Responses to short answer questions provide the admission committee with information regarding your personal or professional goals and how they align with the MA in special education (Applied Behavior Analysis) program. The admission committee pays particular attention to the quality of writing and ideas expressed in these responses as well as evaluating the relevance of goals to the aims of the program.

Please respond to three of the four questions below. Responses should be limited to 150-200 words per question.

1. Describe one of more personal or professional goals that motivated you to apply for this degree. How will completion of the MA in special education (applied behavior analysis) program help you fulfill these goals?
2. Describe a quality that you believe is critical in working with an individual with special needs and include at least one situation where you have demonstrated this quality.
3. Describe an individual with special needs and how you supported him or her.
4. Briefly discuss why you are interested in pursuing a graduate degree at this time. What steps have you taken (or will you take) to ensure that you will be successful in this program?

• File must be formatted as Text (*.txt), Rich Text (*.rtf), Adobe PDF (*.pdf), or Microsoft Word (*.doc, *.docx).
• File size must be limited to 1MB.
• File name must be limited to 50 or fewer character

Answer preview

Having worked with special needs children as an occupational therapist, I realized a need to understand unique behaviors and development progresses to develop strategic therapeutic programs. Parents in my social circles express their concerns about the dragged learning progress and behavioral issues presented by their special needs children. Hence, my professional goal is to acquire high-quality education that enlightens me on the science behind development, behavior, and learning and promote progress among special needs children. The learned theories and techniques will enable me to identify problematic behaviors impeding the students’ learning and developing interventions that enhance behavioral change. Hence, completing the master’s program in applied behavior analysis will help me develop the required competencies and execute my professionalism when recommending personalized therapy plans. Generally, my ability to apply the concepts and methods of behavioral analysis will promote behavioral improvement that will see children develop confidence, self-esteem and evolve in their careers.

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