USD Health Sciences Success Spotlight: Madison Lindsey

Madison Lindsey

Degree Program: USD School of Health Sciences Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) Program (2nd Year)

Current Position: Behavior Program Specialist, Meade School District, Sturgis, SD

Madison Lindsey knew nothing about Applied Behavior Analysis when she started her career in education. She found her way to it by doing what already came naturally.

"The ABA world essentially found me," says Lindsey, who studied special education in Texas before following her husband to his home state of South Dakota. She was working in the special services office of the Meade School District in Sturgis when she had a chance to become the district's Behavior Program Specialist.

"I wanted to do that job and serve that population well," says Lindsey. "As I was figuring out how to best do assessments and serve our students, I found ABA. I realized that I was already doing things consistent with ABA without even knowing it."

The role had previously been filled by a BCBA and Lindsey decided she wanted the certification, too. She looked at several online BCBA programs before choosing USD's hybrid track, which requires in-person attendance twice a semester.

"Some of the other programs would mean I would just be reading a textbook and taking quizzes online," she says. "USD's program has real BCBAs teaching the courses. And every time I've reached out to someone with a question, they've been incredibly responsive."

Two years into her job — and now in her second year of USD's two-year BCBA program — Lindsey has new confidence in her ability to conduct assessments, build intervention plans, and coach teachers and administrators on how to handle behavioral issues in K-12 students.

This year, she's adding classrooms at two of her four schools to run small-group skills work. She leads monthly professional development sessions for staff. And she's even written a guidebook of best practices for the district.

"I've learned so much about the functions of behavior and how to use what I know about things like motivation," says Lindsey. "That is going to be so beneficial to me to be able to walk into a classroom and figure out why a student is engaging in a particular behavior."

Next up in her USD program: A deeper dive into how to conduct behavioral assessments.

"So I'll be able to apply it even more to the schools I work with," she says.