Hi, I'm planning to apply to OT schools this fall, and besides job shadowing OTs, I'm considering taking a part-time position as an ABA therapist working with autistic children. I'm hoping to have at least 100 hours of ABA therapy experience by the time I fill out my applications.
However, I'm kind of concerned that this experience may not be considered as valuable as I initially thought. I was talking with a Behavior Analyst a few weeks ago, and she said that some OTs (and therefore, I would have to assume, OT departments) don't respect ABA therapy because it varies from how OTs typically approach autism.
This seems kind of odd to me, since the two approaches seem to integrate fairly well with each other, and both have the common goal of helping an autistic child to succeed. But on the other hand, I wouldn't want to invest so much of my time into a job that OT schools might not respect as much as other experiences.
What do you guys think about this? And if any of you had ABA experience going into your OT apps, did you feel that it helped you get accepted?
However, I'm kind of concerned that this experience may not be considered as valuable as I initially thought. I was talking with a Behavior Analyst a few weeks ago, and she said that some OTs (and therefore, I would have to assume, OT departments) don't respect ABA therapy because it varies from how OTs typically approach autism.
This seems kind of odd to me, since the two approaches seem to integrate fairly well with each other, and both have the common goal of helping an autistic child to succeed. But on the other hand, I wouldn't want to invest so much of my time into a job that OT schools might not respect as much as other experiences.
What do you guys think about this? And if any of you had ABA experience going into your OT apps, did you feel that it helped you get accepted?