How COVID Changed ABA Therapy: Lessons That Lasted
Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, COVID-19 didn’t just disrupt ABA — it permanently reshaped how the field operates. Telehealth became a standard service option, remote supervision earned a formal place in fieldwork, and the behavioral health surge that followed generated sustained demand for ABA professionals that continues today.
In April 2020, we published a piece for ABA students navigating the chaos of stay-at-home orders. Clinics had closed, campus programs had gone remote overnight, and the BACB was working to figure out what to do about fieldwork hours. At the time, the duration of these disruptions was unclear.
Several years later, it’s striking how much of what felt like a temporary emergency turned out to be a permanent turning point for applied behavior analysis. Some changes faded when the pandemic did. Many didn’t.
Here’s what actually stuck — and what it means for the field today.
ABA and the Overnight Shift to Telehealth
When stay-at-home orders came down in March 2020, ABA providers faced a stark choice: close up entirely or figure out how to deliver services remotely. Most scrambled to do the latter.
At the time, telehealth in ABA was relatively rare. Insurance coverage was inconsistent, state laws were a patchwork, and many clinicians doubted whether meaningful behavioral intervention could happen over a video call. The pandemic forced everyone to find out.
What they discovered surprised a lot of people. Telehealth worked better than expected for many clients, particularly for parent coaching, caregiver training, and consultation-heavy cases. For clients who struggled with transitions or needed the familiarity of their home environment, remote sessions actually reduced some of the behavioral friction that in-clinic visits created.
HHS announced temporary enforcement discretion around HIPAA telehealth compliance, which allowed providers to use common video platforms that hadn’t previously been sanctioned for clinical use. Suddenly, tools that had never been part of ABA practice became clinical options.
That shift didn’t fully reverse when clinics reopened. By the time restrictions lifted, many providers had built telehealth capacity into their practices. Insurers had updated their reimbursement policies. And clients who had experienced remote services had opinions about them — sometimes strong preferences for keeping them.
Today, telehealth remains a common service option in many ABA practices. It’s not a replacement for in-person therapy, but it’s no longer an emergency workaround either. If you’re entering the field now, you can expect it to be part of your practice toolkit from day one. For a deeper look at how telebehavioral health works in ABA settings, check out our guide to telehealth applied behavior analysis.
What the BACB Did with Fieldwork Requirements
One of the sharpest anxieties for ABA students in spring 2020 was supervised fieldwork. The BACB requires 1,500 to 2,000 hours of supervised experience to sit for the BCBA exam, and those hours depend on in-person access to clients and supervisors. When clinics closed, and schools went remote, those hours evaporated.
The BACB responded faster than many expected. Within weeks of widespread lockdowns, the board announced temporary flexibility measures, including expanded remote supervision allowances and accommodations for RBTs whose renewal requirements were difficult to complete under the circumstances. Accredited programs followed their lead.
What that period demonstrated was that the fieldwork model itself had more flexibility than the traditional structure suggested. Remote supervision, when done thoughtfully, could support skill development in meaningful ways. The BACB didn’t abandon its standards — but it showed they weren’t as rigid as the pre-pandemic structure implied.
The experience coincided with subsequent refinements to supervision standards. The BACB has continued to update its requirements since 2020, and if you’re currently completing your supervised hours, you’re working within a framework that reflects some of the lessons from that period.
How Online ABA Education Evolved
ABA programs had been moving online long before COVID, but the pandemic compressed years of adoption into a single semester. Campus-based students who had specifically chosen in-person programs found themselves learning through video lectures and asynchronous coursework whether they wanted to or not.
The experience was genuinely hard for many students. The tools were unfamiliar, the isolation was real, and the combination of academic pressure with pandemic anxiety was a lot to manage. Programs did their best — extending drop periods, offering pass/fail options, and working to make their Learning Management Systems handle content that hadn’t been designed for them.
What came out the other side was a field with a much more sophisticated understanding of how online education does and doesn’t work for ABA training. Programs learned which coursework translated well to asynchronous formats and which required synchronous interaction to be effective. Students got firsthand experience with both the flexibility and the limitations of remote learning.
Today, the online ABA master’s programs landscape is more developed and more varied than it was in 2019. If you’re considering an online program, you’re choosing from options that have been genuinely stress-tested. That has meaningful implications for students weighing in-person versus remote options.
The Behavioral Health Surge That Followed
We wrote in 2020 that a surge in mental health referrals was likely once the pandemic’s immediate disruptions settled. That prediction turned out to be accurate — and the numbers were significant.
The isolation, grief, and anxiety that COVID-19 generated didn’t resolve when restrictions lifted. For many people, those experiences became lasting behavioral health challenges. Public health data and clinical reports indicated increases in referral rates for anxiety disorders, OCD, and phobia-related presentations in the years following the pandemic. Children and adolescents were particularly affected — years of disrupted schooling, social isolation, and caregiver stress created behavioral patterns that are still being addressed in clinical settings today.
For ABA practitioners, this meant more clients, more complex presentations, and more demand for skills in treating anxiety-related conditions. Behavior analysts who had developed strong competencies in caregiver coaching and telehealth delivery were especially well-positioned to meet that need.
The surge also put a spotlight on the shortage of trained behavioral health professionals. Demand outpaced supply in many markets, which contributed to continued strong job growth for ABA professionals in the years that followed.
How COVID Changed ABA Practice for Good
Some of what COVID forced on the field was temporary. The emergency flexibility measures wound down. Campus programs reopened. In-person therapy resumed as the primary service model for most clients.
But a lot of what changed hasn’t changed back. Here’s what’s genuinely different about ABA practice now compared to early 2020.
Telehealth is a standard service option. Most established ABA providers now offer some form of remote services alongside in-person care. The reimbursement infrastructure exists. The clinical protocols have been developed. Clients know it’s an option and sometimes prefer it.
Heightened infection control practices remain more common than they were pre-2020. The increased attention to sterilization, workspace hygiene, and safety protocols that arrived with COVID didn’t fully disappear. Clinical settings operate with more intentional practices than they did before 2020.
Caregiver involvement is more central to treatment planning. The period when parents and caregivers were the primary people implementing behavioral programs at home — because there was no alternative — demonstrated how effective that involvement can be. Many practitioners came out of the pandemic with a stronger emphasis on caregiver training and home-based generalization of skills.
Remote supervision has an established place in fieldwork. The BACB’s willingness to allow remote supervision during the pandemic opened a door that hasn’t fully closed. Supervisors and supervisees in different locations can now maintain meaningful supervisory relationships in ways that weren’t formally supported before 2020.
The field moved through something genuinely difficult — and came out with a broader, more flexible toolkit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is telehealth still widely available for ABA therapy after COVID?
Yes. Telehealth ABA services are now a common part of the service landscape for many providers. Insurance reimbursement has improved significantly since 2020, and most established ABA practices offer some form of remote service option alongside in-person care. Availability varies by state, provider, and client needs, but telehealth is no longer an emergency measure — it’s a recognized service option for appropriate cases.
How did COVID affect BCBA certification requirements?
During the pandemic, the BACB implemented temporary flexibility measures, including expanded allowances for remote supervision hours. Most emergency provisions wound down after restrictions were lifted. The experience coincided with ongoing updates to the BACB’s standards, and current requirements reflect a post-pandemic understanding of how supervised fieldwork can be delivered effectively.
Did COVID create lasting demand for ABA professionals?
The behavioral health needs generated by the pandemic — including increased rates of anxiety, OCD, and related conditions — contributed to sustained demand for behavioral health professionals, including ABA therapists. That demand has persisted in the years since, and employment projections for the field remain strong.
How has online ABA education changed since the pandemic?
Online ABA master’s programs were already growing before COVID, but the pandemic accelerated their development and forced rapid improvements in how online learning is delivered. Today’s online ABA programs are more sophisticated than pre-pandemic options, with clearer structures for supervised fieldwork, synchronous instruction, and student support services.
What did COVID reveal about ABA’s role in public health?
The pandemic highlighted behavior analysis as a valuable public health tool. Behavioral interventions were used to improve compliance with protective measures, shape public perception of risk, and reduce stigma around recommended behaviors. This reinforced a growing recognition that ABA skills extend well beyond clinical and educational settings into broader community health applications.
Key Takeaways
- COVID-19 permanently changed ABA practice. Telehealth, remote supervision options, and stronger caregiver involvement are now standard parts of the field — not temporary workarounds.
- The BACB demonstrated more flexibility than expected. Temporary measures during the pandemic revealed that supervised fieldwork could be delivered effectively with remote components, coinciding with ongoing refinements to how supervision is structured.
- Online ABA education came out stronger. Programs forced to adapt quickly built better infrastructure for remote learning. Today’s online options are more developed and more thoroughly tested than anything available before 2020.
- The behavioral health surge was real. Post-pandemic increases in anxiety, OCD, and related conditions generated sustained demand for behavioral health professionals that has continued in the years since.
- The field adapted. ABA’s evidence-based foundations made it well-suited to evaluate what worked during the disruption and carry forward the approaches that proved effective.
Ready to take the next step? If you’re exploring a career in ABA or weighing your program options, this is a good moment to take stock of where the field stands. The profession navigated something genuinely hard — and the toolkit that came out the other side is broader than it was going in.
