Beating Competency Assessment Jitters

Stressing over your Competency Assessment? Don’t.

Congratulations you have finished your 40-hour RBT training! Now you are ready to take your Competency Assessment. As a newly Registered Behavior Technician (RBT), I understand the stress and anxiety that comes along with the Competency Assessment. The Competency Assessment can be very intimidating.

The thought of having to role-play the competencies with an experienced BCBA made me extremely nervous.

There were so many things running through my mind. I was freaking out about everything from “what if I fail a competency?” to “what if my internet randomly goes out or my computer stops working?”.

I am here to tell you it is not nearly as bad as you are expecting. Don’t worry if you fail a competency, you can redo it at a different time. And, you can work through internet and computer problems, your BCBA wants you to be successful and they will help you through a tricky competency or reschedule if you need to due to internet issues. 

Here are some tips that I found helpful when preparing for the Competency Assessment. 

1. Review and understand the Task List. If you’re looking over the Task List and see a task you aren’t comfortable with or don’t understand, ask for clarification from your BCBA. You can also look up examples of all the tasks online as well. Here is a link to the Competency Assessment Task List.
2. Study the definitions of each competency to fully understand them and make flashcards with each competency and an example of each.
3. Stop studying at least 1-hour before your assessment. Give yourself time to decompress a little bit. Studying up until the second before your assessment can overwhelm some people so give yourself time to process what you have been studying.
4. Relax! Believe in yourself and all the work you have put in to get to this point!