficits allows educators to determine environmental factors responsible for the lack of progress and then create interventions designed to address these functions of academic failure. Although experimental analyses serve as the gold standard for evaluating functional relations between behavior and environment, educators may not always have the ability to systematically test all behavior-environment relations. Indirect assessments provide one means to develop hypotheses about environment-behavior relations that can then be validated with experimental analyses. In this study, researchers developed an indirect tool (Academic Diagnostic Checklist -Beta; ADC-B) based on the function of academic performance deficits (Daly et al. in School Psychology Review 26:554, 1997) and validated the use of the ADC-B by comparing interventions that were suggested (indicated) and those non-suggested (contraindicated) by the ADC-B. Researchers used the ADC-B with four participants and found that for three of the four participants, the suggested intervention was the most efficacious at improving accuracy with the target skills. One limitation is that we did not evaluate the full technical adequacy of the ADC-B, which should be a focus of future research.

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Behavior analysts are increasingly using acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) as an intervention package in their practice to change socially significant overt behaviors. One children’s movie, Disney Pixar’s Luca, contains an abundance of ACT hexaflex examples throughout the duration of the film. The ACT examples in this movie are well illustrated and thus could be used by practitioners as video examples when working with children and families, as well as when teaching aspiring behavior analysts about ACT. This discussion includes a descriptive analysis of the Luca movie from start to finish, highlighting specific ACT examples and nonexamples demonstrated in the movie. In addition, an accompanying table includes specific time-stamped examples and nonexamples of ACT skills. Lastly, the implications of ACT strategies being used in the media are reviewed. Ultimately, the success of Luca may provide behavior analysts with a model for the dissemination of behavior analytic technology that allows for embedment in cultural practices.