Muir, Janelle - Autism Behaviour Therapist

From What can you do with a degree in psychology?

1 Job Title (Janelle Muir)

[edit] Job Title (Janelle Muir)

Autistic Behavioural Therapist

[edit] General Overview

Autism Behavioural Therapists work with people, often children, who have Autism. They perform intervention treatments to attempt to prevent negative behaviours to occur anymore. The therapists also help develop learning skills for their client in order to help them in school, or even a job setting, so that the clients’ can flourish throughout their lives.

[edit] Job duties and responsibilities

There are several different responsibilities that an Autism Behavioural Therapist has which include: analyzing children in order to develop unique strategies and treatment plans to meet the needs of each individual child, making sure the child and family’s needs are met and if they are not other services will be linked to them, help the child transition into a school environment, doing IBI therapy with the child to reduce behaviours and increase motor and language skills, and to work and communicate with the parents in order for progress to be maintained within the home^[1].

[edit] Typical workday

Autism Behavioural Therapists would do many different tasks throughout their day. They would book sessions with their clients and therefore be in therapeutic session with people who have Autism all day. This could be quite time consuming because each client receives 30-40 hours of therapy a week, but could be working with multiple therapists instead of just one. Also, the therapist must communicate to the parents about the progress, or lack of progress, of their child so that they may understand the slow process of reinforcing behaviours with someone who has a mental illness. This task is essential so that parents are disciplining properly which can only help the healing process, instead of providing a hostile and stressed environment which could negatively impact a child with Autism. At the end of each day, the therapist would have to complete paperwork on every client that was had that day in order to keep track of the progress of each client accurately.

[edit] Education requirements and other qualifications

One particular requirement is that every professional must be that they have been trained with intense behavioural intervention (IBI) in order to properly provide a positive and resourceful environment which promotes development and changes in behaviour^[2]. Also, a therapist must graduate from a program of Autism and behavioural sciences from a college before working with clients which would allow someone to become an Autism Behavioural Therapist, have applied behavioural analysis skills (ABA), and be able to deal with autism spectrum disorders (ASD)^[3].

[edit] Related skills, interests, and abilities

One would have to be extremely patient in order to pursue this career. People who have Autism can become quite violent when they have a tantrum because the environment overstimulates them and they do not know how to handle it. Thus, one must be patient in these extreme times of need and not become aggressive with the client. Also, sometimes progress can be quite slow in patients who have a mental illness. Therefore, one must work hard but not expect a miraculous transition to health within a few weeks of working with a client.

[edit] Relevance of Psychology undergraduate degree

This career is extremely relevant to the Psychology undergrad degree. An Autism Behavioural Therapist performs sessions of therapy in order to manipulate behaviours of a person who has Autism. The therapist must positively reinforce good behaviours so that they learn how to stop performing ticks and tantrums, but rather learn speaking and reading skills so that they could perform well in school. These tasks are directly relevant to psychology since it deals with monitoring and reinforcing behaviours with someone who has been diagnosed with a mental illness. One class that Brock offers is particularly related to this career which is known as Abnormal Psychology. This class speaks about the issues that children with Autism have and why they have been diagnosed with Autism.

[edit] Salary potential

It appears that the overall hourly wage of an Autism Behavioural Therapist ranges from approximately $15-26 and a yearly salary from approximately $29000-55000^[4].

[edit] Job outlook

There is a huge need for this job since more and more children are being diagnosed with Autism or related disorders from the Autism spectrum. There will be an approximate increase of 33% in the need for this job from 2010 to 2020^[5]. However, this does not mean the need for this job is extremely high in Ontario.Therefore one might need to desire to travel for a career if pursuing a career as an Autism Behavioural Therapist.