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BACB Certification Trends: State of the States (1999 to 2014)

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Abstract

Since the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) was officially created in 1998 (Shook, 2005), the number of individuals certified by the BACB has grown significantly, particularly in the USA. Some states have witnessed a steady growth in the number of certificants, whereas others have witnessed exponential growth. Many factors could account for these overall growth patterns, including (a) geographic variations in distribution of certificants across states, (b) the passage of autism insurance reform laws or state licensing laws that influence the professional practice of applied behavior analysis (ABA) services, and (c) the presence of major academic or practicum training programs. This report documents the growth and geographic distribution of Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) and Board Certified Assistant Behavior Analysts (BCaBAs) from 1999 to 2014 and also discusses some of the factors that might have influenced the documented growth patterns.

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Notes

  1. See the BACB web site (www.BACB.com) for additional details regarding requirements and professional roles of each certification category.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Dr. James E. Carr for providing the BACB certificant data, as well as Dr. Thomas S. Critchfield and Dr. Jose Martinez-Diaz for their significant contributions during the review process.

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Correspondence to Neil Deochand.

Ethics declarations

No sources of funding were utilized to present this information. The authors know of no conflicts of interest that would present any financial or non-financial gain as a result of potentially publication of this manuscript. While both authors are credentialed by the Behavior Analysis Certification Board® Inc. (BACB®), this project is not affiliated with the BACB. Human subjects were not utilized, and all the information gathered is based on already existing data sets. All material contained herein is not plagiarized, and this article is not under review elsewhere and will not be submitted to another outlet while under consideration.

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Neil Deochand and R. Wayne Fuqua are credentialed by the Behavior Analysis Certification Board® Inc. (BACB®), but this project is not affiliated with the BACB.

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Figure 8. Displays projected number of BACB® certifications in the upcoming 5 years. (PDF 94 kb)

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Deochand, N., Fuqua, R.W. BACB Certification Trends: State of the States (1999 to 2014). Behav Analysis Practice 9, 243–252 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-016-0118-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-016-0118-z

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