Episode 4: Cultural Considerations in Caregiver-Delivered NDBIs

In this episode, we’re honored to welcome Dr. Ana Dueñas, Assistant Professor of Special Education at San Diego State University and Verified Course Sequence Coordinator for their BCBA program. Identifying as transferisa — having grown up crossing the border daily between Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego — Dr. Duenos brings a deeply personal and culturally informed perspective to her work. Her teaching and research focus on Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions (NDBIs) and how to culturally adapt them to meet the needs of diverse communities. She shares her path to this work, the challenges of embedding NDBI content into traditional ABA course sequences, and her leadership in co‑founding the ABAI NDBI Special Interest Group (SIG) — a collaborative space to support instructors, practitioners, and researchers interested in integrating NDBI into practice.