Top 12 Aba Therapist Skills to Put on Your Resume

Crafting a standout resume as an ABA therapist means showing the skills that prove you can assess, teach, and adapt with precision. Spotlight the abilities that anchor solid practice. Let your results, not fluff, do the talking. Hiring teams skim fast—make every line count.

ABA Therapist Skills

1. Behavior Analysis
2. Data Collection
3. Autism Spectrum
4. Positive Reinforcement
5. Functional Communication
6. Crisis Intervention
7. Parent Training
8. Program Development
9. Ethical Standards
10. Catalyst (Data Collection Software)
11. VB-MAPP Assessment
12. PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System)

1. Behavior Analysis

Behavior Analysis is the science of learning and behavior. In ABA therapy, it’s the disciplined application of those principles to teach skills, reduce harmful or interfering behaviors, and build independence for people—often those with autism or related developmental differences.

Why It's Important

It gives a tested framework to understand why behavior happens and how to change it. That means interventions aren’t guesses; they’re measured, ethical, and aimed at meaningful outcomes that improve day-to-day life.

How to Improve Behavior Analysis Skills

Grow your craft through steady practice and reflection:

1. Keep current: Read behavior-analytic journals, attend CEUs, and follow emerging findings you can translate into practice.
2. Master single-case design: Use clear baselines, consistent measurement, and visual analysis to drive decisions.
3. Tighten definitions: Write operational, observable, measurable definitions so anyone could collect data the same way.
4. Seek supervision and peer review: Case consults sharpen thinking and expose blind spots.
5. Test, track, tweak: Implement, measure, adjust. Let the data, not hunches, steer the plan.
6. Reflect ethically: Weigh benefit, dignity, and assent. Interventions should serve the person first.

Blend science with empathy. Precision with patience. That’s where real progress lives.

How to Display Behavior Analysis Skills on Your Resume

2. Data Collection

Data collection is the systematic recording of behavior and skill performance to evaluate progress and make decisions. Frequency, duration, latency, trial-by-trial—pick the right tool for the job and use it consistently.

Why It's Important

Because progress without proof is guesswork. Clean data shows what’s working, what’s wobbling, and when to pivot.

How to Improve Data Collection Skills

1. Standardize: Create simple, replicable procedures and interobserver agreement checks to keep reliability high.
2. Use secure tools: Adopt HIPAA-compliant ABA data platforms (e.g., Catalyst, CentralReach) or clear paper systems with version control.
3. Train and recalibrate: Model, practice, spot-check. Drift happens—tighten it regularly.
4. Clarify targets: Operational definitions and clear mastery criteria prevent confusion and noise.
5. Review often: Schedule quick data reviews and graph checks; small course corrections beat big overhauls.

Accuracy first. Speed second. Consistency always.

How to Display Data Collection Skills on Your Resume

3. Autism Spectrum

Autism Spectrum Disorder involves differences in social communication and patterns of behavior or interests. The spectrum is wide. Strengths and needs vary. ABA therapists tailor interventions to the person, not the label.

Why It's Important

Understanding the spectrum helps you select humane, individualized strategies that honor preferences, promote autonomy, and build skills that matter in real contexts.

How to Improve Autism Spectrum Skills

1. Assess thoroughly: Use tools like ABLLS-R, VB-MAPP, observations, and caregiver interviews to set precise, functional goals.
2. Use flexible teaching: Blend DTT, NET, PRT, task analysis, and shaping to match learning style and motivation.
3. Build social competence: Teach joint attention, turn-taking, perspective taking, and group participation with role-play and video modeling.
4. Coach caregivers: Align home routines with treatment goals so skills generalize and stick.
5. Leverage interests: Embed special interests into teaching to spark engagement and momentum.
6. Plan for generalization: Practice across people, places, and materials, then maintain with booster trials.

Respect sensory needs. Offer choices. Aim for meaningful outcomes, not just compliance.

How to Display Autism Spectrum Skills on Your Resume

4. Positive Reinforcement

Reinforcement increases the future likelihood of a behavior. Deliver something valued—or remove something aversive—contingent on the behavior, and watch it grow.

Why It's Important

It fuels learning. Faster acquisition, clearer contingencies, stronger buy-in. Done well, it builds momentum without power struggles.

How to Improve Positive Reinforcement Skills

1. Be specific: Name the exact behavior when you praise. Precision beats generic “good job.”
2. Be immediate: Close the gap between behavior and reinforcement. Seconds matter.
3. Vary reinforcers: Mix social, activity, tangible, and sensory options. Conduct regular preference assessments.
4. Individualize: One person’s jackpot is another’s shrug. Calibrate by observation and data.
5. Shape and fade: Start dense, thin strategically, and shift to natural reinforcers as skills stabilize.
6. Guard against satiation: Rotate options and watch effectiveness, not assumptions.

Reinforcement should feel respectful, not coercive. Choice builds motivation.

How to Display Positive Reinforcement Skills on Your Resume

5. Functional Communication

Functional communication gives people efficient, socially valid ways to get their needs met—spoken words, signs, AAC, gestures, pictures. Replace challenging behavior with communication that works.

Why It's Important

It reduces frustration, unlocks learning, and opens doors to relationships. Communication is the hinge skill that shifts everything.

How to Improve Functional Communication Skills

1. Assess baseline: Map current communication forms, functions, and barriers. Use tools like VB-MAPP and direct probes.
2. Set functional goals: Prioritize mands/requests, protest, attention, help-seeking—what matters most day to day.
3. Teach across formats: DTT for structure, NET for spontaneity. Prompt smartly and fade fast.
4. Use visuals and AAC: PECS, core boards, speech-generating devices—match the learner’s profile and context.
5. Reinforce communication first: Make the new response pay off better than the old behavior.
6. Generalize widely: Different partners, places, materials. Keep it useful everywhere.
7. Track progress: Measure independence, latency, and rate. Adjust when growth stalls.

Dignity first: honor the person’s preferred mode. Speech is great; autonomy is greater.

How to Display Functional Communication Skills on Your Resume

6. Crisis Intervention

Crisis intervention means acting quickly and safely when behavior escalates and risk rises. Stabilize, reduce harm, and return to baseline—while learning from the event.

Why It's Important

Safety is non-negotiable. Solid crisis skills protect the individual, caregivers, and staff, and keep long-term goals from derailing.

How to Improve Crisis Intervention Skills

1. De-escalation first: Calm voice, simple language, supportive stance, space and time. Avoid power contests.
2. Know the plan: Create individualized safety plans with clear triggers, precursors, and stepwise responses.
3. Train routinely: Refresh skills in Nonviolent Crisis Intervention or equivalent programs; practice, don’t just read.
4. Be proactive: Identify setting events and teach coping, tolerance, and regulation skills before they’re needed.
5. Document and debrief: After action, analyze ABCs, adjust supports, and check on everyone’s wellbeing.
6. Collaborate: Coordinate with families, schools, and clinicians so responses are consistent and predictable.
7. Mind yourself: Use self-regulation and self-care. Dysregulated staff can’t calm dysregulated behavior.

Prevention beats reaction. Relationships help most.

How to Display Crisis Intervention Skills on Your Resume

7. Parent Training

Parent training teaches caregivers to apply ABA strategies at home and in the community. It turns one-hour sessions into all-day learning.

Why It's Important

Skills stick when families can prompt, reinforce, and generalize them. Consistency across settings drives durable change.

How to Improve Parent Training Skills

1. Individualize: Respect culture, routines, and priorities. Start where the family is, not where a manual begins.
2. Keep it practical: Short, clear steps. Real materials. Real settings. Role-play beats lecture.
3. Use plain language: Ditch jargon. Show, model, rehearse, feedback.
4. Build habits: Tie strategies to existing routines—meals, bedtime, transitions.
5. Support and follow up: Provide check-ins, quick data sheets, and wins to celebrate. Confidence fuels carryover.
6. Measure what matters: Track fidelity and outcomes. If it’s not working at home, it’s not working.

Parents are partners. Treat them like experts on their child—because they are.

How to Display Parent Training Skills on Your Resume

8. Program Development

Program development is designing, implementing, and refining individualized behavior plans grounded in ABA. It blends assessment, clear targets, teaching strategies, and ongoing analysis.

Why It's Important

No two learners need the same map. Thoughtful programs align goals with values, skills with motivation, and teaching with real-life use.

How to Improve Program Development Skills

1. Study the science: Keep up with behavior-analytic literature and CEUs; fold evidence into day-to-day work.
2. Write precise goals: Observable, measurable, functional, and attainable. Tie to meaningful outcomes.
3. Plan for generalization: From day one, include multiple exemplars, settings, and partners.
4. Drive with data: Build clean data systems, graph routinely, change course based on visual analysis.
5. Collaborate: Coordinate with SLPs, OTs, teachers, and families to unify strategies.
6. Leverage tech: Use ABA software for data, scheduling, and reporting when it improves clarity and speed.

Programs are living documents. Iterate, don’t ossify.

How to Display Program Development Skills on Your Resume

9. Ethical Standards

Ethical standards in ABA set expectations for competent, humane, and responsible practice: informed consent, confidentiality, assent, scope of competence, least restrictive alternatives, and evidence-based decision-making. The BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts guides these duties.

Why It's Important

Ethics protect clients and the profession. Trust is earned when services are transparent, respectful, and data-grounded.

How to Improve Ethical Standards Skills

1. Know the code: Study the current BACB Ethics Code and apply it to real scenarios.
2. Seek consultation: Discuss dilemmas with supervisors and peers; document your decision process.
3. Center the client: Prioritize dignity, rights, and preferences. Secure assent wherever possible.
4. Stay competent: Pursue training before practicing new methods or populations.
5. Safeguard data: Use secure systems, follow privacy laws, and limit access to need-to-know.
6. Speak up: Address concerns promptly and through proper channels when ethics are at risk.

Do the right thing, even when it’s the hard thing.

How to Display Ethical Standards Skills on Your Resume

10. Catalyst (Data Collection Software)

Catalyst is an ABA data platform that lets therapists record, graph, and analyze behavior and skill data in real time, manage programs, and generate reports—all with an eye on compliance and efficiency.

Why It's Important

Fast, accurate data drives better decisions. Catalyst streamlines collection and analysis so you can spend more time teaching and less time wrestling with paperwork.

How to Improve Catalyst (Data Collection Software) Skills

1. Learn the workflows: Programs, targets, prompt levels, mastery criteria, graphs, reports—know where each lives and how they connect.
2. Customize smartly: Build clear templates, labels, and data sheets so staff record the same way every time.
3. Use offline and sync wisely: Plan for low-connectivity settings and verify syncs to prevent data loss.
4. Audit regularly: Spot-check data integrity, IOA, and timestamps. Fix drift quickly.
5. Master visuals: Read and adjust graphs (smoothing, phases, aim lines) to inform weekly decisions.
6. Protect privacy: Enforce role-based access, strong passwords, and HIPAA-aligned practices.

The tool is only as good as the inputs. Clarity in equals clarity out.

How to Display Catalyst (Data Collection Software) Skills on Your Resume

11. VB-MAPP Assessment

The VB-MAPP (Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program) evaluates language, learning, and social milestones, as well as barriers to progress. It helps shape targeted, developmentally aligned interventions.

Why It's Important

It maps what a learner can do, what’s in reach, and what’s getting in the way. That clarity makes instruction sharper and more efficient.

How to Improve VB-MAPP Assessment Skills

1. Know the tool: Understand each milestone and barrier, scoring rules, and how levels align with instruction.
2. Practice administration: Run assessments across settings to see true performance, not just clinic behavior.
3. Use multiple sources: Combine direct probes, observation, and caregiver input to avoid blind spots.
4. Tie results to programs: Translate milestones and barriers directly into goals, teaching procedures, and supports.
5. Reassess intentionally: Schedule rechecks to track growth and update placement, not just to fill a requirement.
6. Seek feedback: Review protocols with experienced colleagues to refine scoring and interpretation.

Assessment is a compass, not a trophy. Let it guide the journey.

How to Display VB-MAPP Assessment Skills on Your Resume

12. PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System)

PECS is an AAC approach that teaches people to exchange pictures to communicate. It starts with simple requests and can grow into sentence construction and broader functions.

Why It's Important

It gives immediate, functional access to communication for learners with limited speech, reducing frustration and building agency.

How to Improve PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) Skills

1. Establish motivation: Choose pictures for items and activities the learner truly wants.
2. Teach the exchange: Model, prompt, and reinforce the full exchange sequence, then fade help quickly.
3. Expand functions: Move beyond requesting—teach commenting, choice-making, and “I want” sentence strips.
4. Customize visuals: Make icons clear, durable, and accessible. Organize binders or boards for speed.
5. Generalize: Practice with multiple partners and settings so PECS becomes a go-to skill everywhere.
6. Track accuracy and independence: Monitor prompt levels, distance, spontaneity, and rate.

The goal isn’t pictures for their own sake. It’s communication that works in real life.

How to Display PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) Skills on Your Resume