Ethics, Professional Conduct, and Regulatory Compliance
This domain tests judgment under obligation: consent, confidentiality, competence, boundaries, restrictive procedures, and documentation. Items usually present a realistic dilemma and ask for the first or most appropriate action. Choose the response that protects the client, stays inside your scope, and is documented.
Core obligations
- The code's core principles include benefit others; treat others with compassion, dignity, and respect; behave with integrity; and ensure competence.
- Informed consent covers purpose, procedures, risks and benefits, alternatives, right to withdraw, confidentiality limits, and fees. Consent comes from the legally authorized representative, with assent from the client when capable, and it is an ongoing process, not a signature event.
- Confidentiality: share the minimum necessary, with documented authorization or legal mandate. Know HIPAA for health records and FERPA for education records, and know your mandated-reporting duties for suspected abuse or neglect.
- Competence: practice within education, training, and supervised experience; seek consultation or refer when a case exceeds it; maintain cultural responsiveness and current knowledge.
Boundaries and high-risk procedures
- Avoid multiple relationships; when unavoidable, manage and document them. Decline bartering and gifts of substantial value.
- Restrictive and punishment procedures require prior reinforcement-based attempts, consent, oversight, data on side effects, and a least-restrictive rationale. Emergency restraint requires trained staff, continuous monitoring, and debriefing.
- Records must be timely, objective, and non-pejorative; correct errors with a dated addendum rather than erasure, and retain records per regulation.
Worked example. A parent asks you to email a client's behavior data to the school and cc the family attorney. Reasoning: the parent is the legal representative and may authorize release, so verify the signed authorization names the school recipients, transmit securely, and send only the minimum necessary. Confirm whether the school is covered by FERPA. Do not copy the attorney until the authorization supports it and the legal question is clarified.
Traps that cost marks. Accepting a minor's consent without guardian permission or ignoring assent. Discussing a case in a corridor or on social media. Keeping a punishment procedure because "it works" without alternatives and oversight. Working outside scope instead of referring. Publishing de-identified details that remain re-identifiable.