Changes to the BACB Recertification Cycle

The Behavior Analysis Certification Board announced a significant change to BACB recertification for all BCBAs, BCBA-Ds and BCaBAs. Those who have recertification cycles that began on or after January 1, 2015, will now have 2 years to complete required CEUs instead of 3 years.

Number of CEUs

The number of CEUs required for a certification cycle also decreased with the tighter timeline. Previously, BCBAs and BCBA-D would have to complete 36 hours in 3 years while BCaBAs would have to complete 24 hours in 3 years.  For the new recertification cycles, BCBAs and BCBA-Ds will have to complete 32 hours within the 2-year cycle.  BCaBAs will need to complete 20 hours within that cycle. The changes reflect a 33% increase in continuing education hours for BCBAs and BCBA-Ds and a 25% increase for BCaBAs.

Ethics Content

The increase in overall hours also comes with an increase in the hours for ethics content.  All certificants will now need 4 ethics CEs each certification cycle instead of 3. BCBAs and BCBA-Ds who wish to supervise BCBA candidates and the ongoing practices of BCaBAs and RBTs, will need to maintain 3 hours of continuing education in supervision as well.

New CE Category

Along with these changes a new and exciting addition to CE categories has been added.  Type 7 CEs have been added to acknowledge the learning that occurs through participation in scholarly activities such as the publication of journal articles and editorial reviews.  The BACB requires that publications should pertain to ABA and be published in a peer-reviewed journal. This applies to both authoring articles or serving as a journal reviewer.  In order to receive CE credit, the article must be published within the certification cycle. Authorship of a publication counts as 8 hours of credit. One article review counts as 1 hour of credit.  In order to document credit, you should be listed as the author on the final publication. You must provide an editorial decision letter for action editor activity and a letter of attestation from the action editor for reviewer activity.

The changes to the BACB recertification requirements represent the organization’s commitment to the professional growth of certificants and the growth of the field as well. It will be exciting to see our profession develop even further in our mission to create positive change through behavior analysis.