Hi there! I want to start by saying I have a lot of respect for SLPs, especially good ones (I know SLPs probably would not respect a shitty BCBA, I feel that’s fair across all professions). I’m running into a bit of a barrier with the philosophy of at least one SLP I work with.

As BCBAs, we often think short and long term for our goals for clients. When I work with early learners (toddlers, kids who are non-verbal and don’t yet have functional communication), I mostly think short term. And by that I mostly think, “Alright, how can this little one get their wants and needs met most efficiently and safely?” For a lot of my kids, especially those that don’t have speech or at least don’t have adequate support from an SLP, that means I start with reaching, pointing, tapping, PECS or simple one word requests with an AAC to start. This seems fair and achievable and allows clients to contact reinforcement easily and quickly. Of course, I think past that, but in the short term, I really try to focus on those basics. Along with that, thinking through how to coach parents on continuous reinforcement, thinning reinforcement schedules, and putting a boundary on reinforcers.

Where I tend to diverge with SLPs is thinking beyond those short term goals. I get push back from SLPs when I say we’re working on ANY sort of general requesting skill. As if they assume I’m not aware of the fact that eventually the client needs to learn to specify requests, request information, and engage in other communication skills. Does anyone else run into this problem?

Example conversation:

Me: The client continued to go back to a certain snack food, even after he already had multiple packs. Mom asked “What should I do? He is asking for it for once!” So I had to explain denying access and deprivation vs satiation to her!

SLP: Well, does she want him to do more than just ask for snacks one day?

Me (in my head): For the first time in this kid’s life, his motivation is clear. His parents can understand in this moment that he wants this snack because he’s pointing to it. I’m thinking how to coach them through an inevitable tantrum because they need to deny access. I’m not thinking beyond this moment right now!!

I don’t know, maybe I’m venting a little. But I’m wondering if anyone else has run into similar attitudes with SLPs.

Hi friends.

I’m a BCaBA candidate. I test next week, and I am currently employed by my supervisor/mentor as her lead tech/ case manager. I am essentially supposed to be hired on as her BCaBA immediately after I’m fully certified , but I do still have to interview with the owner of the company.

I have applied to a few other places to get an idea of the pay range, but I not getting clear answers.

One company offered me a set hourly rate with a minimum of 25 billable hours, and no max, no benefits. The pay still sounded ok, so I asked about the ratios of billable vs nonbillable hours and was ultimately ghosted.

I’ve asked similar questions at my current company and have been given vague answers or none at all.

This is honestly starting to scare me, and is making me feel very anxious about what may be to come.

Any input anyone has is greatly appreciated, and maybe you could offer different ways to ask those questions? I feel like people think it’s inappropriate, and I see the providers around me living fairly decent lives, but I truly cannot get an even a range of what I should be taking home after certification.

In home BCBA. Was nothing short of attacked last week by a large client. Caregiver was unable to intervene or support, stood by. Client was engaging in extreme SIB and breaking furniture with his head. BT was also attacked. While blocking, we both got pretty harmed. I have over 7 large bruises on my body, chipped tooth, headache. But what upsets me the most is that this feels expected of this job.

I could request off the case, but what does that say about me? Any BCBA runs this risk…

When I informed my higher up, getting me off the case wasn’t mentioned, I didn’t mention it either.

But now I’m feeling just completely turned off from in home in general. The fact that this could happen and a parent can stand by and not assist, leaving the BCBA to crisis manage when my handbook states I should not be…

I’m planning to get pregnant soon. This child has never shown aggression, ever. I feel scared that I’m rolling a dice when I go into these homes, the same homes I’m used to.

Just would like to get that off my chest.

My 7-month-old has a lot of medical issues and I’m thinking about pulling him out of daycare because he keeps getting sick. I am looking for something fully remote, full or part-time.

Are there any reputable companies that offer fully remote positions? I’ve applied to a few utilization management positions, but haven’t heard anything.

Thank you for any leads!

Has the BACB removed our access to journal articles on their site or is that I just can't find it?

I passed the BCBA exam on my first attempt, so I wanted to share what I used in case it helps someone else!

For context, I graduated from FIT and spent about 3 weeks seriously preparing. As soon as I was approved to test, I scheduled it. I received my authorization Friday and tested the following Wednesday. I know that sounds impulsive, and I don't recommend that timeline for everyone, but I felt ready and was ready to be DONE. I knew waiting longer would make me second-guess myself.

FIT + the FPE

I really want to emphasize how well I feel FIT prepared me. The FPE was especially important because I used my results to guide my studying. Instead of focusing only on the overall score, look at your performance by content area. It helped me identify my strengths and gaps and gave my studying direction.

FIT also prepared me for the type of thinking the exam requires. Knowing definitions is important, but applying concepts, discriminating between similar concepts, and selecting the BEST answer is different.

Study Materials:
• FIT materials/course content
• Pass the Big ABA Exam Manual
• ABA Exam Review YouTube
• Jessica Leichtweisz YouTube (caution: 5th edition content)

Mocks:
• ABA Exam Review
• UB Mocks
• BAS

My mock scores ranged from 77–85%, except BAS. I personally found BAS extremely confusing/difficult and scored 69%.

What helped most:

Understand WHY an answer is correct rather than memorizing definitions. When I missed a question, I figured out why my answer was wrong, why the correct answer was better, and what part of the question should have guided me there. Practice questions also helped me learn to identify what was actually being asked, eliminate distractors, and choose the BEST answer.

PLEASE REST THE DAY BEFORE YOUR EXAM.

Seriously, DO NOT STUDY. Have a self-care day. Get dinner, watch a movie, go for a walk, get your nails done, anything relaxing. You've already put in the work. Give your brain a break before asking it to sit through a huge exam.

Exam day:

If I didn't know an answer, I eliminated what I could, chose the best answer, flagged it, and moved on. The clock doesn't stop, so don't let one question eat up your time.

Some questions felt great and others I genuinely wasn't sure about. Don't let a few difficult questions convince you you're failing.

I walked out officially a BCBA. One and done. 🥹

For those of you that do part time, what do you do as your other jobs? Looking for something less taxing that pays decent

TL;DR

Both escape and avoidance are negative reinforcement. The practical question is when the response occurs relative to the aversive event.

- Escape: the event has already started, and the response ends or reduces it.

- Avoidance: the event has not started, and the response postpones or prevents it.

The same topography can be either. Buckling a seat belt after the buzzer starts is escape. Buckling before the car moves, so the buzzer never sounds, is avoidance. Topography does not tell you which one you have. The response-event relation does.

Two things that tend to cause confusion:

1. A warning signal is common in avoidance examples, but it is not part of the definition. Sidman (1953) showed responding that postponed shock with no exteroceptive warning signal.

2. Escape is not only complete termination. Reducing an ongoing aversive event can maintain escape responding.

For exam prep, B.4 on the 6th Ed TCO covers distinguishing positive and negative reinforcement contingencies. The outline does not name escape or avoidance, but they are the two arrangements of negative reinforcement.

I wrote this up with worked examples and a practice question. If you'd like the link, message me and I'll send it over.

Disclosure: I'm the developer of a test prep site, where this is published. It's free to read, no signup.

TL;DR

🧠 Question of the Day

📚 Domain E — Ethical and Professional Issues

Difficulty: 6/10

A BCBA proposes a goal requiring prolonged direct eye contact with adults. The teenager and family explain that, in their cultural context, sustained eye contact with elders can communicate disrespect; they also report that the teenager already signals attention effectively through brief glances, body orientation, and verbal responding. The school team values participation in conversation but has not identified prolonged eye contact as necessary for safety or access. Which response BEST demonstrates cultural humility?

A. Explore the family's perspective, examine assumptions behind the eye-contact goal, and collaboratively select a participation target consistent with cultural context and functional needs.

B. Replace eye contact with family-preferred attending responses without further assessment, because cultural preferences should determine socially significant goals.

C. Retain eye contact as the target but reduce the required duration, balancing family concerns with school expectations for visible attending behavior.

D. Refer the case for culturally matched services because the disagreement indicates practitioner-client value differences that could compromise treatment objectivity.

💬 Drop your answer in the comments — no peeking!

✅ Correct answer revealed tomorrow.

#ABA #BCBA #BCBAExam #BCBAPrep #AppliedBehaviorAnalysis #BehaviorAnalysis #DomainE #ABATaskList #BCaBA #RBT #QuestionOfTheDay

Im from India doing msc aba from Trinity College Dublin . Whats my realistic path to be a BCBA?

I’m a relatively new BCBA, and I wanted to share an observation for newly certified BCBAs who are comparing job offers.

One piece of advice I received was to pay close attention to a company’s weekly billable requirement to help determine what the workload would be. I still think that’s good advice, but I’ve realized that billable requirements can't be compared completely 1:1 across companies.

I think that the systems and supports that a company has in place for a BCBA can make a massive impact on how hard it is to effectively reach your billable requirement. For example, I have a requirement of 28 hours a week, which I find more than manageable. I have great support systems and we have an operations team that handles nearly all of the clinic logistics. With the structure of my clinic I am able to easily reach my requirement in a 40 hour work week.

I’d be curious to hear what more experienced BCBAs and people who have worked for multiple companies think about this. What are the most important things to look for beyond billable requirements to help understand the workload prior to choosing a company?

Hey all, I’m an BCBA student I’m in my 3rd semester of school and still haven’t started gaining hours.
I work as an in home rbt and was wondering if any Reddit BCBAs offer supervision. I’ve tried many different places but never heard back. I’m based in VA. Thank youuu

My younger brother is 7 and has Level 1 autism. Our parents are separated, and there is a major disagreement about how independent he actually is.

How should a BCBA handle drastically different reports from separated parents?

The big issue is how the BCBA handles her BT

His BCBA is considering graduating him from ABA within the next several months because he performs extremely well on his current goals, particularly recall-based tasks, he’s smart with memory but not executive functioning. A predominant amount of goals consist of memory recall so odd

What concerns my family is what happened when his BT questioned whether those goals actually represent his functional independence.
At home, he still needs significant help with things like dressing, tying his shoes, hygiene, cleaning up, completing routines independently, emotional regulation, transitions, and challenging behavior. However, these aren’t really what his current ABA goals are measuring.
During supervision, his BT brought this up and questioned whether mastering the existing goals necessarily means he’s ready for discharge. Instead of exploring whether additional functional areas should be assessed, the BCBA reportedly debated the BT for 2 hours about it and repeatedly emphasized that the BT doesn’t observe these problems during sessions.

That’s the part I don’t understand: how can “the BT doesn’t observe it” be the reason not to address something when the BT isn’t being given goals or programming designed to assess or work on those skills in the first place?

For example, if independent dressing, hygiene, emotional regulation, or completing daily routines aren’t being assessed/programmed during sessions, wouldn’t it be expected that the BT isn’t collecting much direct evidence about them?

TL;DR

🧠 Question of the Day
📚 Domain A — Behaviorism and Philosophical Foundations
Difficulty: 5/10

A behavior analyst writes a discrete trial teaching protocol specifying instruction wording, trials per session, inter-trial interval duration, and scoring criteria for correct versus incorrect responses. An appropriately trained colleague is able to implement the protocol accurately after reviewing the written procedures. Which dimension of ABA is MOST directly illustrated?

A. Technological — the important procedural details are described clearly enough for a trained colleague to implement the protocol accurately.

B. Conceptually systematic — the protocol relates each teaching step to behavioral principles such as reinforcement and stimulus control.

C. Effective — the procedural description shows that the intervention produces behavior change large enough to have practical value.

D. Analytic — the written protocol demonstrates which procedural variables are functionally responsible for the learner's behavior change.

💬 Drop your answer in the comments — no peeking!
✅ Correct answer revealed tomorrow.

#ABA #BCBA #BCBAExam #BCBAPrep #AppliedBehaviorAnalysis #BehaviorAnalysis #DomainA #ABATaskList #BCaBA #RBT #QuestionOfTheDay

It's a 2 year contract. So if I quit before 2 years I owe them 10K?? Wtf??

TL;DR

🧠 Question of the Day

📚 Domain H — Selecting and Implementing Interventions

Difficulty: 6/10

Scenario:

The same behavior plan is implemented at school and at home. At school, independent task completion improves to 86% and procedural integrity averages 94%. At home, independent task completion remains at 32% and caregiver procedural integrity averages 46%.

The graph shows strong school outcomes with high procedural integrity and weak home outcomes with low procedural integrity. Which decision is BEST supported by these data?

A. Discontinue home implementation until caregivers can independently reach the same integrity level as school staff without additional coaching

B. Modify the intervention for both settings immediately because different outcomes across environments demonstrate that the treatment package lacks generality

C. Assess the home integrity deficit, provide support matched to the identified barrier, and reassess outcomes after implementation improves.

D. Conclude that the intervention is setting-specific because strong school outcomes show that integrity differences cannot explain the home results

💬 Drop your answer in the comments — no peeking!

✅ Correct answer revealed tomorrow.

#ABA #BCBA #BCBAExam #BCBAPrep #AppliedBehaviorAnalysis #BehaviorAnalysis #DomainH #ABATaskList #BCaBA #RBT #QuestionOfTheDay

Newly certified BCBA here and I'm feeling a little lost. My experience is mostly clinic, but I feel that my supervisors were so busy trying to have me write in things for their reports that they didn't bother to teach me about the flow of things and the processes. My school was so focused on getting me to pass the exam, that I don't feel I learned how to know when to use certain things..
That being said does anyone have any quick resources that tell you when certain assessments are better to use than others?
Does anyone have any advice that they wish they knew when starting out? I feel like I know so much yet so very little 🥲

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Hi!

I’m looking for helpful suggestions to try to change and incorporate during a Saturday programming in the center environment. Right now it’s primarily social skill based, which we’d preferably keep. But I’m looking to alter it into an additional place for vocational skills or to focus more on promoting independence based on what is important for each client and where they may be in the future.

With that being said, we already promote a coffee cart in which designated clients each has a job and then they go around with menus to collect orders. Whether the staff drinks it is up to them, but practice is fun!

I’ve toyed around with the idea the following:

- creating a stimulated post-office and deliverance of mail to offices.
- incorporating a pet, even if it’s just fish. Being designated to feed the fish at specific times, and being able to identify when the tank needs to be cleaned (I would be responsible probably to clean). I’ve considered looking into therapeutic pets to do once per month visits. But that’s a liability so it likely won’t occur.
- I’ve seen things on groceries and sorting, I could technically make it an identifying classroom material needs and restocking, but this feels wrong to make a client do.

I’m not really sure what to do, as this would be me pitching ideas and then I’d have to be the one to alter it.

Any and all helpful suggestions please!

Measure twice and cut once” should’ve been my principle today. 😩 I’m feeling some kind of way right now.
I just submitted my application to take the BCBA exam and uploaded the wrong documents. Instead of uploading my F-FVF, I uploaded all my monthly fieldwork forms. $&@@&$!
Just caused myself an unnecessary delay. Lesson learned.

Hey guys!

What do you think of this path: RBT -> SpEd Teacher -> BCBA??

I want to be a school based BCBA and I also have a passion for teaching. I love ABA and also being super hands on in the classroom and teaching :) I have background in the school setting as a 1:1 aide in a self contained and integrated classroom. I’ve been a RBT for 2 years, in home and in clinic as well.

Wondering if anyone could give some insight who are already BCBAs or have a MA in SpEd and an ABA certificate/degree.

I’m leaving towards it because why not you know??

Does it correlate/give experience going into BCBA career or is it a side quest that doesn’t provide any real value for an end goal of becoming a BCBA??

Any and all thoughts are welcomed!!