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PODCAST

Rad N Bad Podcast

Sean Yocum and Michael Carrero from Hickory Learning Group

The Rad N" Bad Podcast by Sean Yocum and Michael Carrero isn’t your average ABA podcast, it’s a full-blown wake-up call. These two BCBAs from Hickory Learning Group are smashing through outdated norms and calling out the BS in the field. No fluff, no sugar-coating, just raw, unfiltered truth about what ABA should be. They challenge you to think, question the “why,” and push past complacency. If you"re ready to disrupt the status quo and make this field better for clients and practitioners alike,

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All Episodes

01:57:26

Episode 52: Dosage by Tradition: Why ABA Confused 30...

Rad N Bad Podcast ·

2026/10/07

Somewhere along the way, applied behavior analysis took an intensely personal clinical question—what does this unique child and family actually need right now?—and turned it into an algebra problem. Higher support needs? Add hours. More assessment goals? Add hours. Comprehensive treatment? Hand over 30 to 40 hours of your week.We spend our entire careers training parents, schools, and technicians not to explain behavior with circular labels. We tell them to find the environmental variables, analyze

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01:32:29

Episode 51: The Financial Chokehold: Killing the...

Rad N Bad Podcast ·

2026/09/28

There is a brutal reality nobody warns you about when you sit for your BCBA exam: within 18 months of launching an independent practice, you aren't analyzing behavior graphs. You're staring at generic QuickBooks spreadsheets at midnight, explaining CPT codes to an accountant who doesn't know ABA, and watching payroll approach while commercial payers sit on your claims for 90 days.The dirty secret of our industry right now isn't that clinical models are failing—it's that

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01:49:43

Episode 50: Why Medicine Thinks We’re Arrogant:...

Rad N Bad Podcast ·

2026/09/18

For decades, the applied behavior analysis sector in autism has treated the broader healthcare ecosystem like an aversive stimulus. We built a fortress out of rigid jargon, locked the gates, and convinced ourselves that clinical isolation equals purity.Here’s the unfiltered truth: our stubborn refusal to practice basic selective accommodation and collaborate across disciplines is putting our own field on a fast track to being faded out permanently.On this episode of Rad N Bad, Sean Yocum and Mike

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01:26:54

Episode 49: The Other Side of the Table: When "Trust...

Rad N Bad Podcast ·

2026/09/09

We love to say we value lived experience. We talk constantly about assent, compassionate care, social validity, and person-centered treatment. We’ve gotten really good at saying all the right words. But are we actually listening?When someone tells our field, "ABA helped me," we lean in. But when someone says, "ABA hurt me," or "ABA failed my family," we immediately jump into defense attorney mode: What kind of ABA was it? When did it happen? That’s not real ABA.On this

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01:27:22

Episode 48: The Billable Hour, Driver’s Ed Ethics,...

Rad N Bad Podcast ·

2026/08/31

Filing an ethics complaint against us would require actually citing the ethics code—and honestly, we’d appreciate the peer review.On this episode of Rad N Bad, Sean Yocum and Mike Carrero sit down with ethics heavy-hitters Dr. Jon Bailey (founder of the ABA Ethics Hotline) and Zachary Stevens (co-authors alongside Dr. Mary Burch of The Ethical Behavior Analyst) for an unfiltered examination of modern behavioral healthcare.We move past checklist compliance and memorize-the-code ethics to ask the hard

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02:38:51

Episode 47: Facing the Anti-ABA Contingency with B.F....

Rad N Bad Podcast ·

2026/08/21

Why is our field so terrified of its own critics?When people critique Applied Behavior Analysis, the knee-jerk reaction across clinics, message boards, and leadership panels is almost always defense: "They just misunderstand the science," "They're talking about old ABA," or "That's not real ABA."On this episode of Rad N Bad, Mike Carrero and Sean Yocum sit down with B.F. Middleton (Oh Behave! Podcast / The Bearded Behaviorist) to stop playing defense attorney

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01:35:07

Episode 46: Hover Before You Land: Building...

Rad N Bad Podcast ·

2026/08/12

There is no shortage of organizations in autism—we have associations, credentialing bodies, coalitions, and advocacy groups. Yet, the field remains completely fragmented. Behavior analysts talk to behavior analysts, speech therapists talk to speech therapists, and physicians talk to physicians. While clinicians protect their turf, insurance companies write policy, legislators write laws, and private equity reshapes service delivery.In this episode of Rad N Bad, Sean Yocum and Mike Carrero sit down

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01:22:36

Episode 45: Beyond Clinic Walls: 1,300 Sessions & a...

Rad N Bad Podcast ·

2026/08/03

Most BCBAs are taught that high-integrity care requires a toddler sitting in a clinic 40 hours a week, locked into a screen, and managed by burned-out middle management. Melissa Kozak is here to prove that model completely wrong.As the founder of Kozak Consulting and Going Independent, Melissa has conducted over 1,300 direct caregiver sessions with an astounding 1% cancellation rate. The secret? She ditched the corporate assembly line, threw out the blanket hour prescriptions, and built a pure,

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01:29:35

Episode 44: Who the Hell Built the BCBA Industrial...

Rad N Bad Podcast ·

2026/07/24

The BCBA credential has never been more valuable.So why do so many new clinicians feel completely unprepared?Sean Yocum and Mike Carrero welcome Dr. Han-Leong Goh for an unapologetic conversation about the systems shaping modern behavior analysis. From graduate education and supervision to insurance reform, billable hours, leadership, and mentorship, they examine how good intentions created incentives that don't always produce great clinicians.The conversation isn't about blaming

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01:28:52

Episode 43: Who The Hell Is Steering This Profession?...

Rad N Bad Podcast ·

2026/07/15

The multi-billion-dollar corporate takeover of autism services has officially reached its breaking point. Over the last decade, we have watched private equity firms dump massive capital into the industry, swallowing up small community providers and mass-producing cookie-cutter clinic networks. Somewhere along the line, trade associations and self-appointed accreditation programs stepped behind closed doors and declared themselves the official voice of our science.But nobody asked the practitioners

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02:26:11

Episode 42: Who The Hell Is That Again, with Lou...

Rad N Bad Podcast ·

2026/07/06

The Titanic has officially struck the iceberg, and the music is starting to stop behind closed doors.Following the explosive New York Times investigation exposing fraud, seven-minute nap billings, and hyper-inflated center-based hours across the autism therapy sector, the industry is entering its ultimate "prove it" era. But how did a pure, data-driven behavioral science transform into an industrialized, multi-billion-dollar corporate machine virtually overnight?In this massive,

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00:44:34

Episode 41: DTT is Not a Permanent Residence: Mapping...

Rad N Bad Podcast ·

2026/06/26

Are we using clinical structure to build real-world independence, or are we just using it as an excuse for corporate and intellectual laziness?This week, Sean and Mike step right into the crossfire of the industry’s loudest, most polarizing argument to map out the definitive middle ground on Discrete Trial Training (DTT). Depending on who you ask on social media, DTT is either the only way to successfully teach complex skills or it’s the absolute poster child for everything wrong with modern,

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01:15:27

Episode 40: Who the Hell is Dr. Erin Moran? From...

Rad N Bad Podcast ·

2026/06/17

Most people in the tech space claim they understand the frontline trenches. They haven’t.This week, Sean and Mike pull back the curtain on the corporate contingencies crippling clinical quality, and they are joined by someone who has lived a literal clinical Odyssey: Dr. Erin Moran, Director of Clinical Innovation at Hi-Rasmus.Dr. Moran didn’t just climb a corporate tech ladder. She has been thrown into a room with 38 six-year-olds in a Thai port city with zero support. She has backpacked into the

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00:38:37

Episode 39: No Man's Land-The Forbidden E-Word: Why...

Rad N Bad Podcast ·

2026/06/08

In this episode of the No Man’s Land series, Sean and Mike tackle the 'forbidden E-word' of ABA: Extinction. While cancel culture and critics often paint extinction as cold or outdated, the guys pull the curtain back to show that it’s not a trend—it’s a law of behavior.Whether you call it 'planned ignoring' or 'compassionate support,' if you change a reinforcement contingency, you’re implementing extinction. Sean and Mike dive into the messy reality of extinction bursts, the 'vending machine'

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00:36:00

Episode 38: No Man's Land-The Myth of Ascent: Why...

Rad N Bad Podcast ·

2026/05/29

Is "assent" the future of ethical ABA, or is it a clinical retreat into "fragile tolerance"?In this installment of the No Man’s Land series, Sean Yocum and Mike Carrero step directly into one of the most emotionally charged debates in behavioral health. While the field currently treats assent as an ethical evolution, Sean and Mike strip away the marketing and the buzzwords to look at the raw mechanics underneath.From a radical behaviorist perspective, does "assent" even exist? Or is it simply a

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01:04:47

Episode 37: Who the Hell is This? Solving the Access...

Rad N Bad Podcast ·

2026/05/20

The ABA industry has an access problem, and throwing generic corporate software at it isn't fixing a damn thing.In this episode of Rad N Bad, Sean and Mike sit down with Amol Deshpande, the founder of Frontera Health, a Silicon Valley veteran who is injecting radical disruption into the behavioral health tech space. Driven by his personal experience as a parent of an autistic son who achieved a life-changing outcome through high-quality early intervention, Amol isn't here to build another

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00:39:31

Episode 36: Who The Hell Is That with Dr Lou...

Rad N Bad Podcast ·

2026/05/11

In this "Who the Hell is That?" episode, Sean and Mike welcome Dr. Lou Sandler, a 45-year veteran of the field who isn't afraid to take a sledgehammer to the industry’s "sacred cows." The trio dives deep into the "40-hour work week" obsession, the private equity takeover of behavioral health, and why we’ve traded clinical precision for billable presence. From the "seismograph" data of failing center-based programs to the "pink dumbbell" of low-intensity dosing, this conversation is an unapologetic

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00:48:18

Episode 35: Prove It: The Policy Shift That’s Forcing...

Rad N Bad Podcast ·

2026/05/01

ABA is under pressure—and a lot of it is deserved.In this episode of Rad N Bad, Sean and Mike break down the real impact of North Carolina’s recent Medicaid policy changes and what they signal for the future of the field. This isn’t speculation. This is a direct response to rising costs, federal audits, and growing questions about how ABA services are delivered and justified.For years, the industry has been highly effective at getting services authorized—but far less consistent at proving

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01:05:05

Episode 34: Beyond the Clinic Walls with Dr. Nick...

Rad N Bad Podcast ·

2026/04/22

In this episode, Mike Carrero sits down with Dr. Nick Green, a behavior analyst who traded the clinic for the gym. As the founder of BehaviorFit, Dr. Green is on a mission to prove that ABA isn't just for autism—it's the secret weapon for human performance. They dissect the "Autism Industrial Complex," explore why only 20% of adults worldwide meet physical activity guidelines, and reveal why your "lack of motivation" is actually an environmental design flaw. Whether

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00:47:04

Episode 33: Who the Hell is That? The High-Tech...

Rad N Bad Podcast ·

2026/04/13

In this episode of the Rad N Bad Podcast, Sean Yocum and Mike Carrero sit down with Dr. Cheryl Tierney, Chief Medical Officer at EarlyPoint, to discuss a technological seismic shift in the world of autism evaluations.For decades, the diagnostic process has been a subjective, "bottlenecked mess" relying on antiquated tools (some still asking if kids can use a VCR!). Dr. Tierney introduces EarlyPoint, the first FDA-cleared eye-tracking biomarker designed to provide an objective

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