Top 5 Things I Wish I Knew as a New BCBA with Shira and Shayna

It’s our 25th episode! To celebrate, we thought we’d talk about the top five things we wish we knew when we were just starting out as newly minted BCBAs.

It’s so important to be sensitive to the cultures of our families. Being mindful of cultural competency and where parents are coming from should always be a factor when developing treatment plans. Daily normal activities such as eating can have nuances that are culturally specific, and we should never assume a one-size-fits-all approach when working on skills. Being an open communicator with everyone we work with is also super important. We don’t really receive training on management and teamwork, but always communicating our expectations is key. Knowing the difference between impostor syndrome and knowing when to ask for help is critical for our professional growth.

When working within a multidisciplinary team, being able to listen to everyone involved and going into each case with a fresh perspective helps us learn and grow. Being humble and admitting that we don’t have all the answers opens us up to collaboration and seeing things with a fresh set of eyes. One thing that keeps coming up is the need to lean into feedback on how to serve the autistic community better. Modifying our treatment approach based on these community voices will have a great impact on the future direction of the field of ABA. The field is constantly changing and being a BCBA is a lifelong learning journey. It’s important to always seek out knowledge yourself. Knowing where to go for good information is way more beneficial than feeling like you must know everything yourself.

The How To ABA community is the perfect place to learn and ask for help from other like-minded professionals. Sharing with others in the field is such an important part of what we do!

What’s Inside:

• The top 5 things we wished we knew as new BCBAs
• Highlights from some of our past episodes

Mentioned In This Episode:

HowToABA.com
How to ABA on YouTube
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