How to find a qualified ABA therapist in India

An ABA programme has two layers. The behaviour analyst, such as a BCBA, assesses your child's skills, writes goals with you, designs the plan, trains the people who deliver it, reviews the data and changes the plan when something is not working. The therapists, sometimes called behaviour therapists, line therapists or technicians, run the sessions day to day and record what happens. Some hold a technician-level credential; others have training without one.

In India the words 'ABA therapist' are used for all of these people, and sometimes for someone who has done a short course and works with nobody checking their work. So the real search question is not only 'who is near me?' but 'who is the analyst, and how do they supervise the person who will be with my child?'

Two other groups often turn up in the same search results. Speech-language pathologists and occupational therapists are separate professions with their own training; they may work alongside an ABA programme, but they are not ABA providers. Shadow teachers and special educators are educators, not therapists, though they can carry strategies from an ABA plan into school or home under the analyst's direction.

Most families use several routes at once. Your child's developmental paediatrician or child psychologist is often a good first source, because they have seen how different providers work with other families. Parents at your child's school or in local support groups will tell you what daily life with a provider is really like. The school's inclusion coordinator may know which providers already work well with schools. Online searches, maps and listings give you many names quickly, and the credentialing bodies' public registries let you look up named people.

Each route gives you something different, and none of them does the checking for you.

Aim for a shortlist of two or three providers, then ask each the same questions. Our checklist of questions to ask an ABA centre works just as well for home and online programmes.

Ask for the supervising analyst's full name, the credential they hold and the body that issued it, and ask the same about the therapist who will work with your child. Then check each one yourself on the issuing body's own registry, reached from its official website. A photo of a certificate shows that a certificate once existed; a registry shows whether the credential is current.

At the time of writing (October 2026), the registries families in India are most likely to use are the BACB's Certificant Registry, which shows certification status and any reportable disciplinary action and is updated daily; IBAO's Directory of Certifications, which can be searched and filtered by country, with India as an option; and QABA's registry, which can be searched by name, country and credential. Confirm the current details on each body's website.

One rule shapes the Indian picture. Since 1 January 2023 the BACB has accepted new certification applications only from residents of authorised countries, and at the time of writing those are the US, Canada and Australia. A resident of India therefore cannot apply for a new BCBA, BCaBA or RBT, although people already certified can currently keep their certification. This is one reason many therapists in India hold other credentials or training, and why the analyst's supervision matters so much. Our guide to ABA credentials explains each one.

Behaviour analysis is not a category on the Rehabilitation Council of India's register, and there is no RCI-approved course in it. The National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions Act 2021 names 'Behavioural Analyst' as an allied health profession, but no national register for behaviour analysts is in operation at the time of writing. Until one is, the registry of the body that issued the credential is your main check. Confirm the current position with the bodies concerned.

1. Ask for the supervising analyst's full name and credential, in writing.
2. Open the issuing body's official website yourself, rather than a link someone sends you.
3. Search its registry and check that the name, the credential level and the status all match what you were told.
4. On the BACB registry, note whether any reportable disciplinary action is listed.
5. Ask the same about the therapist who will work with your child, and who supervises them.
6. Keep a dated screenshot, and check again if the team changes.

Supervision is what turns a set of sessions into a programme. In a well-run programme the analyst assesses your child's skills (an ABA assessment is not a diagnosis), writes goals with you, trains the therapist on each part of the plan, watches sessions in person or on video, reviews the data regularly, changes what is not working and meets you to go through progress. The BACB permits remote supervision within its Ethics Code and local law, so an analyst may supervise partly by video. What matters is that supervision actually happens and that you can see it.

There is no single number of supervision visits every family should insist on, and the right amount depends on your child's goals. But the answer to 'how often will the analyst see my child and review the data?' should be specific, and it should be written down. Be wary when 'the analyst' turns out to be a name on a brochure you never meet.

• How often will the analyst see my child, and in what form?
• How often is the data reviewed, and will I see the graphs?
• Who do I call with a concern between visits?
• What happens when the therapist is on leave or leaves?
• How is the plan changed if my child is unhappy or not progressing?

A good first meeting is mostly about your child and your family, not about the provider. Expect questions about your child's strengths and interests, how they communicate, what is hardest in the day, sleep, food, school, the languages spoken at home and who else lives in the house: grandparents, a helper, the driver who does the school run. Expect to be asked for any reports from your child's paediatrician, psychologist, speech-language pathologist or occupational therapist.

Then listen to how the provider talks. Do they describe goals in terms of communication, independence, play and your child's wellbeing, or in terms of making your child 'look normal'? Can they explain how they notice when a child is unhappy and what they do about it? Can they talk honestly about the criticism of ABA from autistic adults, rather than dismissing it? A provider who promises outcomes, or quotes weekly hours before assessing your child, is selling rather than planning.

If your child meets the analyst or therapist, watch the interaction. Do they follow your child's lead, play, wait, and notice when your child wants a break? A child often shows you in a few minutes what a brochure cannot.

• Copies of reports from your child's clinicians
• A one-page note of your child's day, from waking to bedtime
• Your list of questions, the same one for every provider
• A short video of a hard moment, if you are comfortable sharing it

Distance matters, but less than families first think. A centre forty minutes away through Bengaluru or Mumbai traffic, after a full school day, can leave a child too tired to learn and a parent too tired to practise at home. A home programme removes the commute but needs some space, a quieter hour and an adult who can be part of the session. Support inside school needs the school's agreement first.

If there is no qualified analyst near you, a well-supervised programme a little further away, or online supervision with parent coaching, is usually a better choice than an unsupervised one next door. Language counts too: in a home that runs in Hindi, Marathi, Tamil or Bengali alongside English, a therapist who can work in the family's language will find it easier to coach the grandparents and the helper.

Finally, look at the whole week. School, tuition, other therapies, sleep, play and family time all compete for the same hours, and our guide on how many hours of ABA therapy explains why more is not automatically better.

Special Minds provides ABA therapy in India and is present in 55 cities. Every programme is designed and supervised by a BCBA and delivered by trained ABA therapists, at home, at school with the school's agreement, online with parent coaching or at a centre. Ask us for the supervising BCBA's name and check it on the BACB's public registry, exactly as you would with anyone else. Read more on ABA therapy in India or about ABA therapy at home.