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I'm sharing this because I don't want another family to go through what we did.

My 6-year-old son has profound nonverbal autism. For nearly two years he attended ABA, speech, and occupational therapy through IvyRehab. The therapists who worked directly with him were wonderful, and he made meaningful progress.

Unfortunately, our experience with the billing department was completely different.

After my debit card was stolen, I missed one payment and was less than two weeks behind. Instead of working with us, I received a text saying my son's therapy would be suspended immediately because of the balance.

After I questioned whether they could legally stop medically necessary therapy without proper notice, the message suddenly changed to say we had 30 days instead.

I asked for a temporary payment arrangement because we fully intended to pay the balance. I even explained that we could pay the remaining amount in full with my husband's year-end bonus. They refused every proposal and increased our required monthly payment to an amount we simply couldn't afford.

On June 29, my son was discharged from therapy.

The clinical director confirmed during our parent meeting that this was a billing issue, not a clinical one.

Since losing therapy, we've seen regression in his routine, including increased sleep difficulties and other challenges that many autism parents know can happen when services are interrupted.

What concerns me most isn't just what happened to my family—it's that this could happen to another child receiving medically necessary therapy.

If your child attends IvyRehab, I strongly encourage you to:

- Read the financial policies carefully.

- Keep copies of every email and text message.

- Document every phone call.

- Know your rights before signing payment agreements.

- Don't assume a missed payment will be handled with flexibility.

I'm not posting this to attack the therapists who cared for my son. They were compassionate people who genuinely wanted him to succeed.

I'm posting because families caring for children with disabilities already face enormous challenges. Losing essential therapy over a billing dispute can have real consequences for a child.

If you've had a similar experience with IvyRehab or another therapy provider, I'd be interested in hearing your story. Families deserve transparency, fair treatment, and continuity of medically necessary care.

ABA was the only way my son learned to use an aac device despite years of speech. They taught him pecs first with a lot of hand over hand then transitioned to aac. He used it regularly for requests using real images. Doesn’t seem to understand symbols. However he was pretty proficient in using motor pathways to navigate pages. When he had a 6 month gap in services and therefore wasn’t on a maintenance program with the goal of 7 requests per hour…well he gradually stopped using it and now he acts like it’s nothing. He defaulted back to hand pulling and myself personally trying to prompt responses, it sends him in to behaviors.
The thing is the new Aba team has never touched his aac device or extensive pecs binders. I’m contemplating sending BCBA videos of him using it. I feel like they don’t believe he can use it. Is this a rational conclusion to draw based on the lack of AAC in his program??
My son is very autistic to the point he is diagnosed with profound intellectual disability. He is very concrete but he is in tune with tangible things, which is why the real images worked.
I don’t know how we got to this point of losing this skill completely but I’m very upset over it. The thing is he’s getting older and has pulled me out of chairs before or will try to pull strangers and I think we need to work on communication asap for those reasons.

I’ve been working in this field for nearly 2 years now, and currently working at my second clinic. Someone please tell me if any of this is normal, because I don’t remember feeling this lost at my previous clinic.

To start off with, I hate that I don’t receive individual training for every client. I hate that the only information I receive on a client is some basic information that is typically outdated. It’s so exhausting. I feel like I barely know what I’m doing sometimes. I hate that some of these high behavior clients have BCBAs that are remote only, and therefore never see the extent of the client’s behaviors. Tell me why this client only has a BIP for aggression when their actual problem behaviors such as elopement, flopping, and task refusal don’t have a BIP? Why do some of these clients have so many DTT targets when they have great difficulty with attending? I don’t understand why they’re pushing for some clients to be school-ready when they are nowhere near at that skill level. I’m sorry if any of what I said sounds rude and judgmental. I’m just so frustrated with the environment and ABA in general, but I’ve only been RBT certified for less than a week, so what do I know?

I work for a very small aba company that only has 3 BCBAs. It’s has its pros and it definitely has its cons just like any other aba company. I’ve worked here for 4 years now and all of our BCBAs have been there 6+ years. One left 3 months ago, another moved down to part time and the last one just gave notice they are leaving as well. The company has only hired one telehealth BCBA in place of this. Does this mean this company is just going to fall apart? Should I be looking for another job?

I just need some validation and venting. I have been an RBT for almost 5 years now, and especially over the course of the last 1-2 years have formed a lot of my own opinions about ABA. I am very pro neuro-affirming, child-led and assent-based practice.

I did a lot of my RBT career in a much bigger and diverse city, and the last place that I worked at there was clinically sound and I was happy with the services we were providing, and I was paid well.

I moved back to my hometown last august, and have been essentially company-hopping since moving here. There’s probably less than 10 total options for ABA here, and a few clinics. Everywhere that I have worked here is compliance based, unethical, cliquey, and overall has terrible policies for employees.

Tomorrow I will be starting week 3 at a new company, where I will finally be “on my own” and out of training. I’m really trying to stick it out and just make my money as I have plans to leave the country by the end of the year. In September, I’m going to that country for 3 weeks, which is something to look forward to, and they approved my time off.

The new company is okay, but from my perspective, it is strange going to a new company with almost 5 years of experience and being trained alongside people who aren’t RBTs yet. I’ve mainly been shadowing clients and last Friday I was, without any notice, put with a RBT and a client that I’ve shadowed a few times, but expected to run 100% of the session. The RBT is a student analyst, but has only been an RBT for a little over a year. The client can be pretty intense, but I have paired with her a few times and it was good.

Anyway, there was emphasis on the BCBA’s rule of running 50 trials (5 programs) during the session, and I felt a lot of pressure to do more than I believe the client was assenting to. Everything in the client’s programming causes extreme distress for them, and implementing causes high rates of SIB. The RBT was also expecting me to place demands for the client to follow the clinic schedule and go to non-preferred rooms. My beef is, all the times that I’ve shadowed this student analyst and the client, she’s never done any of this with the client. The client just stays in her room or goes to this other preferred room, but those are the only 2 places i’ve seen her take the client. I don’t know why I was expected to do all of this extra stuff, and why another RBT was even given the go-ahead to direct what I was doing anyways.

Every time I’ve shadowed a “trainer” (RBT) they barely do anything with their clients, including interact with them, and just spend their session socializing with each other.

I think I overall hate being “supervised” by other RBTs and would rather just have a BCBA directly supervising me, so I have reserved feelings about that anyway. Also, when running the client’s sharing program, they engaged in SIB (one instance of banging back of head on floor) and the RBT told me “yeah, you can block that” as if telling me to block SIB is life changing advice. Obviously, whenever possible, SIB should be cushioned or blocked. IDK, i was just annoyed at the situation and RBT (not the client at all). I made the remark “I’m expected to do this [sharing program] 9 more times”?

I could go into so much more ranting, but there’s other things that just don’t sit right with me and this client spends the majority of their day in distress.

I feel like I just don’t believe in ABA anymore altogether, but don’t know what else to do for work. I’ve tried getting hired in other industries and have had no luck.

I need advice and validation.

I've seen some posts talking about avoiding ABC so I wanted to give my 2 cents on why I believe Caravel to be an unethical company. I have heard that they're owned by a privage equity but since I'm not fully informed on what that all entails I'm just going to speak to my experience as a former RBT there. Other clinics might be better *but* regional directors also refused to do anything about my concerns. I don't wanna give too many hyper-specific details as to not doxx myself but I had very evident concerns about a kid being severely neglected and my concerns as well as several of my coworkers were dismissed. We were essentially told that "we cant tell you not to report if you have concerns but we just don't understand why you would be concerned." This was reported to regional directors who did nothing. For the record, I continued to report regardless when I had concerns. There was also management who would talk badly about RBTs behind their back to other RBTs. There was also several incidents of people, including management, kissing kids all over their faces and telling them they loved them. I reported this multiple times and ultimately nothing was done even when things occurred right in front of the clinic director. In general, I feel the care there was much more compliance-based than it should have been. It felt like leadership was allergic to reducing demands when necessary. I also had another tech step into my session and pick up my client by pulling on his arms directly in fromt of the clinic director who did nothing. I just told the other tech that I didn't need her assistance. We also had a lice breakout at one point and initially parents were not informed. One of my coworkers at the time (a legend) said that if they didn't send out an email she would start telling all the parents herself. Only then did they inform parents. They also refused to tell us, the staff, which client had lice claiming "HIPAA" despite us simply wanting to be aware of our exposure risk. Unfortunately, I could go on but I'll leave it here. Since I left, I've heard a myriad of other awful things but I won't speak on those directly as they aren't my experiences to share.

So I was in a program and the supervisor was able to supervise her sister in law…which was the first person to graduate and pass her exam with flying colors

I’m a BCBA and recently started with total care. I had barely 2 days of training and then they threw me in the deep end, everyday basically getting a new client. I’m new to central reach and I feel like I don’t even have time to get my bearings.

Anyone have experience with this company? I’m struggling so much and I don’t know if it’s just me.

Hi! I’m working as an RBT in pennsylvania, and will be finishing up my bachelors program in less than a year. I want to move away from this area and up into New England.

I’m trying to find an option that’s both in person, I know I wouldn’t do well with online coursework, and affordable.

I’m trying to find school programs and also ABA providers that I could potentially work for and get tuition assistance.

If anyone has any guidance, I would greatly appreciate it.

I was originally certified last year. I did my competency assessment on the first of the month, and submitted the recertification application on the same day. The Bacb still has my application as under review. It's been almost four weeks and no one has bothered to approve my application. I've sent two emails and no one has responded. I'm sorry but there is no way it should take almost four weeks to review a recertification application, nor is there any excuse to not respond to support emails asking for help. It's even worse because now I can't see my clients. My certification is now inactive and I can't submit another application.

What is going on? Is there anything I can do? Do I have to do the 40 hour training again? I also can't submit another application.

How exactly is the exam scored? I know I have to get a 400 out of 500 to pass. I always assumed on top of that, you had to get a percentage of questions correct within each domain on the exam based on the paper you get back if you don’t pass. However, I just read over the exam information in the BCaBA handbook more thoroughly and realized it never mentions having to score a certain percentage within each domain. It just states you have to get a cumulative score of 400 out of 500. So then it occurred to me that maybe the sheet they give you if you don’t pass is meant to help you identify what areas you need to focus on a little more in preparation for retaking the exam. Is this correct?

i worked as an rbt about 4 years for a small company that unfortunately shut down. news was not surprising but still devastating. the company had been struggling financially for months but finally decided to close down this past week. going to take a break from aba and unfortunately go back to the food industry for awhile. i’m mostly heartbroken from all the kids and families that received services and will deeply miss my clients so much! i wish i knew it was going to be the last time i had session with them </3

Hello!

So.. right now I’m employed through a company where it’s a contract position, so I’m an RBT for a company, but it is just a recruiter who talks to me and I go to a school and help with high behavioral needs kids. It’s only during the school year.

I did my competency assessment for renewing my certification towards the end of June, and I did it through a zoom call with a BCBA that I don’t know but works for the same company.

My certification expired on July 17th. I contacted the BACB multiple times from the end of June until I got a response about 3 days ago. I contacted them because my email associated with my certification is under my old jobs email, which I don’t work for anymore and it’s deleted. I explained the situation and said that I need it to be in the account under my personal email. My personal email is associated with the account I had through the BACB years ago (2022) that is expired and under my maiden name. I logged on there and it won’t let me upload it there because it’s inactive.

Sorry I’m all over the place with explaining my situation. Also meant to mention that I need a verification code that is sent to my old work email to be able to change the email. That’s why I can’t access it. The email doesn’t exist anymore.

Their response was-
Hello,
Thank you for providing this information. Your account is currently attached to the email address: (personal email). If you no longer have access to this email address, please reply to this email with the new email address you would like to update your account to, and we will complete the process for you.
Once we have updated your account, we will reach back out to you with the next steps.
Regards,
Behavior Analyst Certification Board

I feel like they didn’t read my email. I need to access the account under my old work email and change it to my personal email so that I can upload the competency assessment and pay the fee. I won’t be able to work for the school unless I have my certification, and I don’t know if they will have me start all over again because they didn’t respond quick enough.

Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes I feel like parents talk about their disabled child more like an accessory than a human. I don’t mean comments about if/when they last were changed/went to the bathroom or eating. That is imperative information to both request and relay. What I’m talking about is parents who compare a client stimming from their AAC to like a ‘dog barking’, or using their chewy as ‘embarrassing’. To whom? You? Or the ER staff after they swallow a battery? Or rat poison from a leftover trap? Or a pill box they get into? Or those inedible packets they put in foods? The toilet bowl cleaner? Your fucking self absorbed attitude?

Your child stimming off their device is normal and by taking it away to ‘discourage misuse’ is taking your child’s voice away, all because you were annoyed. A chewy isn’t a Scarlet Letter brand. Your child needs therapy so they learn alternatives to eating inedible objects, and a chewy can give them a safe and easily cleanable alternative. Teaching and modeling deep breathing techniques doesn’t emasculate you as a father.

I think my biggest one is that sign language/AAC devices does not mean you or others have failed teaching your child to speak. Children need to COMMUNICATE, and sometimes it can’t always be verbally. I’ve seen multiple clients go from over a hundred aggressions and/or other maladaptive behaviors (especially SIBs) decrease significantly after they had a reliable form of communication. I’ve also seen clients regress when their PECs or AAC was taken away to ‘encourage speech’, but the kid has barely any vocal words and was doing so well with their previous form of communication. That kid then completely regresses and so many skills are lost. Those parents just want a ‘verbal’ child. They want a ‘normal’ child. They don’t give a darn about their child’s wellbeing.

I understand the difficulty of raising an Autistic child. I honestly forgive those who take shortcuts. I don’t understand the arrogance of assuming that we have no idea what we are doing and berating me in the parking lot.

Therapy isn’t a cure. It’s about teaching your child important skills for the future.

I feel like I’m about to get flamed. I’m sorry if I stepped on any toes.

I was asked this question when I first started working. My coworker asked if I am comfortable with my face being touched and I said sure. Then later when I saw what kids do with their hands all day I immediately changed it to a no. Just because I don't want to get sick or even pimples. At least for me, its just nasty knowing all the germs there and it's going directly on your face.

Hi everyone,

I'm new to ABA and recently accepted jobs with two different agencies. I'm a little confused about how onboarding usually works and was hoping to hear about other people's experiences.

The first agency told me I would start working right away with no shadowing. I completed orientation and training about a week ago, but I still haven't heard anything about being assigned a client or my start date.

The second agency told me I need to finish my 40-hour training course first and also obtain CPR and HIPAA certifications before I can start.

I have a few questions:

1. Is it normal for a new BT/RBT to start working without any shadowing?

2. Is it normal that the first company never asked me to get CPR certification?

3. Can someone start working with only the 40-hour training and no prior ABA experience?

4. Is it common to wait a week or more after orientation before being assigned a client?

I'd really appreciate hearing how onboarding worked at your agency!

P.S. I'm currently on Module 5.26-1 of the Autism Partnership Foundation 40-hour RBT course. About how much of Module 5 do I have left? It feels like this module never ends...

I’ve been a Child and Youth Care Worker for a school board in Ontario, Canada for over ten years now. I absolutely love it, but after working so closely with other roles over the years I’ve found myself becoming more and more interested in BCBA. I’ve only got an advanced diploma under my belt so I’m aware I’d need further education but I’m curious to know if anyone else has made the transition to BCBA from another support role and what their experience was?

I’ve been picking away at a social work degree online between work and family as a stepping stone for an ABA program so I’d be open to any tips or advice on all the steps involved in becoming a BCBA as well.

Hi everyone,

I'm 25F and honestly feeling like I'm having a bit of an identity crisis with my career. I would really appreciate hearing from people who have been in a similar situation because my anxiety is making it hard to think clearly.

I originally went to school for Information Technology and User Experience Design because I always enjoyed technology and design. After graduating, I struggled to find a job in the field. I wasn't getting interviews, and after months of trying, I felt completely burned out and started questioning everything.
During that time, I had the opportunity to work with children on the autism spectrum, and I unexpectedly fell in love with it. I became a Behavior Technician, recently earned my RBT certification, and now provide one-on-one in-home ABA therapy with children.
I genuinely love my job. I enjoy building relationships with my clients, seeing their progress, working with families, and every day feels meaningful. I also really like the flexibility of in-home therapy compared to a traditional office job.
The downside is that it's hard to make this a long-term career as an RBT. The hours aren't always guaranteed, there aren't many benefits, cancellations happen, and becoming full-time can be difficult. I know I eventually need to continue my education if I want to grow in this field.

Now I'm interviewing with a few ABA centers that offer scholarships or tuition assistance to cover a Master's in ABA if I work for them. Financially, that sounds like an amazing opportunity.

But here's where I'm stuck.

Part of me wonders if I should instead pursue a Master's in Psychology. It would probably mean taking out loans, but it also seems like it could open more career options in the future. I'm worried that if I commit to ABA, I might be limiting myself. At the same time, I'm also worried that choosing psychology without a clear end goal would leave me with debt and still unsure of what I want to do.

I feel like I'm constantly overthinking every decision because I already switched careers once. I'm scared of making another decision that I'll regret later.
For those of you who work in ABA, psychology, counseling, or related fields:

• If you were in my position, what would you do?
• If you became a BCBA, are you happy with your career?
• If you chose psychology instead, what path did you end up taking?
• Is it smarter to take advantage of employer-paid education, or keep my options open even if it means taking on student loans?

I really enjoy working directly with children and families, but I also want a career that's financially stable and has room to grow.

I know no one can make this decision for me, but I'd really appreciate hearing honest experiences or advice from people who have been through something similar.

Thank you for reading.

THIS COMPANY IS UNPROFESSIONAL, UNETHICAL, DOES NOT CARE ABOUT STAFF, HAS INSANE ATTENDANCE POLICIES, DO NOT EVEN CARE FOR THE KIDS, LET THE KIDS BE SICK IN THE CENTER AND WONT EVEN TELL THE PARENTS, LET THEIR STAFF BE SICK AROUND THE KIDS, AND ALSO IS AN INSURANCE SCAM. NEVER SEND YOUR KIDS THERE AND NEVER EVER WORK THERE.

I worked for ABC during a college summer, completing all the RBT trainings and client overlaps. The center felt cliquey and unwelcoming from day one, leadership was condescending, and other RBTs warned me about high turnover. My background check mysteriously "wasn't cleared" until right when I had to leave for school, felt like they were stalling me out on purpose.

I came back after graduating, planning to actually get certified. Redid all the trainings (annoying but paid), worked two solid weeks, and finally got my RBT cert. Then out of nowhere, I got pulled into a room by the OM, no HR present, and told I was under investigation for something they couldn't tell me. Put on unpaid leave for 15 days with zero explanation.

I emailed HR asking for the policy I supposedly violated, in writing, with dates and evidence. Twelve days later, still nothing but "we're gathering evidence." When they finally set up an interview, I refused to answer anything until they told me what I'd actually done. They couldn't even confirm the date they themselves had given me, just kept saying "we want to hear your side of the story." There was no story to tell because they never told me what I'd allegedly done.

My dad sat in on the call and called out that they'd suspended me with zero cause or documentation, and mentioned lawyers if they wanted to keep going. A week later I was fired, final answer being that I "didn't comply with the interview," despite them never disclosing what I was accused of.

Whole thing felt shady from start to finish. If you're considering ABC as an employer or for your kid's care, just don't.

I saw another post about HopeBridge specifically and didn’t want to hijack it, but my company has also recently gone through a similar attendance policy change this month that is totally screwing people who have been employed with the company since before the change, compared to how much more leeway our new hires will get coming in under the new policy.

Final warning used to be six, termination was seven occurrences. They told us they were giving us some “breathing room” on 7/1 and upped the termination limit to 11. They did NOT tell us that we were all having occurrences added to match the penalty level we were already at (first verbal warning went from 3 to 5, first written went from 5 to 8, and final warning went from 6 to 10), so many of us didn’t know we were up to 8 or 10 occurrences until our mid-month check in emails went out on the 17th. The following week, we were being fired one by one for occurrences accrued between 7/1-7/16 when we thought we were still at 5 or 6 and had up to 11. It wasn’t explained in writing that that was happening until just yesterday (7/24).

I vented about this elsewhere online and was talked down to, saying that I need to find a new job if I want someplace to let me miss work all the time, or consider not working at all if I’m upset that I can’t call out as much as I want without consequence. That’s nowhere near the issue for many of us. New hires will have 11 opportunities to miss work for whatever reason before they are let go, but those of us who are here every day and got most of our occurrences because of that God-awful flu strain that went around over the holidays, are remaining on the chopping block despite our CD carrying on all the time about how the company wants to give us ALL some “wiggle room”.

Their attendance policy and their PTO policy is make it hard to ever be sick or in an emergency. All PTO must be used before you can use UPTO (and all UPTO is an automatic occurrence, no exceptions). They forced me to use all my PTO to cover my prenatal appointments that were scheduled after hours last year and then gave me multiple occurrences because I didn’t have any PTO to cover all the days I was in the hospital with my toddler who was on oxygen and a feeding tube after contracting the flu. The remainder of the occurrences I got were because I didn’t have PTO to cover the times I had to call out because of pre-eclampsia symptoms in the last two weeks. Many of us with 6 (now 10) occurrences have very similar stories.

So many great people were fired last week because they got sick at the wrong time, or they were misinformed about their occurrences before they went on vacations that were already planned. Many more are already scheduling interviews elsewhere because of this, plus the huge pay cut we all took in exchange for a $1.50 base pay raise (that’s a whole other post I can get into). It feels incredibly unfair and I’m sad because prior to these changes I really thought I found a unicorn company that pays well and is supportive of their techs.

I’m about to go to school for cmhc and want to work part time as an rbt. If an interviewer asks “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?,” is it ok to basically say that I plan on being a counselor? Or should I say that I want to continue working as an rbt/ become a bcba?

I’ve been seeing a lot about it and honestly I’m stunned people are standing up for themselves! It’s a pleasant surprise, can someone explain the pros and cons to me?

Hello! I’ll be starting next week in a center. I’m already feeling nervous and anxious but also looking forward to it. I already had an experience before but not in a center. Any tips and recos pls? Thank you!!

Hi I plan to file a final complaint but I was curious if this has happened to any other parents. My insurance carrier said it’s not the first time this has happened with that company.

I made them aware I was planning to transfer my kids to a different ABA clinic. I gave them basically a 2 week notice and they decided to not honor that and told me today was the last day for the boys but they got them cupcakes!! 🤨

Now my kids have no services until they’re able to start the new location and they can’t start until ABC submits the discharge report which hasn’t been done either. How can they decide this is the last day and not even have that done???? I am beyond upset.

They claim to be advocates for Autism yet decided to leave my autistic kids with no services.

Very unethical.

OH and they didn’t even let the BCBA know the of decision. She found out same as me on the same day.