Annie McLaughlin Uses Curious Collaboration to Reframe IEP Advocacy

A first word changes the direction

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – Annie McLaughlin’s path into applied behavior analysis began with a five-year-old girl saying her first word.

McLaughlin, now a PhD, BCBA-D, and LBA, was completing a student teaching placement in a classroom designated as “ABA enhanced.” She entered the classroom as a special education teacher and received ABA training through the placement.

“I got involved in ABA by accident. I was a special education teacher. And in my student teaching placement, I was put in a classroom that was quote-unquote ‘ABA enhanced,’” McLaughlin said in an interview with BreakingNewsABA.

The placement showed McLaughlin how behavioral skills could add to special education. The defining moment came when the young student spoke.

“I knew I wanted to keep learning about ABA when my team in that ABA-enhanced classroom helped — and I heard a little five-year-old girl say her first word ever. And so we all started crying, happy tears,” she said.

For McLaughlin, the moment demonstrated how communication could expand a child’s world. It also placed special education at the center of her understanding of ABA, rather than treating schools as another setting where clinical practices could be transferred without adaptation.

Today, McLaughlin provides IEP and educational consulting, behavior assessment, school-district training, and parent workshops through Annie McLaughlin Consulting in Baltimore. She also teaches other clinicians how to build IEP advocacy practices through Pivot into IEP Advocacy, a 12-week training program.

Participating with the parent

McLaughlin sits on both sides of the IEP process, but she resists defining that role through combat.

“When I’m in an IEP meeting, I actually would say I don’t lead them as an advocate. I very much am participating with the parent in their process,” she said.

That distinction does not remove advocacy from the meeting. Instead, it changes how McLaughlin carries it out. She asks participants to keep the student at the center, check their egos, and recognize that parents, teachers, therapists, and behavior analysts each bring different forms of expertise.

“Everybody has expertise in the child if they’ve worked with them, and they also have expertise in their field that they’re bringing,” she said.

McLaughlin described her method as curious collaboration. When disagreement occurs, her first question is not how to defeat the opposing position. It is what information or need might be driving it.

“Anytime that there’s disagreement, I think it’s important for all of us to approach that with curiosity, right? Like, where is that disagreement coming from, and why do they believe what they believe?” she said.

A parent requesting additional service hours, more speech support, or a change to an IEP page may be responding to a need that is not immediately visible in the request itself. According to McLaughlin, understanding that underlying reason can give the team more ways to address the concern.

“Really making sure that everybody is intentionally trying to be curious, that in acknowledging that other professions — including the profession of being a parent — have so much to give to the meeting.” – Annie McLaughlin

Curious collaboration does not require agreement. McLaughlin is explicit that an IEP team can disagree while still recognizing the limits of any one participant’s knowledge.

“It doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything. There can be plenty of disagreements in IEP meetings, but you have to have an understanding that somebody will know something more than you during those meetings,” she said.

For BCBAs, that means behavioral expertise does not replace what a general education teacher, occupational therapist, special educator, or parent knows about the student and the environment.

Collaboration through language

McLaughlin’s approach becomes concrete in the words she uses before and during meetings.

She encourages parents and clinicians to use “we” when discussing changes. Instead of accusing a staff member of failing to teach a child to read, the team might ask how “we” can revise a goal so the child can develop that skill.

“Definitely collaborative language. So even things like we, right? How can we change this IEP goal so that the child can learn to read? Rather than saying to the special educator, ‘You haven’t taught my child to read yet,’” she said.

McLaughlin also directs the conversation back to the student by using the child’s name and describing what the child needs. This shifts attention away from assigning blame and toward identifying an actionable response.

Preparation begins before the meeting. McLaughlin reviews draft IEPs with parents and organizes their concerns into what she calls “question buckets.” Related questions are grouped so they can be raised at the appropriate point in the discussion.

“To come up with — I call them question buckets. Three different question buckets, or four, however many buckets we need, to kind of put in questions together so we ask them at the right time, so it facilitates discussions around meaningful changes in the IEP,” she said.

She also encourages families attending in person to bring a photograph of their child, show a picture on a phone, or briefly share something that happened recently. The purpose is simple: remind every adult at the table that the paperwork represents a child’s life and learning.

Time requires similar discipline. McLaughlin wants families to have enough space to seek clarification, but she also recognizes that special education operates under resource constraints.

“Working together to make sure people aren’t rushed, but also that the meetings don’t drag on forever and ever and ever — because this is a resource-limited profession, special education. Everybody sitting there has a thousand other things to do, and that child has the right to have everybody sitting there,” she said.

Training the IEP-adjacent BCBA

McLaughlin’s work extends beyond supporting individual families. Through Pivot into IEP Advocacy, she trains BCBAs, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, and physical therapists to establish private-pay IEP advocacy practices.

The summer 2026 program was marketed as the course’s 12th cohort. The $1,500 course includes eight modules, group mentorship calls, six BACB continuing education units, and a mailed workbook. Its curriculum moves from business registration and client acquisition through the transition into full-time advocacy.

McLaughlin has a commercial interest in expanding this work. She both practices IEP consulting and sells clinicians a pathway into the field. Her rationale is that many behavior analysts are already involved in educational decisions, even if they do not identify as advocates.

“I love disseminating advocacy to behavior analysts, because so many behavior analysts are what I call IEP adjacent,” she said.

Those clinicians may collect data a parent could use, help a child transition from a clinic into a school, or attend an IEP meeting. However, experience in a home or clinic does not automatically prepare a BCBA for the group processes and legal context of special education.

“Helping BCBAs understand the context for which IEPs are applied is really, really critical. You can better collaborate if you understand the context for which learning has to happen.” – Annie McLaughlin.

School teams must consider how supports operate in general education settings, where a student may learn alongside peers without continuous one-to-one intervention. McLaughlin wants behavior analysts to apply their analytic skills to the barriers within that environment, rather than assuming the educational setting should resemble a clinic.

Where the ethics code could grow

McLaughlin said the BACB ethics code continues to apply when behavior analysts practice in education or support parents through the IEP process.

For a BCBA entering an IEP meeting, ethical practice requires familiarity with special education law, the educational context, and the data being discussed, she said. Yet McLaughlin sees room for additional guidance because an IEP meeting differs from a behavior-change program controlled by the analyst.

“Participating in a group process for which you are not responsible for the outcome can be really challenging. You’re not involved in a behavior change process by sitting in that IEP meeting. It looks a little bit more like consulting than it would behavior change application — and a lot of the ethics code was written from a behavior change perspective. So I could see some more growth in possibly adding some additional guidelines,” she said.

That distinction captures the larger method behind McLaughlin’s work. IEP advocacy places behavior analysts inside a process where they have expertise, but not sole authority. Curious collaboration asks them to listen for the need behind a disagreement, understand the setting in which learning must occur, and use their skills without diminishing the expertise of others.

When BreakingNewsABA described that framing to McLaughlin, she endorsed it.

“I think people who know me would be like, yes, that is exactly what she teaches and what she practices,” she said.

AT A GLANCE

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