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ABA Professional Development That Actually Matters: Identifying Your Real Clinical Skill Gaps
- Brigid McCormick
- 3 days ago
- 8 min read
Let's talk about the professional development conversation that makes everyone uncomfortable: you're not actually good at everything, and pretending you are isn't helping anyone.
I know, I know. You're a certified behavior analyst. You passed your exam. You have a caseload. You're doing the work. But if we're being really honest - and that's what this whole series has been about - there are parts of your clinical skillset that are solid, parts that are adequate, and parts that you really hope nobody asks you to demonstrate in front of other professionals.
And here's the thing: that's completely normal. But what's not okay is building an entire career on top of unacknowledged skill gaps and hoping they never become a problem.
They will. Usually at the worst possible time.
Why Most ABA Professional Development Misses the Mark
Here's how professional development usually works: you need CEUs, so you take courses in whatever's convenient or sounds interesting. Maybe you lean toward topics you're already comfortable with because it's nice to feel competent. Maybe you take whatever your company offers because it's free. Maybe you grab CEUs at the last minute right before your recertification deadline.
And none of that actually makes you better at the parts of your job where you're struggling.
Real professional development isn't about accumulating hours. It's about systematically identifying where your practice needs strengthening and deliberately building those skills. But most of us never do the first part - the honest assessment of where we actually need help.
Why? Because admitting you're weak in an area feels like admitting you're not a good clinician. Especially if it's something you "should" already know. Especially if you've been practicing for years and it feels too late to admit you never really learned this properly.
But here's the reality: every single experienced clinician has gaps. The difference between good ones and mediocre ones isn't whether gaps exist - it's whether they acknowledge them and work to fill them.
The Real Clinical Skill Gaps Nobody Talks About
Let's get specific about the gaps that actually impact your practice, not the ones that sound impressive on a resume.Some common gaps that affect real clinical work:
Communication gaps: Great at designing interventions but terrible at explaining them to families in plain language. You can write a beautiful behavior plan that nobody implements because you can't translate behavioral jargon into something a stressed parent can actually use.
Data analysis gaps: Amazing with kids but struggle with data analysis. You have great rapport, you're creative with programming, but when it's time to look at trend lines and make data-based decisions, you're basically guessing and hoping you're right.
Adaptation gaps: Know the research backwards and forwards but can't adapt interventions to real-world constraints. Your procedures are theoretically perfect but practically impossible, and you don't know how to modify them without feeling like you're compromising quality.
Foundation gaps: Still shaky on the fundamentals. Your functional assessment skills aren't as solid as they should be. Your understanding of schedules of reinforcement is more surface-level than you'd like. You can implement protocols but you're not entirely sure you could design them from scratch.
Supervision gaps: Excellent clinicians but terrible supervisors. You can run your own cases beautifully, but when it's time to train or give feedback to RBTs, you either avoid it or do it so poorly that your staff dreads meetings with you.
None of this means you're a bad behavior analyst. It means you're a human one with a finite amount of training and experience. The question is: what are you going to do about it?
The Self-Audit Process for ABA Professional Development
Here's how to actually figure out where your skill gaps are, not where you think they should be or where someone else's gaps are.
Start with your current caseload. What aspects of your job make you anxious? Not the normal "I hope this works" kind of anxiety - the "I really hope nobody asks me to explain this" kind. What do you avoid doing if you can get away with it? What do you outsource or defer when you should probably be handling it yourself?
Look at your problem cases. Not the ones that are hard because the behavior is complex - the ones that are hard because you're not sure what you're doing wrong. Is there a pattern? Are they all cases that require a particular skill you're weak in? Do they all involve a specific type of family dynamic you don't know how to navigate? Do they all need a technical skill you never quite mastered?
Ask yourself what feedback you consistently get, especially the kind that stings a little. Do supervisors regularly have to remind you about the same things? Do families repeatedly misunderstand your explanations? Do your RBTs struggle to implement your plans in specific, consistent ways? That feedback is data, even when it's uncomfortable.
Think about the last time you were genuinely stumped. Not challenged - stumped. What skill would have helped you in that situation? That's probably a gap worth addressing.
And here's the hard one: what parts of ABA practice do you actively avoid because you know you're not good at them? Maybe you steer clear of cases with certain characteristics. Maybe you defer certain types of assessments to others when you could be doing them yourself. Maybe you've structured your practice to minimize exposure to your weak areas. That's strategic, but it also means those gaps will never close.
Prioritizing Which Skills to Actually Develop
You can't fix everything at once, so you need to prioritize. Here's how to figure out what matters most.
Skills actively limiting your effectiveness right now
If your weak data analysis skills mean you're making poor clinical decisions, that's urgent. If your inability to train staff means your interventions aren't being implemented correctly, that's urgent. These aren't nice-to-haves - they're must-haves for doing your job competently.
Skills that are prerequisites for where you want to go professionally
If you want to supervise others but you're terrible at giving feedback, work on that. If you want to do more consultative work but you can't communicate with professionals outside ABA, build that bridge. Your career development depends on closing these gaps.
Skills that would make your current work more efficient or effective
Maybe you're adequate at report writing but it takes you twice as long as it should. Maybe you can conduct functional analyses but your methodology is clunky. These won't make or break your practice, but they're worth developing when you have bandwidth.
Skills that sound impressive but aren't relevant to your actual practice
If you're never going to work with that population, you don't need that specialized training right now. If your setting doesn't allow for that type of intervention, learning it in depth isn't the best use of your limited professional development time.
Creating an Professional Development Plan That Actually Works
Once you know what skills need work, you need a realistic plan to develop them. And I mean realistic - not the "I'm going to completely overhaul my skillset in three months" plan that you'll abandon by week two.
Pick one skill gap to focus on for the next 60-90 days.
Not three, not five - one. You can address others later, but trying to improve everything simultaneously means you'll improve nothing substantially.
Break that skill down into components you can practice.
If your gap is "better at functional behavior assessment," that's too vague. The components might be: identifying potential functions from interview data, designing assessment conditions that differentiate between functions, analyzing functional assessment data to draw conclusions. Pick one component to work on first.
Find multiple ways to build the skill.
Read relevant research articles. Watch examples if they're available. Ask someone who's good at it to let you observe them. Practice with your easier cases before trying it with your hard ones. Get feedback from someone who actually knows whether you're doing it well.
Set specific, measurable goals.
Not "get better at parent training" but "by the end of two months, I can explain three behavioral concepts to parents using only plain language, and they can accurately explain it back to me." Make it concrete enough that you'll know whether you've actually improved.
Build in accountability.
Tell someone what you're working on. Schedule a check-in to demonstrate the skill. Put it on your calendar as dedicated practice time, not something you'll get to "when things calm down." Things will never calm down.
The Resources That Actually Help with Professional Development
Let's be honest about what professional development resources are actually useful versus what's just checking boxes.
Continuing education courses have their place, but they're not enough. You can't learn a complex clinical skill from a webinar you're half-watching while answering emails. If you're genuinely weak in an area, you need more intensive training - maybe a practicum, maybe ongoing consultation, maybe shadowing someone who's strong where you're weak.
Supervision and mentorship matter more than any course. Find someone who's good at the thing you're trying to improve and ask if you can bring them cases where you're struggling. Don't just ask them to tell you what to do - ask them to teach you how to think through it so you can do it yourself next time.
Research articles are underutilized. If you're weak in an area, there's probably empirical literature on it. Read the studies. Understand the mechanisms. See what variables actually matter versus what's just tradition or convenience.
Peer consultation groups are valuable if you use them right. Don't just present your success stories - bring your struggles. Ask specific questions about the skills you're trying to develop. Let people give you real feedback, not just reassurance.
And practice matters more than any of it. You can read about a skill all you want, but you don't actually develop it until you do it repeatedly, with feedback, with conscious attention to getting better each time.
When Your Skill Gaps Are About More Than Skills
Sometimes what looks like a skill gap is actually something else, and it's worth acknowledging that.
It might be a values mismatch. If you're "bad at" every aspect of working with a particular population, that might not be a skill issue - it might be that you shouldn't be working with that population, and that's okay.
It might be a systems problem. If you're struggling across the board despite having adequate technical skills, maybe your workplace doesn't provide the support or resources needed to practice competently. That's not a gap you can fix with more training.
It might be a workload or self-care issue. If you're overwhelmed and making mistakes in areas where you're usually competent, adding more professional development won't help until you address the underlying problem.
It might be an ethical issue. If you're genuinely in over your head - working outside your scope, taking cases you're not qualified for, practicing in areas where you lack foundation - that needs immediate attention, not a gradual skill-building plan.
Be honest about which category you're in. The solution is different for each one.
What's Your Actual Gap?
Okay, real talk time. What's the clinical skill you're weakest in that actually matters for your practice? Not the one you think you should work on, or the one that would look good on a CV. The one where, if you were honest, you'd say "yeah, I really should be better at this."
How long have you known this was a gap? And what's kept you from addressing it?
If you were going to focus on building that one skill over the next 90 days, what would that actually look like? What would you need to learn, who could help you, how would you practice, and how would you know if you'd improved?
Because here's the thing about professional development: everyone says it's important, but most people don't actually do it in a way that makes them measurably better at the parts of their job where they struggle.
The ABA professionals who keep growing aren't the ones who take the most CEU courses. They're the ones who honestly assess where they need to improve and systematically work to close those gaps.
Which one are you going to be?
Free Resource: Clinical Skill Self-Audit Tool
It includes self-assessment across key ABA competencies, strength identification exercises, a growth area prioritization matrix, and a professional development action planner with specific resources by skill area.
Want to keep having honest conversations about the real challenges of ABA practice?
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