You’ve made the call. You’ve scheduled the appointment. And now you’re sitting with a question you might not want to ask out loud:
What exactly is about to happen?
An ABA assessment is the first real step into a program — and it can feel like a lot. A stranger comes to observe your child. There are forms, questions, maybe some structured activities. It’s easy to feel like you’re being evaluated as much as your child is.
You’re not. But understanding what the process actually involves — and why — makes a significant difference in how much you get out of it.
Here is information: What happens, in what order, what your BCBA is looking for, and what you can do to make the assessment as useful as possible for your family.
What an ABA Assessment Actually Is
An ABA assessment is not a test your child passes or fails. It is not a diagnosis. It is not a judgment of where your child should be.
It is a snapshot.
Your BCBA is building a picture of your child as they are right now — what skills they have, how they communicate, what motivates them, how they respond to instruction, what behaviors are getting in the way of learning, and what daily life looks like for your family. All of that information becomes the foundation of their program.
A good ABA assessment takes time. The intake, assessment, observation, analysis of information, and writeup. It takes observation, conversation, and structured activities. And it should leave you feeling like the people about to work with your child actually know your child — not just their diagnosis.
Before the Assessment: What to Prepare
You don’t need to prepare your child in any specific way. You don’t need to have them practice anything, be on their best behavior, or perform. Your BCBA needs to see your child as they actually are — including on an ordinary day.
What is helpful to bring or have ready:
Previous evaluations and reports. Psychological evaluations, speech assessments, OT reports, school records, IEPs — all of it is useful. You don’t need to organize it. Just bring what you have.
A list of your current concerns. Write them down before you go. Parents often find that in the moment, with a clinician in the room, the things they’ve been worried about for months suddenly feel hard to articulate. A written list means nothing gets forgotten.
Your child’s reinforcers. What does your child love? What do they ask for, reach for, work for? Favorite snacks, toys, activities, videos, songs — bring a few with you. Your BCBA will likely want to do a preference assessment to confirm what’s actually motivating, but knowing what you already know is a head start.
An honest picture of daily life. Not the best day and not the worst — the regular Tuesday. What mornings look like. What mealtimes look like. What happens at bedtime. The harder moments count as much as the good ones.
What Happens During the Assessment
We use a team of Behavior Specialists, RBTs, Occupational, and Speech Therapy along with the BCBA. This structure is a little different and definitely integrative.
Parent & Family Interview
This usually comes first, either in person or by phone before the observation. Your BCBA wants to hear from you directly — what your concerns are, what your child’s history looks like, what you’ve already tried, what’s worked and what hasn’t.
This is not a formality. It is one of the most important parts of the assessment. You know your child in ways no assessment tool can capture. The parent interview is how that knowledge gets into the clinical picture.
Be honest. Including about the hard parts. The behaviors that happen at home but not in public. The things you’ve tried that you’re embarrassed didn’t work. The ways your child is different from what the reports say. All of it is useful.
Skills Assessment
Because it’s integrative, we try to make sure the most qualified professional is present to give an analysis of skill set. This mans that the Behavior Analysis team is collaborating with the Speech and OT team from the very beginning, at the assessment level. Depending on your child’s age and profile, this may include:
- Communication and language — how your child requests things, responds to their name, follows directions, uses words or alternative communication, engages in conversation
- Social skills — eye contact, joint attention, play, peer interaction, understanding emotions
- Academics and cognitive skills — matching, sorting, letter and number recognition, reading, math
- Daily living and self-care — dressing, feeding, toileting, hygiene routines
- Motor skills — fine motor, gross motor, imitation
Common assessment tools include the VB-MAPP (Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program), the ABLLS-R (Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills), and the AFLS (Assessment of Functional Living Skills). You don’t need to know the details of these tools — but if your BCBA mentions them, this is what they’re doing. We are not prioritizing these tools, these are mentioned. It is important to note, we will use the tools that work best to give a picture.
The assessment isn’t looking for what your child can’t do. It is mapping what they can do so the program starts in the right place and builds from there.
Assessment of Social Behavior, Regulation, Motivations for Challenging Behavior and Function
If there are behaviors of concern — aggression, self-injury, elopement, meltdowns, refusal, repetitive behaviors that interfere with learning — your BCBA will do a functional behavior assessment, or FBA.
The FBA is designed to answer one specific question: why is this behavior happening?
Behavior in ABA is understood as communication. A child who hits isn’t a bad child — they’re a child who has learned that hitting gets them something they need. It might be escape from a demand. It might be attention. It might be access to something they want. It might be sensory.
The function of the behavior determines the response to it. A behavior that happens because a child is trying to escape a difficult task needs a completely different intervention than the same behavior happening because a child is trying to get attention. The FBA is how we figure out which is which.
Your BCBA will gather information through your descriptions, direct observation, and sometimes structured data collection. You will be asked to describe when the behavior happens, what was going on right before it, and what typically happens after. You know this information. The assessment is the formal process of capturing it.
Preference and Reinforcer Assessment
Your BCBA will assess what is actually motivating to your child. This might look like play — presenting different items and seeing what your child reaches for, engages with, or asks for. It might involve structured choice trials.
This matters more than it sounds. Reinforcement is the engine of ABA. If we’re using a reinforcer that isn’t actually motivating for your child in that moment, the program loses power. Knowing what works — and what works right now, today, in this context — is foundational.
What Your BCBA Team Is Writing Down
You will probably notice your BCBA taking a lot of notes. Here’s what they’re tracking:
- Current skill levels by domain — where your child is right now across communication, social, academic, and daily living areas
- Skill gaps — where the next step forward is in each area
- Behavior functions — what’s driving the behaviors you’re concerned about
- Reinforcer hierarchy — what motivates your child, ranked by effectiveness
- Environmental factors — what’s happening in your child’s daily environment that affects their behavior and learning
All of this becomes the basis of the program plan — the document that specifies what your child will be working on, at what frequency, with what strategies, and how progress will be measured.
After the Assessment: What Comes Next
Your BCBA and team will take time to score the assessment tools, analyze the behavioral data, and write the program plan. This usually takes one to two weeks.
When the plan is complete, you’ll have a meeting to review it together. This is not a presentation you sit through passively. It is a working meeting. You should:
- Ask why a particular skill was prioritized over others
- Push back if something doesn’t reflect your family’s actual priorities
- Ask what success looks like — what will be different in six months if this is working?
- Ask about your role — what will you be doing at home to support the goals?
The program plan belongs to your child and your family as much as it belongs to the clinical team. If something doesn’t feel right, say so. A good BCBA wants that feedback. A good program is built with families, not delivered to them.
A Few Things Worth Knowing
Your child may not perform the way they do at home. New environment, new person, possible anxiety — your child on assessment day may look different from your child on any other day. Tell your BCBA what feels different. That context matters.
The assessment is not the ceiling. Assessment tools measure where a child is right now. They do not measure potential. A low score on an assessment is a starting point, not a limit.
You are an equal participant. The assessment collects two sources of critical information: clinical observation and family knowledge. Neither is more important than the other. If your BCBA doesn’t ask many questions about your daily life and your experience of your child, ask them to. That information should be in the picture.
It’s okay to ask questions throughout. You don’t have to wait until the end. If something your BCBA is doing doesn’t make sense to you, ask. If you’re not sure why they’re testing a particular skill, ask. This is your child and your family’s program. Understanding what’s happening is part of the process.
At ExcelLearning
Our ABA assessments are completed before any program begins — no child starts services without a completed assessment and a program plan that has been reviewed with the family.
For families currently on a waitlist or awaiting program start, ABA Jumpstart completes the assessment process in the first two weeks — so that when your full program begins, your BCBA is building on real data, not starting from scratch.
Parent collaboration meetings happen twice a month throughout the program. The assessment is the beginning of that conversation, not the end.
If you’re ready to start or want to learn more about what getting started looks like for your family:
Enroll in ExcelLearning Clinical Services →
Questions? Email admissions@excelprepschools.org
ExcelLearning offers BCBA-supervised ABA therapy for children ages 2–14 across our national network, with locations in Champaign and Bloomington, Illinois. ABA assessment is included at the start of every program. Visit excellearning.clinic to learn more.