ABA credentials, explained by someone who checked

We read 462 real questions that practitioners, students and parents asked in public — not keyword lists, actual questions from people trying to work something out. Then we answered them against the certifying board's own handbooks, figure by figure.

Start with whichever one is actually yours.

If you're a parent or family member

• Is the person working with my child actually certified? — What BCBA, BCaBA and RBT mean, how to verify any of them on a public registry in about five minutes, what real supervision of an RBT has to include, and what to do if you can't get answers. Asking is normal, and good providers expect the question.

If you're deciding what to become

• How to become an RBT — the seven steps in the order they actually happen, the competency-assessment step that strands people without an employer, the 90-day timing rule, and what it costs.
• BCaBA or BCBA? — what a BCaBA can and can't do, and the rule that can switch the credential off entirely if your supervisor leaves.
• BCBA, QABA, IBAO — three separate boards, not three levels of one thing. Which employers name, and why continuing education doesn't transfer between them.

If you're already certified

• How continuing education actually works — what you owe per cycle, the three ways to earn CEUs including the one almost nobody uses, and why nobody can put CEUs in your account for you.
• Supervision, and who keeps the records — three different requirements share that word. And the documentation is yours to keep for seven years, not your employer's.

If the question is about where you can practise

• Certified or licensed? — two different bodies issue two different things, and only one of them lets you practise. The single most common question we found.
• Practising across state lines — moving, remote supervision, an out-of-state supervisor, telehealth. What travels with you and who actually decides.

How these were written, and what they won't do

Every figure on these pages was checked against the source that governs it — the BACB's own BCBA, BCaBA and RBT Handbooks and its ACE Provider Handbook, current editions — rather than against another summary. Where a handbook says something surprising, we quote it.

What we deliberately don't do is tell you what your state requires. State licensure rules change, and a page that was right when written doesn't look wrong when it goes stale — it just sits there looking authoritative. What's at stake is whether you may lawfully practise, so on that question we tell you exactly what to ask your state board rather than guessing on your behalf.

The same applies to anything here: requirements change, handbooks are reissued, and the current version in your own account is the authority. These pages are written to make you faster at reading it, not to replace it.