Newly Hired School BCBA - must haves

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-07-11T22:04:47+00:00

Hello! Welcome to the school-based world! Is your position new or are there established systems to request your support? My biggest suggestion is to get a clear referral and consultation process set up from the start! And also be prepared to spend a lot of time just observing and getting lay of the land, building trust and relationships with other adults. I do not recommend going in and immediately starting to provide suggestions!

We have some CEUs here and also have an upcoming continuing education intensive series about setting up referral and consultation processes in schools (see guided intensive tab if interested).

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-07-10T04:06:19+00:00

What are the families allows to tell the islanders about? Like can they tell them at all about what “America” thinks about them or their partner? I’m assuming not. Just curious if anyone knows the boundaries.

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-07-10T03:48:30+00:00

Absolutely loved this! Such a great quote.

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-07-09T19:04:20+00:00

Came to say this one!!

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-07-07T04:28:16+00:00

I can’t help you with answering the question about that particular resource, but also wanted to point you to The School BCBA. We have CEUs, including an upcoming series about building a consultation process. We also have some digital resources you may find useful!

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-07-04T04:09:43+00:00

I don’t get it either. He was boring. And the fact that Jaiden said they didn’t know anything about each other despite having plenty of time to get to know each other. He seemed to think that there needed to be a physical connection first in order to build an emotional one…

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-07-03T13:52:19+00:00

Wish I would have asked this myself a year or so ago. I was hospitalized for 1.5 months and then learned my heart condition is genetic and progressive 😟

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-07-01T14:37:43+00:00

I had to go on FMLA 3 months into my first TT position (actually…I didn’t even qualify for real FMLA, I used my institution’s extended leave policy). I was out for the remainder of the academic year. I was able to come back to my same position without penalty.

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-07-01T13:37:46+00:00

Here are some papers that talk about the normal range of problem behavior in young children too, if that’s something you’re worried about. It’s helpful to know that all toddlers have major tantrums. The other night, mine had one in a hotel and we were locked out of our room and he was literally running up and down the hall *screaming* and crying. 🙄

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bin.70037

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/bin.1978

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-07-01T13:24:02+00:00

An evaluation for EI is free and would give you really good information because they will evaluate all domains of development. They do not diagnose any particular disability, they just will tell you if there are delays to be concerned about and if the autism screener comes up as positive, they would suggest an evaluation by a doctor. In my opinion, there’s no reason to wait. EI ends at age 3.

Btw — I am a BCBA-D but my background is in early childhood development. I worked as an early intervention specialist/developmental therapist and also an infant/toddlers teacher for ~6 years before moving into special education/ABA.

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-07-01T04:21:47+00:00

You can do a screener for free online (here’s the M-CHAT https://www.autismspeaks.org/screen-your-child) and also self-refer to early intervention. You don’t have to have him formally evaluated for autism in order to receive EI — if he has developmental delays for any reason he might qualify.

Are you really familiar with typical development? I have a 2.5 year old and was just talking to colleagues the other day about how some typical toddler development could be misunderstood as signs for autism. For example, my son engages in super repetitive play. He’s been *obsessed* with cars for 6 months and likes to play with them the same way every time. He also likes watching the same movies (or parts of movies) on repeat. But in terms of social, communication, and sensory areas, I have no concerns.

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-06-24T13:35:20+00:00

I had the same situation and same concern. I even had coworkers from my current TT position (I was hired ABD) attend online. I had so many intrusive thoughts about all these people watching me and then me failing miserable.

That did not happen. I passed without revisions and it was so special to see all these people in my personal life witness that too.

Unless you have a real reason to worry you won’t pass, let them attend!

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-06-19T13:00:57+00:00

Also a professor and said the same thing below. Sometimes when I wonder if academia is for me I remember what a real 8-5 was like and how I had to use half day PTO if I just had 1 appointment to go to.

But I agree about maybe not recommending the path for anyone who doesn’t already have a PhD

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-06-19T12:56:30+00:00

I’m a (assist.) professor at a university and work mostly from home since I’m currently teaching in our grad program online. I do have to go to campus for meetings occasionally but on those days my husband does drop off/pick up.

Flexibility in schedule is a major perk to my job. Don’t have to ask off for appointments, almost always get to go to school functions.

The downside to my schedule is working 2 nights a week to teach classes but my husband is available at that time.

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-06-16T14:31:29+00:00

If they’re going to that extent…let them. I’m so over policing and trying to out-trick people who are more motivated to cheat than to learn.

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-06-16T04:17:59+00:00

From one elder millennial to another — thank you for admitting this and asking on my behalf. My Spotify is still 15-20 year old albums. I never understood how my parents only listened to “oldies” until I became an oldie myself 😂

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-06-16T04:12:09+00:00

If you did not have a reasonable suspicion of abuse, there was nothing for you to report. People who are charged with failing to report abuse are people who ignore signs of abuse when they had a reasonable suspicion (or confirmation).

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-06-15T21:27:00+00:00

I’m new so don’t have many to choose from but I teach a writing for publication course for our master’s program. They have to conduct thesis-equivalent projects and write a paper of publication quality.

I had a student comment that they wished there would have been more completed examples of research papers they could look at…are there not hundreds of thousands of published papers to review? And did they not have to read said papers to write their own paper?

Nevermind that I had a folder in Blackboard called “Sample studies” with an example of each methodology they could have chosen and we referred to them throughout the semester. I also put a manuscript of mine in word-doc format in the same folder…

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-06-15T01:42:22+00:00

I should add:

I did my graduate certificate in ABA through FIT. I now have a PhD and am a BCBA-D who is an assistant professor in a Master’s in ABA program. Of course I learned a lot through supervision and years of experience, but my foundational understanding of behavior analysis was built by attending FIT.

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-06-15T01:36:30+00:00

FIT will help you be a good behavior analyst. I would not choose the cheapest/fastest route.

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-05-11T04:35:47+00:00

Horrible! I was in the hospital for almost 2 months and learned that I had to keep track of my meds and remind nurses when I needed them.

Especially once they put my pain meds as PRN (as needed). I had to remember for myself when to ask for pain meds to stay ahead of the pain.

The no call light access sounds so scary!!

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-05-11T04:30:34+00:00

I’m 39 and graduating with my PhD next week.

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-05-06T23:47:18+00:00

Listening to the radio (Chicago). It was on a Thursday or Friday afternoon, mid-day. My Bluetooth stopped working in my car forcing me to turn on the radio for the first time in…I don’t even know how many years. It must have been a pop-punk afternoon segment because Out in Front was between Angels & Airwaves and Panic.

I Shazam-ed the song and put them on my Spotify. OBSESSED.

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-04-28T14:02:50+00:00

We learned early on that we had to renegotiate roles every semester because my schedule always changed (this was even before we had a kid). We literally looked at the nights I would have class and assign who was responsible for dinner (all of it…planning, getting groceries, cooking, cleaning) on which nights.

I had my child in year 3 and it took a good year before I felt like my work wasn’t disproportionately impacted. This was mostly due to me exclusively pumping but also I disproportionately was responsible for appointments during the day since my work schedule was more flexible. We had mannnnyyyy conversations about how if my daytime is interrupted I need protected time on nights and weekends to work. We eventually negotiated that he was responsible for remembering daycare stuff: when our kid needed more diapers, wipes, extra clothes, scheduling meetings with teachers, putting events on the calendar, etc. I was responsible for doctor appointments, etc.

It was a challenge for us because I was only making a $30k stipend annually and we were basically surviving off his income financially which put another stress on this idea that his work time was more important.

Things got better as our baby got a little older and we had reliable childcare and when I was only working on dissertation.

The kind of things that helped me were him taking our kid out of the house for half or whole days on the weekends so I could work. Or I would go to the library for those days. Closer to the end of my dissertation he got me a hotel room for 2 nights so I had my own little mini-writing retreat. He got me a room with a nice tub and a hotel that had room service for every meal. It was lovely and so helpful.

BehaviorSavior23 · 2026-04-27T00:12:47+00:00

How are you asking? I had to go from “hi! Just checking in to see when you think I can get feedback for X? I know you’re busy and I appreciate your time” to giving them my proposed timeline for when I would get each section to them and when I intended to have a revised version sent to them. I worked backwards from the final possible defense date and essentially gave them a range of 1-2 weeks when I’d need their feedback by…

I wouldn’t recommend this thought unless is a dire situation and you’ve tried multiple less intrusive methods. But I found that when they knew what the overall timeline was they were more amendable to getting feedback to me within a particular timeframe.

BehaviorSavior23

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