By: Alicia B, MHA, RBT
Q: My child has an ABA team, but also teachers, and sometimes other therapists and specialists. Does it really matter if everyone is on the same page, how much say do I have, and what actually has to happen for them to be able to talk to each other?
The short answer:
Does it matter? Yes — a skill your child learns in one place doesn’t reliably show up in another unless the people around them are reinforcing it the same way.
How much say do you have? More than you might think — by law, you’re a required, equal member of your child’s IEP team, not a guest being kept informed.
What actually has to happen? A signed consent form before providers can legally talk to each other, and usually an IEP conversation to make any strategy official and guaranteed.
Here’s the detail behind that. Every skill your child learns matters most when it doesn’t stay in one room. A tool practiced during a session should show up at the dinner table, on the playground, and in the classroom too. Research on children with autism has found that new skills often do transfer to new settings, but that transfer is inconsistent unless the important people around a child are reinforcing it in similar ways (Fuller & Kaiser, 2020). Consistency across settings isn’t a nice extra — it’s often what decides whether a skill actually becomes part of a child’s everyday life.
You Are a Full Member of the Team — Not Just Informed
Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), you are not a guest at your child’s IEP meetings — you are a required, equal member of the team, with the same standing as any teacher or school representative in the room (IDEA, 34 C.F.R. § 300.321). That includes:
– The right to invite anyone with knowledge of your child, including your BCBA or RBT
— to attend meetings and contribute.
– The right to request an IEP meeting at any time during the school year, not just at the annual review (the school must consider your request, even if it isn’t automatically granted).
– The right to ask for plain-language explanations if the school uses technical terms you don’t follow.
– The right to review your child’s records, and to formally raise a concern if a decision doesn’t sit right with you , ask the school for your Procedural Safeguards Notice, which lays out those options in full.
Before Anyone Can Talk to Each Other, You’ll Likely Sign a Consent Form
Here’s a step that catches a lot of families off guard: in most cases, your child’s teacher and an outside, private ABA provider cannot legally share information about your child with each other until you’ve signed a written consent form. Federal privacy law protects your child’s school records, and a school generally cannot disclose personally identifiable information to an outside party — including a private BCBA or RBT — without your signed, dated consent specifying what will be shared, why, and with whom (FERPA, 34 C.F.R. § 99.30). (If your child’s BCBA or RBT is employed or contracted directly by the school itself, this step may already be covered — ask the school where things stand.) This isn’t the school being difficult; it’s a privacy protection that exists for your child. But it does mean the paperwork usually has to start with you. Ask your child’s school for their consent or “release of information” form early, before you’re expecting collaboration to be underway — that way it isn’t the thing quietly holding everything up.
Bringing Session Strategies Into the School Day
Yes — a visual schedule, a token system, a prompting approach, or a reinforcement strategy that’s working in therapy can absolutely be used at school too. Sometimes a teacher will try something informally as a good-faith favor, and that’s a great starting point. But if you want a strategy guaranteed — meaning it stays in place even with a substitute teacher, a new aide, or a schedule change — it generally needs to be formally written in, often as part of a Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP) tied to the IEP rather than a verbal agreement, and that typically goes through the IEP team (IDEA, 34 C.F.R. § 300.324). The good news is that this doesn’t always mean waiting months for the next annual meeting: you and the school can agree, in writing, to amend the IEP for smaller changes without convening the full team. Larger changes — new goals, a shift in services — usually do call for a meeting. Either way, if a strategy matters enough that you want it followed reliably, ask for it in writing, not just agreed to out loud.
Why Having Your BCBA at the IEP Meeting Matters So Much
Once consent is in place, a BCBA attending the IEP meeting can translate what’s happening in therapy into language the school team can use, and bring the school’s goals back into your child’s therapy plan, so the two don’t quietly drift apart. It also means the strategies written into the IEP are grounded in real, current data — not just written once and forgotten.
None of This Works Without Trust
None of this works, though, without trust — and this isn’t just a feel-good idea. A study of over 200 families of children with disabilities found that how families rated the quality of their partnership with providers was one of the strongest predictors of their family’s overall quality of life (Balcells-Balcells et al., 2019). Other research on what that partnership actually looks like day to day has found that families feel most supported when communication is honest and frequent, their opinions are genuinely factored into decisions, and they’re treated as equal partners rather than informed after the fact (Johnston & Burke, 2025). If a meeting or a provider ever feels one-sided, that’s worth naming out loud. Asking questions, asking for plain language instead of jargon, and asking how a decision was reached are all part of being an equal member of the team — not a disruption to it.
A well-connected team doesn’t remove the hard parts of raising a child with additional needs. But it does mean the progress your child makes in one place has a real chance of showing up everywhere else too — and that you have a genuine, standing voice in how that happens, every step of the way.
A note: the rights described here are federal — exact forms, timelines, and processes vary by state and district, so ask your school what theirs look like. This is general information, not legal advice; for anything specific to your child’s situation, your school’s special education office or a parent advocate can walk through the details.
Where to start:
- Ask the school for a consent (“release of information”) form so your BCBA or RBT and your child’s teacher can legally talk to each other.
- Remember you can request an IEP meeting any time — you don’t have to wait for the yearly one.
- If a session strategy is working, ask for it to be written into the IEP so it’s guaranteed, not just informally agreed to.
Works Cited:
Fuller, E. A., & Kaiser, A. P. (2020). Beyond intervention into daily life: A systematic review of generalisation following social communication interventions for young children with autism. Autism Research, 13(4), 506–522. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2264
U.S. Department of Education. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): IEP Team, 34 C.F.R. § 300.321; Development, Review, and Revision of IEP, 34 C.F.R. § 300.324. https://sites.ed.gov/idea/regs/b/d
U.S. Department of Education. Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA): Prior Consent for Disclosure, 34 C.F.R. § 99.30. https://studentprivacy.ed.gov
Johnston, A. N., & Burke, M. M. (2025). Exploring the family-professional partnerships of parents of children with disabilities from low-resourced backgrounds. Journal of Developmental and Physical Disabilities, 38(4), 733–755. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10882-025-10038-4
Balcells-Balcells, A., Giné, C., Guàrdia-Olmos, J., Summers, J. A., & Mas, J. M. (2019). Impact of supports and partnership on family quality of life. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 85, 50–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2018.10.006
About the Author
Alicia holds a Master’s degree in Healthcare Administration specialization Health Policy and concentration Public Health with a focus in Quality and Patient Safety, and brings a background in process improvement as a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO). She is Mental Health First Aid certified, a Registered Behavior Technician, and a current graduate student studying Applied Behavior Analysis. She is also an IEP advocate and the mom of a teenage son with autism. When her son was diagnosed in 2015, ABA therapy wasn’t covered under their insurance — once she found a way to get him services and saw the difference it made, she knew this was the field where she could support other families while continuing to help her own son thrive.