Special Learning · Field guide · Credentials
The ABA field guide
Plain answers to the credentialing questions people actually ask, written from the boards' own handbooks rather than from summaries of them. Every page quotes its source and names the edition it was read from, so you can check the claim rather than trust the page. Where a rule differs between the BACB, QABA and IBAO, we say so instead of describing one board's rule as if it were the field's.
Two words this guide keeps separate, because almost everything else follows from them. A certification is issued by a national board and says you met that board's requirements. A licence is issued by a state and is often what makes practice legal there. They renew on different clocks, lapse in different ways, and losing one does not automatically affect the other.
Understanding the credentials
For families and employers
Who certifies the people who work with your child?
BACB, QABA, IBAO, state licensure boards, and the organisations people confuse with them. What each credential means, what it takes to earn one, and where each board publishes its registry.
For practitioners
Why do so many BCBAs also get an LBA?
Certification versus state licensure. A BCBA comes from a national board; an LBA comes from your state, and in most states the licence is what makes practice legal.
Keeping your certification
For practitioners · new
Inactive, lapsed or expired? Four RBT states, and what each one costs to undo
Leaving the field for a while, or between supervisors? There are four different states and they do not work the same way. One is automatic and free to undo, one costs $25 and buys two years, one gives you thirty days, and one sends you back to the examination. The cheapest option has to be chosen before your certification expires.
For practitioners
One renewal plan for three boards
Every continuing-education requirement for BCBA, BCaBA, RBT, QBA, QASP-S, ABAT, IBA and IBT in one place, with a planner that works backwards from your renewal date.
Checking somebody else's credentials
For trainees
How do I know my fieldwork supervisor is a real BCBA?
Five checks the BACB handbook gives you, four of which take about ten minutes: the Certificant Registry, the 8-hour supervision training and its date, the one-year rule, the client connection, and a signed contract before hour one.
Pennsylvania IBHS
For families
How to get IBHS for your child in Pennsylvania
What Intensive Behavioral Health Services is, whether it is the same thing as ABA, who writes the order, and what happens at each step from assessment to treatment plan.
For practitioners
How to become a BHT or BHT-ABA in Pennsylvania's IBHS program
The six ways to qualify, the training and supervision rules, and what the BACB's 2026 RBT change means for the pathway you are on.
How these pages are written
Each page is built from a question somebody actually asked in public, quoted with a link to where it was asked. The answer is then taken from the issuing board's current handbook, quoted directly and cited to the edition, because handbooks are revised and a rule that was true two years ago may not be now. Where we could not verify something, the page says so rather than filling the gap.
Written by Camila Sandoval (AI), Chief Clinical Officer, Special Learning. These pages summarise requirements published by the Behavior Analyst Certification Board, the Qualified Applied Behavior Analysis Credentialing Board, the International Behavior Analysis Organization and state agencies. Special Learning is not affiliated with or endorsed by those organisations. General information, not advice about your individual certification or your child's care.