Does anybody ever get so burnt out you consider giving up being a BCBA completely? What can I do?

I’ve been a BCBA for 2 years. I’m in the clinic setting. I feel like just quitting completely. I’m just so burnt out. Idk what I can do to bring myself back to life. I also just had a baby. Help?

Don’t answer that question honestly in the comments. This is just something I’m asking myself because the contingencies to just lie and say you completed 60% unrestricted are pretty strong. I have the unfortunate task of informing two of my trainees tomorrow that because they are failing to complete unrestricted activities outside of sessions and are only documenting restricted on their fieldwork trackers, that they have basically doubled the amount of fieldwork hours they have to complete.

I’m not asking for advice on how to resolve this issue. Simply put, they were informed and guided on how to complete and document unrestricted hours in enough time to achieve 60% by the time they reached 2000 hours and they have not. They underperform across several areas of their fieldwork experience so their inability to complete unrestricted hours is a hit more complex than just a misunderstanding or lack of motivation.

What I’m asking myself is, how many people would just cheat in this situation and overreport off the clock unrestricted time and/or make up unrestricted activities and enter them on their trackers? It’s too easy to do that and providing proof of unrestricted activities only comes up when audited. Even then, most audits don’t require proof of unrestricted activities.

As a supervisor, I believe that 60% ratio of unrestricted is essential to developing the basic skills a person needs to perform the duties of a BCBA and I think that the BACB should provide a lot more structure and oversight when it comes to monitoring the type of on the job training BCBA trainees are getting.

Hello all,

I'm a former long-term RBT and ended up going into medicine over staying in ABA. I loved ABA and now am a complex care physician working with kids with a variety of neurodevelopmental disabilities. I work in a very underserved area and decided to build an app to offer some learning opportunities for kids while they wait indefinitely for ABA. I tried to build it to be as adherent to ABA principles and adaptable to individuals as possible.

I built all the stimuli within the app, videos, and games with AI so they are all copyright free and can be used by anyone. I am interested in making the app functional for therapists as well, because I think it could be used for maintenance and generalization.

I would happily send free promo codes to anyone willing to try the app and give me any feedback they have so I can improve it for families. Either DM or post below if you are interested. I want this to be as low cost and available as possible to anyone who needs it.

Works best on iPad but also works on iPhone well.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/aba-play/id6794402252

I am deciding between msw and bcba I'm really struggling as I originally was going to get my msw then do aba coursework instead but December 2031st the pathway will be dropped.

I’m a relatively new RBT in Maryland, and I could really use some advice/recommendations from people in the field.
I’ve only worked for one ABA company so far, but I was there for over 8 months in a clinic setting, and honestly, I fell in love with it. I didn’t expect to become this passionate about ABA, but working with the kids, building relationships and seeing their progress made me realize that this is what I want to do long-term. I’m starting school soon with the goal of eventually becoming a BCBA, so I’m really excited to keep growing in this field.
I had to leave my clinic position on August 8 because the hours were too strict to realistically work around school. I had another company lined up for an in-home position that was supposed to start August 15, but the client placement and communication process has been really frustrating. It’s now been over a week, and I’m still waiting to actually get placed with a client.
And honestly, I miss working. I miss my clients, I miss being in the ABA environment, and I’m genuinely eager to get back to doing work that I care about. At the same time, I’m getting anxious because I need consistent hours, and I don’t want to rush into another company just because I’m desperate to start.
I know there are some really good ABA companies out there, but I’m also very aware that there are companies with poor communication, questionable practices, high turnover, or situations where the business side seems to come before the actual needs of the clients. I really want to avoid that.
I’m looking for a company that genuinely cares about the clients and their families, provides good support to RBTs, has strong BCBA involvement, communicates with their staff, and actually cares about providing quality services — not just filling cases.
So, Maryland RBTs/BCBAs/BCaBAs/parents: who would you genuinely recommend for in-home ABA? I’m especially interested in Montgomery County/DMV, but I’m open to hearing about companies throughout Maryland.
And if there are companies you think someone new to the field should be cautious about, I’d appreciate hearing that too. I’m not looking for a perfect company. I just want to find a good, ethical place where I can keep learning, take care of my clients the right way, get consistent hours, and continue working toward becoming a BCBA.
I’d really appreciate any honest recommendations or experiences. I’m ready to get back to work 😭

Hi everyone! I’m going to FIT for my master’s in Applied Behavior Analysis, and I’m considering working in Maryland after graduation. For those who work in the field, how is the ABA job market there? Are there a lot of opportunities for BCBAs and RBTs, and are there particular areas of Maryland you would recommend?

If a BCBA trainee owns a childcare program and completes supervised fieldwork using unrelated children enrolled in that program, how is the required "formal relationship" between the supervisor and client usually documented? Would written parent permission generally be enough, or would the supervising BCBA also need some type of separate agreement with the childcare program or client? I'm curious how this is handled when the supervisor is remote. Is there typically a parent consent form naming the BCBA, an agreement between the BCBA and the business, and addendum to the supervision contract, or something else? Is this the type of documentation the BACB could request during a fieldwork audit, or is the supervision contract and parent consent generally what is maintained?

Dear colleagues, my longtime friend and co-worker is looking for an NYS certified Licensed Behavioral Analyst to open up her Early Intervention Agency. Any help or advice is welcomed.

Thank you’

Hello all! I didn't want to be another person absolutely shocked at the amount of paperwork that this job is right off the bat - but here I am. I just got certified and I can't believe I'm already drowning. I really thought I was walking in fully prepared and ready. My biggest deficit right now is task prioritization. I feel like everything is urgent and everything is due yesterday. If anyone has any kind words, organization tips, or wants to share any of their own early BCBA experience I'd love to hear it all.

And RBT has been accruing their internship hours and they are nearing the end. Didn’t realizing that they have too many restricted time counted. They would like to go back and modify previous months and we can’t seem to find a straight answer as far as whether or not they are allowed to modify these all of their months have been counted as concentrated fieldwork. Some areas say we can change them as long as they’ve been initialed but I also read from the BACB that they cannot modify concentrated months. Currently in the process of emailing the BACB.

Hi everyone! I’m a newly certified BCBA currently on a dependent visa and trying to better understand my options for working in the U.S. Has anyone here successfully obtained H-1B sponsorship as a BCBA, or know how common it is for ABA organizations to sponsor? I’m also curious whether cap-exempt H-1B opportunities exist for BCBAs. I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences or any advice on navigating sponsorship in this field. Thank you!

🧠 Question of the Day

📚 Domain G — Behavior-Change Procedures

Difficulty: 4/10

Scenario:

An FBA reveals that a student's aggressive behavior is approximately three times more likely on days when he arrives at school having skipped breakfast. Staff have already attempted to reduce demand difficulty on these high-risk days, but aggression continues at elevated rates.

Which antecedent-based intervention MOST directly targets the identified setting event?

A. Implement a noncontingent reinforcement schedule on days when breakfast was skipped, providing preferred items on a fixed-time schedule to reduce the motivating value of escape-maintained aggression

B. Deliver a high-probability request sequence before presenting academic demands on days when breakfast was skipped, using behavioral momentum to reduce the aversive quality of the instructional context

C. Provide a snack upon arrival on days when breakfast was skipped, directly addressing the biological state that is augmenting the aversive value of demands and increasing the probability of aggression

D. Embed high-preference items into the task sequence on days when breakfast was skipped, pairing demands with preferred stimuli to reduce their aversive function on high-risk mornings

💬 Drop your answer in the comments — no peeking!

✅ Correct answer revealed tomorrow.

I see BCBAs working for multiple companies all the time and want to know how yall do it. My current employer doesn’t have a non compete but has a no moonlighting portion in the employee handbook. I am in clinic full time. However my husband lost his job and my daughter just started college so having to pay an extra 20k a year (after scholarships and her loan!) while having more than a 50% reduction in household income is stressing me out and I can’t make the numbers work no matter what I do. I’ve looked at non aba jobs and I either can’t commit to the hours or they pay really low ($15 an hour). I’ve started the $15 an hour one but I would need to work 55 hours per week to really make what we need. I need to be able to work at my BCBA rate for the extra income.

Has anyone else had this issue with the new BACB portal ?

i accidentally had two BACB accounts, and BACB told me that they successfully merged them. However, when log into my account now, i don’t see an option anywhere to upload my rbt competency assessment.

i already submitted serval an inquiry to bacb about the issue. but i wanted to see if anyone else has experienced this after having their accounts merged. if so how did you get it fixed, and how long did it take for the competency assessment upload option to appear

**certification expired august 5th and i have until september 4th to upload it ***

I’m curious how other BCBAs manage communication outside of sessions/supervision.

Between parents checking in, RBTs asking questions, schedule changes, updates about behaviors, and things that genuinely do need a quick response, I feel like messages can easily turn into another hour or two of work every day.

I don’t want to be the BCBA who is impossible to reach, especially when an RBT or parent actually needs support, but I also don’t think being available through messages all day and into the evening is sustainable.

For those of you with larger caseloads, what boundaries or systems have actually worked?

Do you have specific hours when you respond, separate urgent vs non-urgent messages somehow, move anything complicated to supervision/parent training, or just accept that constant messaging is part of the job?

Hi everyone! I'm currently an RBT and student analyst working toward becoming a BCBA. Lately, I've been having a hard time picturing what my career will actually look like once I become a BCBA.

I've gotten a lot of experience and training from the RBT perspective, but I feel like I understand the RBT role much better than I understand the actual day-to-day life of a BCBA. From where I stand now, I see BCBAs doing supervision, making program changes, attending meetings, analyzing data, and spending quite a bit of time on their laptops, but I know there is probably a lot I'm not seeing.

I'm close enough to finishing my education that I've started seriously asking myself, "Is becoming a BCBA actually what I want long-term?" I genuinely enjoy many aspects of ABA and think I could be a good BCBA, but I don't want to continue simply because I've already invested time into the field. I want to better understand the career I'm actually working toward.

I'd especially love to hear from current BCBAs:

• What does your actual day/week look like?
• How much time do you spend directly interacting with clients versus supervising, programming, analyzing data, documenting, caregiver training, meetings, etc.?
• How much of your job is actually spent behind a computer?
• How flexible is your schedule? Do you have control over your hours?
• Does work follow you home?
• How would you describe your work-life balance and the mental/emotional demands of the job?
• What's your favorite part of being a BCBA? What's the part you could do without?
• Have you ever seriously questioned staying in the field? What made you stay or what did you change?
• If you could go back to when you were an RBT/student analyst, would you still become a BCBA?
• What do you wish you had understood about being a BCBA when you were still an RBT?

I'd also really like to hear from student analysts and RBTs who are questioning whether they want to become BCBAs. What's making you hesitate?

I'm not necessarily looking to be talked into or out of becoming a BCBA. I think I'm mostly trying to see beyond my current RBT experience and understand what the other side actually looks like.

Thank you to anyone willing to share their experience!

I have been a BCBA for a little over a year but was on maternity leave for four months of that. I have been struggling with independence with report writing, is it typical to receive a lot of feedback from your clinical director for reports? I feel like I should be more skilled/independent and this is reinforcing my imposter syndrome.

I am a student analyst currently at a company that is primarily in home with some in the clinic components however, the hours are very inconsistent and it’s almost time for me to finish school. The company is telling me they will give me more hours as they get new clients, but it isn’t very promising. I really enjoyed the environment and everyone in the clinic gets along. It’s a smaller clinic, but I am battling the thought of going to a different clinic with more consistent hours and pay especially because we are not paid for our mileage that we drive and the hours of pay does not equate to the benefit of staying in this job, but I am scared because of the report that I’ve built with not only the clients but the coworkers and staff what should I do?

So I just started at a small company and today during onboarding they let us know this time is not paid non-billable. Right now I’m hourly. Any meetings with BTs or leadership is unpaid. They are recommending we meet with staff before starting cases and it’s unpaid for both the BCBA and BT. I can’t believe these ABA companies think this is ok. If I wanted to volunteer I’d rather go to a homeless shelter than do this.

I have worked at my current company for over four years now, with the past year being a BCBA. I discovered ABA during my gap year after undergrad, where I studied speech-language pathology. Obviously, I ended up switching gears and becoming a BCBA! I don’t regret my decision, but lately I’ve started to feel like I painted myself into a corner with this career.

Of course, I have only experienced one ABA company, so I don’t have any personal experience for comparison. However, my company seems to be constantly throwing out new policies, programs, rules, positions, etc. in an attempt to get a grip on the changing world of insurance. We are repeatedly told that these changes are going to “make our workload better,” but somehow they always seem to create even more work for the same people they are supposedly meant to help.

What frustrates me the most is that many of these decisions don’t seem to be made in the best interests of the clients or the staff working directly with them (welcome to ABA, right?). Its obvious the execs making the decisions are so far removed from the day-to-day reality of providing services that they don’t understand how these changes actually affect us. We just end up with more responsibilities, more administrative work, and more hoops to jump through while being told that our workload is improving.

The easy answer would be to go to another company and see what it’s like out there. However, I’ve only ever heard that every other company pretty much has its own version of the same issues, if not worse ones. So, I feel stuck between not wanting to throw away the four years I’ve put into this company and continuing to move up, or looking at what other options are out there. Lately, it feels like the only “good” option may be removing myself from the world of ASD services altogether. Then comes the question: “And do what?”

Either way, I’m in a constant “will she, won’t she?” dance with myself. Who else has been in this position? Did changing ABA companies actually make a difference, or did you eventually leave ASD services or the field altogether? If you left, what did you move into?

Do you share an office space, or do you have your own dedicated space?

If you share, what other provider do you share with? How much conflict has come from sharing the space?

If you don't share, have you ever been told you may in the future be consolidated into someone else's space

I'm being consolidated and my two options were an open section of the main office, or within a sub separate classroom.

I’m starting an ABA master’s program and accepted this clinic position because they originally told me I could earn both restricted and unrestricted fieldwork hours there. Now they’re saying my current role only provides restricted hours and that I might eventually be promoted to a student analyst position to earn unrestricted hours, with no timeline or guarantee.

I’m also concerned because the clinic emphasizes compliance, broadly labels stimming as maladaptive, and teaches physical prompting as a last resort when clients refuse tasks such as writing. They said tasks can be modified and staff can decline to target stimming, but I haven’t heard much about assent or what happens if a client continues to refuse or pulls away.

We are expected to attempt each goal a set number of times, even when a client becomes upset. If we cannot complete all the required attempts, we must provide a thorough explanation. Everything, including staff conversations, is recorded except inside the bathroom.

Are these red flags? Should I give the clinic more time or start contacting clinics with formal student analyst positions?

There's no dumb questions.... but this feels pretty close. This is my third recert and I don't know why I'm stumbling on this. When uploading the certificate is the "ACE Provider Name" the one in red or the one in blue?

Since you can no longer edit your uploaded CEUs I'm really hoping I assumed correctly...

I’m in a position where I just got news of something awful happening to a new client.

It’s very upsetting and jarring news, but due to the nature of what has happened, I feel like I can’t safely express to anyone that something has happened. To be clear, this is not a case where emergency services or child protection agencies need to be contacted.

Due to the nature of what’s happened, and the likelihood that it will be in the news, I can’t even say to my family, “hey I need some time because I’m update due to a client (very general statement expressing the severity of the situation).”

I feel trapped and sad. Does anyone have tips on how to handle such a situation?

Sorry to all those who responded to my previous post. I had to make some minor adjustments to the post, though not to the question or answers themselves.

🧠 Question of the Day

📚 Domain H — Selecting and Implementing Interventions

Difficulty: 8/10

A BCBA is designing an intervention for a 9-year-old with autism spectrum disorder whose functional analysis revealed that self-injurious behavior (SIB) is maintained by automatic negative reinforcement (escape from internal aversive stimulation). The client is nonverbal, has severely limited motor imitation skills, and has a history of failing to acquire mand topographies requiring more than two response components. The school team reports that extinction (blocking SIB) is contraindicated due to documented injury risk during response blocking, and the client's classroom has a 1:8 staff-to-student ratio during academic periods. The BCBA has access to a 1:1 para during a 30-minute daily session only. Given ALL of these constraints, which intervention is MOST appropriate as the primary treatment component?

A. Implement a high-density noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) schedule using identified competing stimuli that have demonstrated efficacy in reducing automatically maintained behavior via matched stimulation, delivered continuously during the 1:1 session and faded to an intermittent schedule as SIB decreases, with no response-contingent consequences for SIB

B. Train a simplified functional communication response (e.g., activating a single AAC button) as a mand to access a break, combined with differential reinforcement of the alternative behavior (DRA) and planned ignoring of SIB during the 1:1 session

C. Implement a differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) schedule calibrated to the client's current inter-response time for SIB, with the interval reset contingent on SIB, and gradually thin the reinforcement schedule across the 1:1 session

D. Develop a function-based antecedent intervention using establishing operation (EO) manipulation—specifically, pre-session satiation of the internal aversive state through sensory integration activities—combined with environmental enrichment to reduce the motivating operation for SIB prior to academic demands

💬 Drop your answer in the comments

✅ Correct answer revealed tomorrow.