SLP bachelor's looking into ABA masters.

[SundayMatinee]

Hi! So I recently discovered Aba and was thinking of pursuing aba for my masters rather than speech. Although I'm confused about a number of things, the first being many schools in NY and NJ offer certificate programs, so I would major in special education with a concentration in Aba? How many aba courses are necessary to be a qualified aba therapist ? Will I need a good number of psych pre reqs? I have stats and psych 100, because speech therapy required those classes. Also, does anyone know if ballstate is a reputable place to receive my ma? They have an online program, but I'm old fashioned and prefer a classroom. Is aba really competitive to get into at this time? Also is the gre preferred, if so which section weighs more the math or the verbal? 

 

Thanks in advance guys !

[EdNeuroGrl]

You may want to start/cross post this thread in the Education forum. You're more likely to get answers. 

ABA is a good way to go for a fairly secure employment prospect. You will need to go through a College of Education somewhere. The requirement vary A LOT from program to program and few require any psychology courses. Education programs prefer that grad students take their own education focused courses. 

For GRE preference that is going to depend on the school. In general they prefer that you have an okay quant score because educational research does have a quantitative component, however depending on the school they may not really care much. There are a lot of ABA online programs and if what you want is to take a certificate and work in a special education/school setting this may be something for you to seriously consider. If you are wanting to do ABA for a more clinical setting (e.g. autism specialties, or counseling <- which is often its own grad program that can incorporate ABA).

Many of your questions are going to be school-dependent so you will need to actually talk to people in the field who are working in the area that you want to work. There is so much variability in education by university, by program, and even by state and school district that it is really hard to make generalizations. 

For the ABA programs specifically, go look up the course requirements for a few programs, see if there are some similar trends. 

And for sure, the people in the Education forum are going to at very least know what you are talking about and may be more helpful. :-)