BACB Certification Trends: State of the States (1999 to 2014)

The authors counted every BACB certificant in the United States from 1999 to 2014.

They listed totals for each state and noted which states had autism insurance laws or big university training programs.

The paper is a simple head-count, not an experiment.

BCBA numbers doubled almost every two years.

Growth was fastest in states that passed autism insurance mandates and housed large ABA university tracks.

Rural states without these supports stayed flat.

Deochand et al. (2024) extends the same census to 2019 and adds a new map: supervisor shortages now cluster in the same once-flat rural states.

Yingling et al. (2023) zooms in closer, showing kids with ASD still outnumber RBTs in most counties.

Dubuque et al. (2021) warns that federal provider files list over 20 000 "behavior analysts" who lack BACB or state credentials, so the real workforce may be smaller than these rosy counts suggest.

Together the four papers draw one line: fast BCBA growth, but access gaps remain once you look past the headline numbers.

If you plan supervision, hiring, or expansion, check the updated 2019 maps in Deochand et al. (2024) first. Target rural counties and states without university programs; they need supervisors and RBTs the most. When you quote workforce data to funders, subtract the uncredentialed names flagged by Dubuque et al. (2021) to keep your numbers honest.