r/ABA

I’m considering in-home. Why do you prefer in-home over clinic settings?

My BCBA was told that my client’s insurance doesn’t approve school services. She said she was “able to side step this during peer review but moving forward "home," or "community" need to be selected for where services are provided. Community is acceptable for when services occur during school hours” she also said “when you do your notes don't select the location of school." I asked her if it’s fraud and she said no.

⚠️Trigger Warning: Crime involving a child

Hi, I’m a crime junkie who hopes to one day work in a crime division and use ABA to better understand behavior from a forensic lens. I’ve been thinking about the case involving Tanner Lynn Horner and Athena Strand. From what’s publicly known, he was a delivery driver who kidnapped, assaulted, and killed a 7 year old girl during a Fed Ex delivery. It’s disturbing on every level.

What stood out to me is that he claimed to have Autism Spectrum Disorder and blamed a change in his Fed Ex route for causing meltdown and “snapping.”

That made me pause and ask:

Where do we draw the line between behavioral challenges and accountability?

Do we look at age? Experience? Whether someone had access to ABA or any support at all? Medication? Environment?

As practitioners, we work on rigidity, transitions, tolerance for no, and emotional regulation every day. We sit with families and build these skills from the ground up.

But here’s the part I’m struggling with:

If we don’t address these challenges early, what are we actually risking long term?

Not saying ABA prevents crime. But are we underestimating how important it is to teach flexibility, coping, and regulation in a way that truly generalizes beyond sessions? At the same time, I want to be clear. ASD does not create violent offenders. A diagnosis can explain certain behaviors, but it does not excuse harm, especially at this level.

So now I’m stuck thinking about both sides.

Early intervention matters. Accountability matters.

And somewhere in the middle is a conversation we probably are not having enough.

Would love to hear thoughts, especially from anyone interested in forensic ABA or behavior in criminal contexts.

I’ve spent so many nights up all night researching about autism and ABA and every center keeps on rejecting me I’m deeply passionate about this job and I won’t leave like other people but no one will give me a chance. I have autism and I just wanna help the people that never had help like me. I never had therapy or anything and recovered from severe depression and now I’m ready to do this job, but no one will take me

Does anybody work for Lighthouse Autism Center? I have an in-person interview coming up, and I’m wondering if i’ll be drug-tested the day of the in-person interview— or during my onboarding after I’ve put in my two weeks. I live in Indiana, so I know they’ll definitely most likely care about weed, but just curious.

Hi Reddit, I’m curious how often do you typically call out or see others call out in the field?

Our work IS demanding, so I’m wondering what’s considered normal at other companies. Would love to hear different perspectives, as I was speaking to coworkers about ABA/burnout and want to see what it’s like for other companies.

I work at a large ABA center with about 15 classrooms serving ~7 clients per room M-F from 8-4 PM. Today, we had so many technicians call out that a dozen clients were without 1:1 services.

In response, my company decided to place all of the uncovered clients in an unused classroom (with toys/furniture ofc) with a few higher ups and admin people watching them. At most there were 12 children in this room with 4/5 adults watching them. They were not providing therapy, collecting data, nothing. Just keeping the kids safe and attempting to get them to play together.

The part I really think is unethical is that those in charge decided not to tell any parents about what happened. The parents dropped their children off at our center to receive therapy, the kids did not receive therapy for several hours, and this was not communicated to the parents. The time the kids were in the room is not documented because no one collected data or billed. There was one client who received only two hours of actual, billed 1:1 out of a 7 hour day.

Anyway, thoughts? Is this actually unethical or does it just feel wrong? I will happily report this shithole.

I been in this field for a year and i truly love it 🫂.

from my kids to being a help it's a delight.

i'm just curious to know everyone's pros and cons about being an RBT & i would love to hear the BCBA's perspectives. well just anyone from aba haha

but i'll start 😅

PROS:

1. making a difference in any of my kids lives! showing up and giving the best care i could possibly give. the final product is so fulfilling seeing them get through difficult task or milestones they have been working on

2. i have a great work team this is the first job where there has been no drama or gossiping. just data and vibes 🧘🏽‍♀️🧘🏽‍♀️

3. As i mentioned i had no prior experience; so im learning constantly new things daily and i love it. every one of our kids in center is HILARIOUS. its just a joy to see their little faces and watching them grow into who they are going to be.

CONS:

1. burnout is reaaaaallllll especially having 3 kids a day and having no break 8am-6pm. when i come home i just want to hibernate and not talk to anyone. you have to ask for a break and half the time there's no coverage for one 🤣🤣.

2. parents sending kids in sick and knowing it. i'm talking temp over 100* and coughing. the whole clinic is about to be sick for the next month .

3. if you are sick or on the verge of death, you have to stay with your kiddo until the shift is done and if your second shift could be covered and can't just leave. 😭

Is this a weird coincidence? I only contact via work email. I have their numbers I only rarely call and I have not saved their contacts. I also moved from across the country to my current city so there’s no way anyone would know them (who I know). It’s like whenever I start services after the assessment phase they pop in my people you may know…I do know them but how do THEY think I do?😭 I also live alone and like only ever talk about my clients during virtual parent training, but I don’t think I have ever said a caregivers first and last name out loud. This is kinda freaky no?😂 I get phones listen and track everything but like I rarely link the two..most communication, documentation, discussion, etc. is done via work email on my work laptop. Where Facebook get it😭

Hi guys, I have been struggling to land on a graduate program/career for a while now. A bit of background: I (22F) am a 2025 graduate, I got my BA in Psych from Emory, and I work in NC as a BT (working toward RBT). Ive been working in ABA for less than three months but I really like what I do so I thought I'd just climb the ladder and get my MS in ABA (applied behavioral analysis). However, I am one of those people thats gets bored and antsy if I stay in one place for too long so I don't want to jump into this degree if theres not a lot of flexibility for me long term.

Some other careers I have considered recently

• Occupational Therapy (pediatric)
• Speech-Language Pathology
• Healthcare Admin
• Marketing Analysis
• any kind of certifications in medical sciences like phlebotomy, xray, imaging, sonography, etc.
• Higher Education
• I heavily considered Psych NP for a long time but came to terms recently that nursing/ interactive patient care is not for me
• School Psychologist
• Curriculum Developer
• Paralegal

As you can see I am all over the place... I think at the core of it all I really like data, science, i love studying the brain/neuroscience/psychology, and i love working with kids. Like I said bedside work is not for me, I like more computery work but I also like to have the option to move around and not just stay at a desk... I just need advice, am I just being picky and indecisive or is there really something for me that I'm just missing? I want to love what I do but I also want to make at least 60k even if not right away. pls help I have no idea what im doing.

So currently I’m an RBT, I do in-home service with a family of 5. When I got hired they said their last RBT left randomly out of no where, which was a little odd to me. They told me about the kids and really talked them up to be these bad kids who need lots of help. As I’ve been working with them and getting to know them/bonding, they’re not bad at all. They’re good kids, the parents don’t follow any routine or advice my BCBA is giving them (My supervisor does parent training with only the mother). Sometimes I’ll come at my assigned time only for nobody to be home, in some cases they let me walk in the house when nobody is home and don’t come till 30 mins later. I’m very uncomfortable with being in the house alone as I don’t want any accusations or problems against me, my supervisor doesn’t have a problem with it though. The work relationship that this family has with my company is very laid back, and very comfortable with each other. Another big issue that I’ve started to notice is I’ve been getting “Supervision reports” from my supervisor without her even supervising me, the dates that she puts down for these reports I haven’t even seen her and she hasn’t come to the house or called to watch me work with the kids. She gave me bad scores and I haven’t even seen no idea why, because the kids I work with are doing fantastic. Not only that but they’ve asked me to bill different kids when billing for one kid didn’t work (due to my supervisor taking an hour from my assigned time) when I confronted her about this she said “just bill for other sister” which wasn’t even possible (we use ABA matrix). I work with 3 out of the 5 kids, boy on Monday, boy on Thursday until 3 and girl 1 until 7, boy on Friday until 3 and girl 2 until 7, and girl 2 on Saturday, I’m not a big fan of this schedule due to the fact that it just seems like I’m babysitting the kids. I don’t do any real work with them, not only that I was never given a behavioral plan or anything that needs to be corrected so I’m just going at this with my eyes closed. The dad has told me I’d be switching from boy 1 to “watching” the 2 girls before.. which isn’t ideal because I can only bill for boy on that specific day. They don’t take me seriously, I do believe it’s because of my age (I’m 20 and the other RBTs in the home are all 40+). Mind you there are about 3-4 RBTs in the home at a time when I’m there. My pay also does not reflect the work I’m doing, I got paid yesterday and only received 900$ getting paid biweekly. To me that is not sustainable at all, and I got paid more being a waitress. I’m considering leaving because they are doing illegal stuff and I just don’t get treated right from the parents. Any advice on what I should do?

I’m an RBT and recently had a situation that’s been weighing on me. I want to make sure I handled everything ethically and professionally.

A few days ago, my client (6M) told me that someone at home hits him in the head sometimes. I immediately told my BCBA the same day, because that’s what we’re supposed to do. She agreed it was concerning.

There are other ongoing issues too:

He was referred to PT at age 3 but never taken.

He’s significantly behind academically (pre‑pre‑K level at age 6).

He often comes to school dirty, smelling like urine, with ripped shoes and clothes.

I’ve witnessed physical discipline in the home.

He appears slightly cross‑eyed and I’m not sure if he’s ever been evaluated for it.

Two days after I told my BCBA about the disclosure, the aunt suddenly reached out and accused me of causing an injury to his head — something I never saw happen and have no memory of. My BCBA told me I’m not in trouble and that she trusts me, and she said she might need to file an incident report on her end too.

I filed a DCS report in good faith with all the concerns I’ve observed. I didn’t accuse anyone of anything — I just reported what I’ve seen and what the child told me. The report ended up being screened out, which was frustrating because the concerns feel serious.

I’m not looking to blame anyone. I just want to make sure I did the right thing and handled this ethically. Has anyone else been in a similar situation where a caregiver made an accusation right after a mandated report? How did you navigate it?

I’m a RBT, I absolutely LOVE accommodating my kiddos environment/session to benefit him. I’m super lucky I work with his SLP and follow her guidance closely. My kiddo uses both AAC and verbal speech. But still not communicating reliably.

One thing we discussed is what the clinic environment looks like, and what his space usually looks like. I mentioned, it does get loud and chaotic at times. She mentioned it is a lot of auditory input for him to process, and he might have trouble filtering out meaningful vs unmeaningful stimuli. This can affect when I’m working on modeling language/communication targets.

I wanted to ask my clinic admin team IF I could possibly use a room (that goes unused majority of the week, it’s a storage/meeting room), if we can utilize that space sometimes. I always observed him to have such better attending, focus, and independent communication when it’s just him and I by ourselves. When MANY other kids are present in his usual space, I find it hard for him to keep his attention going. I want to set him up for success. I know quiet spaces will not always be available, but I wish my clinic would accommodate him a little more. He is one of our only kiddos who’s covering his ears when it gets loud, but struggles with headphones. He enjoys regular music over the ear headphones too. I think our society is changing so much to have these accommodations available, such as having break spaces and quiet rooms. I think this is such an outdated view of “they’re going to have to deal with it regardless, and quiet spaces will not always be available”. Yes that’s true, but our world is changing to much. I’ve left so many gatherings to just sit in the car bc it gets chaotic. I just want to set him up for success when it comes to his language. I want to ask my admin team, but am nervous.

Yes I can always have him mand for headphones bc sometimes he will have to be around loud environments. I’m just talking specifically for times when I want to work on communication/language targets and need his full attention.

I am so new to all this, but I wanted to try! I know the exam is hard, but you get a big bonus if you pass the first time.

I won't lie, I am struggling to get these done because I am so new to the concepts and I don't have previous experience.

Am I setting myself up for stress and failure?

I am 8 hours into the coursework. I am having trouble taking notes and doing the quizzes. I am kinda scared about the assessment/exam now. I work, but they want me to start on the 27th.

Any tips, links, anything... is appreciated.

Thank you

I keep on fumbling my interviews at ABA companies because the way they ask questions is like as if they are trying to interrogate you and when people come off interrogating, I get easily overwhelmed and nervous. Instead of just asking simple questions about experiences. How do I keep calm in these situations?

(sorry for the long title) I'm not sure if that's the correct subreddit for this but I'm not sure were else to go.

To make it short I imigranted from Portugal when I was 8 (I'm 18 now), at home we only speak Portuguese not only because it's easier but I don't speak any other languages around them. When someone how doesn't speak Portuguese is at home or we're outside I speak to my parents in Portuguese, speak very low to the person or don't speak at all and just nod and make hand gestures to make my self understand.

My mother made me read some books in french when I was younger but I spoke very low so we stopped after a couple of weeks.

With my older sister we sometimes speak in English but it's only by text and yet again when we're speaking English to each other I speak very low with a Portuguese accent (even when I talk I have more of a British accent) and with people in my entourage who speak French when I speak in English I speak with a French accent but that weird rule only apply with short sentence but when it's a conversation I'll speak normally.

I don't feel embarrassed with my French or my English it just blocks when Im going to speak, I do have a small speech problem but they show up when I'm reading something or with some random words that doesn't really matter.

It's annoying for both parts and I never found an actual explanation for this specially because it's been happening for the past 10 years.

Has anybody transitioned from a RBT to a different role or field? What is it and how did you transition/how did your current skills transfer over?

Currently a RBT, looking to move on from this role.. I've also been a DSP, not looking for any direct care roles.