ABA therapy for children in Georgia: online support instead of months of waiting

Georgia has become one of the major emigration hubs in recent years, and along with that, a place where many families are rebuilding a support system for a child with developmental differences almost from scratch. ABA therapy for children is officially available only to a limited extent in Georgia, and most families specifically looking for a certified applied behavior analysis specialist end up having to consider formats outside the local market.

What's actually available locally

Tbilisi has several international schools that offer certain support measures, including elements of behavioral plans — but this is limited to specific schools and isn't a system available to all families in the city, let alone beyond it. The country's public system of early intervention and specialized behavioral help is developed considerably less than in countries with a long tradition of funding this kind of care, and in practice most Russian- and English-speaking families who've recently moved to Georgia look for help either through private specialists in related fields (speech therapists, psychologists) or through remote formats.

Why there's practically no certified BCBA specialist locally

The official registry of certified behavior analysts shows that outside the US and Canada, certificates are spread across 67 countries, and even the countries with the most notable presence of such specialists (the UK, Italy, Ireland) count no more than a few hundred. Georgia isn't among the countries with a documented notable presence of BCBA specialists — that doesn't mean help doesn't exist at all, but it does mean finding a specialist with an actual international certification physically in the country will be objectively difficult.

What to do if you're moving to Georgia with a child who needs behavioral help

• Don't put off assessing your child's skills until a local specialist is found — remote VB-MAPP/ABLLS-R testing can start right after the move, regardless of what's happening with local paperwork.
• Use local resources for related support where a specialist's physical presence is genuinely necessary — for certain kinds of sensory work, for example — and build the systematic behavioral program remotely as the main line.
• Lean on diaspora and parent communities in Tbilisi and other major cities — they often know about the resources that actually exist on the ground, not just the formally announced ones, faster than official sources do.

A point worth being honest about

There isn't much detailed, documented information at the international level specifically about the support system for children with developmental differences in Georgia — far less than, say, about the German or Polish systems. If you have current experience working with local specialists or government programs in Georgia, share it with us so we can add more accurate information to this article for the next families.

At Sense Behavior, working with families in Georgia is built as a full remote program — a skills assessment, an individual plan, and ongoing specialist supervision, without needing to wait for a certified specialist to appear in the country.