Bonus Episode 39 - Our Therapeutic RPG Demo
ABA Inside Track
Robert Parry-Cruwys
4.7 • 634 Ratings
🗓️ 20 February 2026
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We had so much fun talking with Danielle Yang about the potential of tabletop role-playing games as a component of behavior analytic skill acquisition treatment from a research perspective. But in case that wasn't enough to give you a sense of what such an ABA session could look like, Danielle returns to run Rob and school psychologist/BCBA, Matt Carter, through a demo session of RPGs as a framework for teaching mindfulness and denial tolerance. Will Matt and Rob learn to be more flexible? Or will the impassable mushroom village be their doom?
Interested in learning more about this topic? Danielle offers a deeper-dive course into the use of RPGs in treatment and skill planning. You can also join her Discord to chat with other RPG/ABA practitioners.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everybody. Welcome to ABA Inside Track, the podcast that's like reading in your car, but safer. |
| 0:19.7 | This is a special bonus episode of the main show. |
| 0:23.6 | If you were listening recently, then you heard episode 335 about role-playing games |
| 0:29.3 | in behavior analysis with special guest Daniel Yang. |
| 0:31.8 | And one of the things we talked about was how one might use an RPG as a framework for a skill session, whether it's an act session |
| 0:40.8 | or a social skill session or really any sort of skill that you could probably do with BST. |
| 0:46.3 | And we thought, wouldn't it be nice to demonstrate what such a session might look like? |
| 0:51.5 | So I asked Jackie and Diana to join, and they said, we don't want to play RPGs. |
| 0:55.7 | So fortunately, I was able to get Danielle to come back to GM, a little kind of a role play |
| 1:03.5 | within a role play of what an RPG skill session could look like for a behavior analyst. |
| 1:09.5 | So Danielle, thank you so much for coming back to |
| 1:11.9 | record a little bonus session with us. Oh, thank you. I'm excited and nervous. There's something |
| 1:19.0 | about the role play. When you're role playing with clients, like, this is my job. When you're |
| 1:22.9 | doing it with other adults, it's a little silly, but that's part of the fun. We talk about pros. You might not |
| 1:29.8 | want to use this as a technique if you hate pretending. So there you go. And since we can't, |
| 1:35.6 | you could play with one person, but that seemed a little strange. So we were very fortunate to |
| 1:40.8 | have a new, a new voice, I guess I should say on the podcast. We're also joined by a special guest, Matt Carter. Matt, thank you for coming to play with us today. Yeah, thanks for having me. So, Danielle, you introduced yourself on the episode, but if you want to, if people hadn't heard that episode yet, or they're here listening to them in the wrong order, or it's been a while. Do you mind just doing a quick introduction of yourself again? |
| 2:04.1 | Yeah, I'm Danielle Yang. |
| 2:05.6 | I'm a BCBA at Fantasy Frameworks Therapy. |
| 2:09.5 | I have been using tabletop role-playing games clinically for the past eight years in various |
| 2:14.8 | settings and ways, and it's really fun. I love it. Awesome. And then, Matt, |
| 2:21.6 | how did you come to get roped into this, into this recording? That was 100% you, Rob. |
... |
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