SAN ANTONIO — UTSA is offering a new master's program – hoping to address a critical community need. The new degree is in Applied Behavior Analysis.
"It prepares students to work with children and individuals with autism intellectual and developmental disabilities," Dr. Leslie Neely, an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at UTSA's Downtown Campus, said.
Dr. Neely is the Applied Behavior Analysis Program Coordinator at UTSA. She said the need is extremely high for more professionals in this field, which means salaries are really competitive.
"They learn how to come clinicians and educators and really apply the science of behavioral analysis to the clinical and educational practice," Dr. Neely said.
According to the U.S. Employment Demand for Behavior Analysts, the demand for Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) is rising with an estimated increase of 4,209% over the past 11 years and 17% increase from 2019-2020. To read more about that report, click here.
Currently, Dr. Neely said, there are not enough people in this field to meet the needs of the community. And this shortage is critical since it helps support people with disabilities.
"There is a statistic that for every five open jobs, there is one qualified candidate," she said. "And a lot of that is tied to this increasing prevalence in autism."
UTSA's program is flexible and takes a couple of years to complete. Locally, the average starting salary for a certified therapist with a degree in Applied Behavior Analysis is up to $70,000 a year. Another plus is no GRE is required to enter the program. There are also paid internships available and lots of other unique options not always offered.
"We designed the program with the needs of the 'modern' student in mind – three different options, flexibility in how to complete the program, integration of the hy-flex teaching model (depending on what options students choose, they can choose to join online some weeks or face-to-face other weeks)," Hannah MacNaul, UTSA Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology, told KENS 5.
To learn more about UTSA's ABA program, click here.