BCBA and Master's in OT

[JulieinCali]

Hi All,
I currently work for an (ABA) Applied Behavioral Analysis therapy company and I just found out I got into grad school for OT! I will earn my ABA certification (known as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst) and do OT school at the same time. Is anyone else here doing a similar thing for their career path? Just curious to find the people who are passionate about both behavior therapy and occupational therapy 🙂

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[D1989]

That sounds like an amazing field! Can you explain to me the connection to OT and how the therapy applies to behavior?

 

[mco316]

Hi All,
I currently work for an (ABA) Applied Behavioral Analysis therapy company and I just found out I got into grad school for OT! I will earn my ABA certification (known as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst) and do OT school at the same time. Is anyone else here doing a similar thing for their career path? Just curious to find the people who are passionate about both behavior therapy and occupational therapy 🙂

Julie, I'm definitely interested in working with individuals with autism, so my answer is yes... but I've not been going down a BCBA track at all. I'm a mom to a wonderful kiddo on the spectrum and have been doing home programs for close to a decade. I would absolutely have loved to have my therapists trained in both disciplines, it would have been a huge plus to me as a client hiring a therapist. Good luck and congrats on getting accepted to school.

 

[prodigiousflame]

do you think experience with working with autistic kids can look good on an application for ot grad school?

 

[resot]

Hi All,
I currently work for an (ABA) Applied Behavioral Analysis therapy company and I just found out I got into grad school for OT! I will earn my ABA certification (known as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst) and do OT school at the same time. Is anyone else here doing a similar thing for their career path? Just curious to find the people who are passionate about both behavior therapy and occupational therapy 🙂

Julie, out of curiosity, how are you planning to get certified and complete a masters of ot program at the same time? I know the requirements to receive your bcba: a previous masters degree and a year or more of fieldwork, some of it supervised. (I say a year or more, because not everyone completes the maximum of 30 hours a week and it will take them longer to get to the required total). Do you already have a masters?

I was originally interested in bcba or OT. I considered being both, but realized that in the real world both careers won't work simultaneously. If you are hired as an OT, background knowledge in aba is good, but you won't be using your bcba certification because you will be expected to do OT and not behavioral programming. If you are hired as a bcba, background knowledge in OT will be an asset. However, the client will most likely have funding to also see an OT, and the OT may not appreciate you taking over the job. There are some aba companies that hire OTs and BCBAs, but the need for BCBAs is higher. (the more BCBAs an agency has, the more clients the agency can take on, and the more money they will make.) as a result, if hired as a BCBA, you would be pressured to take on more cases and, evening u wanted to do it, simply wouldn't have time to be a good OT.

Like I said, having knowledge in both areas will be an asset. However, doing both careers will be difficult (BCBAs are expected to do more than provide in person aba therapy, they are supposed to design the programs, evaluate, design parent trainings for aba, etc). That's why I just went with OT, even though I have 3 years of aba therapist experience and knowledge.

And I know aba providers vary from state to state. However, I have experience working with 3 different agencies in ca (and several more I inquired about/interviewed with). Too many of them are consumed with the business part and making money. They forget about the children and even the behavior therapists who they employ. Hopefully as the field evolves, the selfish agencies will be weeded out.

 

[JulieinCali]

Hi D1989,
I'll do my best to explain the field of behavior therapy. First of all, behavior therapy is more of a layman's term, Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy is correct terminology. ABA is currently the only therapy for autism that has substantive evidence regarding efficacy in treating autism. In a nutshell, ABA uses the principles of behavior analysis (looking at the function of a behavior-what does the person get out of doing this) and the principle of reinforcement (rewarding desired behavior will increase that good behavior) to design treatment plans to help behavior issues (reduce problem behaviors and increase desired behaviors) This is a very basic definition, I encourage you to look up research on ABA, especially from university websites (warning-there is a lot of misinformation about ABA out there!). If you want to know a bit more, private message me and I can pull together some good links about ABA. I hope this helps and wasn't confusing!

 

[JulieinCali]

Hi ResOT,
Thank you, you definitely brought up some good points for me to ponder. Most of my colleagues think and OT/BCBA combo is rad, but they are all BCBA's with degrees other than OT. Though, I'm not going to throw in the towel just yet 🙂 I'm already in the process of earning my BCaBA and I figured I may as well go on to earn the BCBA (coursework is online and I get my supervision through my current job) You've inspired me to do some more research and talk to some more agencies (both OT and ABA).

 

[resot]

Well, both are great fields to consider (those of you who are struggling to get into an OT program should look into aba). Good luck with whatever you decide. I may have still gone into both fields if I didn't have to worry about loans from the graduate program. However, my super practical side took over and when I graduate, I will want to work full time as an OT (and pay off my bills and loans) instead of worrying about more classes and completing fieldwork hours that I will be paid less for.

Do u plan to continue working at your agency during grad school, if u don't mind me asking.

 

[JulieinCali]

Hi Res,
As far as working during grad school, only time will tell. My ABA supervisor is super supportive (she was the first person I told when I got into OT school!) she and I will have many talks about workload, scheduling etc. over the next year. I love ABA so much that I don't want to leave the field just yet...

Res, are you graduating with large loans? Are you finding work that justifies the expense of OT school?

 

[resot]

I was lucky enough to be admitted to a public program (csudh) in LA. As a result, I don't have to worry about super high tuition. If I'm frugal, I could probably survive off of less than 50,000 in loans (for all personal and school costs) during the 2.5 year program. I started aiming for more frugal when I saw that the online loan calculator told me I need to make at least 70,000 a year to pay off a 60,000 loan (with direct loan interest) and still live comfortably. And I would def like to live comfortably (and possibly start a family after a couple years) when I graduate.

I wanted to work during the program, but it probably won't happen. I need my not in class time to read, do hwk, meet with my group members, unwind, sleep, etc.

I saw in another post that u are planning to attend Dominican? My mentor graduated from their a couple years ago. She enjoyed the program (but not the costs, yikes).

Oh and another bummer for us grad students: no more subsidized government loans starting in July.

 

[OTMAGH]

I will most likely end up being a BCBA and an OT also, though I won't get it at the same time. I currently do ABA too for a company in Seattle. It's a great combo.