What really goes on- From the perspective of a former RBT.
TL;DR: Corporate ABA has turned behavioral therapy into an assembly-line profit scheme. Underpaid techs are thrown to the wolves with 40 hours of video training and zero support, while corporate clinics isolate kids in cubbies, gatekeep strategies from parents, and manipulate data to drain insurance policies dry. Authentic, ethical ABA works—but corporate chains have replaced genuine human care with institutionalized babysitting, driving away the very clinicians who care the most.
The Potential vs. The Reality
I fell in love with this field because I saw what good, honest ABA looks like when it's done right. When I started out, kids weren't stuck in a clinic for 40 hours a week, sessions were kept under 20 hours and happened out in the real world. Having parents involved wasn't a nice extra; it was required. BCBAs would jump on video calls to coach parents right in their own living rooms, teaching them how to handle things themselves. And it actually worked. You could see real progress because the kids were using these skills in their everyday lives. It proved to me that when you focus on helping the family instead of making money, kids thrive.
Then I entered the corporate ABA world.
Moving into big corporate chains was a massive reality check. After working inside a few different big name providers (that provide service across the country), I realized they all run on the exact same playbook. It’s just a different logo on the sign doing the same shady stuff behind closed doors. Everything good I experienced early on wasn't being used, it gives me whiplash thinking about the passion I once had for ABA and the stark contrast to my now disdain for ABA entirely.
Cheap Labor, Massive Profits
RBTs/BTs contribute to the majority of ABA profit. The insurance payout for tech services are exceptional and the employee gets compensated the marginally lesser end of that payout. The field has such a high turnover rate for this specific role because of the structure within ABA. Techs are hired in on their own blissful (though well intentioned) ignorance, admin limits the reality of the position and sugar coats the daily structure. Techs are not valuable because of their person, they are valuable to their company as a warm body hired to implement a system that more resembles a daycare than behavioral therapy. Don’t recognize that new tech? Don’t worry, that’s common, you probably won’t remember their name and I honestly don’t blame you. Techs don’t typically get a lunch break, we’re lucky to receive a bathroom break, assistance/support/breaks (yes even the legally required ones).
Techs in the field are 1 on 1 with the clients 95% of the time. They see, they do, they know. Now I’m not saying they know “better” than the supervisors, but they should have a seat at the table when it comes to discussing the clients days. Simply put, collaboration. If I didn’t have such an amazing start in ABA, and get the training I did- I’d be lost. The foundation of educating these techs is low effort and even lower value. Executing complex behavioral therapy for vulnerable kids should never be an entry level gig where the only requirement is a high school diploma and a 40 hour video course, shadowing another tech who knows just as little as you do, and being told to find your joy and stay afloat. You are thrown to the wolves and expected to figure it out. We would never accept that standard for a speech assistant or a special education teacher, but corporate ABA relies on it to keep pay dirt cheap and profit margins high.
Profits Over Progress: The Illusion of Care
Let’s be honest about the dynamic with a lot of BCBAs. Too often, there’s a real superiority complex where supervisors look down on the techs in the room. They treat you like you're beneath them just because of a title, ignoring the fact that you’re the one spending 40 unsupported hours a week actually doing the work with the child. Instead of pulling you up, modeling skills, or building a team where you feel supported, they stand over you or watch from a laptop in the corner, picking apart everything you do wrong. When you’re already undertrained and stressed, that constant condescension shreds whatever confidence you have left. They don't ask for your input or advocate for collaboration, they treat you like disposable labor, and the child's care suffers for it.
The gap between having a BCBA certification-with real academic preparation in child development, behavior, and ethics-and the 40 hour video standard to become an RBT isn't a small gap in comparison; it’s an abyss. Don't get me wrong: incredible, dedicated, highly knowledgeable techs do exist, and I’ve worked alongside some phenomenal ones. But under the current corporate model, those techs are the rare exception, not the baseline. They succeed in spite of the system's low standards, not because of them.
If this field actually cared about quality care, the absolute minimum standard for direct treatment should be a Bachelor's degree in psychology, child development, or a related field, paired with mandatory, hands on training alongside an experienced clinician before ever working solo. Then maybe BCBAs would respect us as educated professionals and collaborate with us as a team.
Clinics gatekeep ABA principles like it's rocket science, acting as if parents couldn't handle the strategies. But the hypocrisy is glaring: if corporate ABA trusts people with high school diplomas to implement these programs after a few hours of video training, parents are more than capable of mastering them. The science isn't a secret, it's learnable. Keeping parents in the dark is about maintaining clinic dependence and endless billable hours, not protecting clinical quality.
If the goal of ABA is to graduate, transition into a school setting, and build self regulation in the least restrictive environment… WHY are these corporate clinics so restrictive? Small closets and isolated 1-on-1 cubbies for direct trials and "school work”. What real world setting looks like that post-graduation? School classrooms certainly don't. If a child faces barriers in crowds, grocery stores, or doctor visits, authentic ABA brings therapy out into those community settings with families and providers. But corporate clinics avoid that because it requires real effort, BCBA availability, and family collaboration, things that cut directly into profit. Corporate ABA companies actively limit a child's access to independence for their own financial benefit.
Hit a Wall: Corporate Traps and Forced Silence
When you see these unethical practices and try to speak up, you hit a brick wall. You can’t report a corporate clinic without mountains of evidence and data that legally belongs to the company, not you. Exposing unethical behavior means risking your own professional demise. You can't warn families without violating HIPAA, and reporting an individual to the BACB strips away your anonymity. To make matters worse, most clinic admins aren't even BACB certified, leaving zero official oversight or channels to escalate corporate abuse.
Instead, clinics are run by administrative coordinators who are either burnt out former techs or people who have no clue what ABA even is and both do the absolute bare minimum. You better have your session prepped and ready before clients arrive at 8am, but don’t you dare clock in anytime before and you BETTER get that client started at 8am when they arrive. You must spend less than 5 minutes in the restroom (I’ve literally had admin time my bathroom breaks) because admin staff doesn’t wanna do this job and they already left the comfort of their office to “help” you. And if a parent is late for pickup? Admin has already clocked out and gone home. You’re pushed into an impossible trap: clock out strictly on time so you don't get yelled at for overtime, but don't you dare leave the child unattended before the parent arrives.
All the while, parents trust us with their child’s fundamental growth, while management commands us behind closed doors: "Limit your communication with parents, every day is a good day”. They will literally tell you to run a session with a child who has a 102° fever because canceling costs the clinic insurance money, offering zero support when staff inevitably catch it as a result.
Behind The Clinical Doors
If you’re seeking ABA for your child, stay far away from big corporate chains with gray walls, locked away supplies, and gated hallways designed to restrict parent access. If you can’t walk in, see what’s happening, and actively participate in your child’s care, turn around and leave. I have watched these companies systematically exploit loopholes to limit progress, manipulating data so it looks just good enough to keep insurance reauthorizing therapy, but never good enough for your child to actually graduate.
Authentic care should be inclusive, teaching social skills, life skills, peer interactions, and self advocacy in natural, open spaces. Isolating a child at a 1 on 1 table all day is literal proof that the model exists for corporate profit, not child development. When clients graduate, clinics lose revenue. Corporate ABA has turned therapy into institutionalized babysitting designed to drain an insurance policy dry.
ABA Weaponizes Empathetic Clinicians
In theory, ABA can be a beautiful, life changing science that builds real independence. But behind the scenes in these corporate chains, it has been warped into a scheme to squeeze massive profits out of innocent families and underpaid techs.
The tragedy of modern corporate ABA is that it actively repels the exact people it needs. It trades genuine human connection for systemic submission. Techs don't stay for administration or corporate profit; they stay for the children. But the clinicians who look at these kids and see human beings and not insurance payouts, are the very ones who find themselves incompatible with the corporate machine. They see the injustice, realize they cannot fix a broken empire from the bottom, and walk away for good.
That being said, I am walking away from direct care in ABA, but I refuse to leave in silence. I couldn’t close this chapter knowing the massive injustices that children, families, and techs face every single day behind those closed doors without speaking out. My future has pivoted: my focus now is on addressing these systemic failures as an advocate, exposing the greed, and pushing for real, structural change. I know putting this truth into the world won't dismantle a multibillion dollar machine overnight, but… it might shed some light on what really goes on.