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Is becoming an ABA therapist a good stepping-stone job for someone who wants to eventually become a pediatric OT If so, how would that process work??

My long-term career goal is to become a pediatric OT. I have heard about ABA therapy from my psychology classes, and it interests me a lot, although I'm not sure how or when I would do that before becoming an OT?

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Kaitlyn’s Answer

Yes, becoming an ABA therapist can be a great stepping-stone for someone who wants to become a pediatric occupational therapist. Working in ABA provides experience with children who have autism, developmental delays, or behavioral challenges. You’ll also learn behavior management, communication, and motivation to structure activities to support participation in daily routines. This experience helps you understand child development and teamwork with other members of the team such as OTs and speech therapists. As you transition into OT school, your ABA background will give you a strong foundation for understanding how behavior and sensory processing connect to pediatric therapy.
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Michelle’s Answer

Hello, Reyna !

If you really want to be an Occupational Therapist, a path for Applied Behavior Analysis will not prepare you for an Occupational Therapy career. They are two very different careers and you would have to begin your education on the Occupational Therapy path.

Applied Behavioral Analysis is in the realm of Behavioral/Mental Health niche, working with behavioral and developmentally challenged patients. Occupational Therapy is physical health care. That's not to say that through an OT program you wouldn't learn psychology and about various illnesses (ABA work a lot with autistic patients). You would and can get some psychology courses in your undergraduate time at college as a life science major - Anatomy would be a good Major for your Bachelors Degree.

In order to become an Occupational Therapist in Wisconsin, you would go for a Bachelors Degree and take prerequisites such as human anatomy and physiology with lab, human development, abnormal psychology, statistics, and a natural science course with lab-based data analysis. Wisconsin encourages students to also have courses in research methods and cultural diversity in healthcare. A path for Applied Behavioral Analysis will not prepare you for your Masters or Doctorate to be an occupational therapist. You will need to go for your Masters or Doctorate Degree for OT, do an internship and become certified and licensed as an Occupational Therapist.

So my advice is that even though it's great that you hold an interest in applied behavioral analysis, and it's not what occupational therapists do, keep it as an interest and read more books on the subject for your personal knowledge. Start at the beginning for OT and focus your time on the path for your career.

I hope this helps and I wish you all the best moving forward !
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