How To Become A Therapy Aide: What It Is and Career Path

What is a therapy aide and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Therapy is an important aspect of the path to recovery. It is a term used for various facets of life that may need rehabilitation, such as physical or psychological. Therapy helps patients recover from traumatic experiences or disabilities. As such, a strong therapy team is expected to ensure the full recovery of the client. This is why therapy aides are important members of the team.

Therapy aides, in the most basic sense, provide assistance to clients and to therapists. They may be assigned to handle appointments and schedules. They ensure that session bookings are properly done and that there are no overlaps. They also check the equipment and other necessary materials to ensure that the clinic is well-stocked and ready for the clients. In addition to these, therapy aides also handle treatment and recovery plans and help ensure that the clients are following those.

If you want to be a therapy aide, you need to have patience and an approachable demeanor. You also have to be gentle with clients. To add to these, you also need to be able to form bonds and gain the trust of everyone around you.

ScoreTherapy AideUS Average

Salary

2.3

Avg. Salary $29,312

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability Level

8.6

Growth Rate 25%

Growth Rate 0.3%

Diversity

8.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.76%

Asian 5.20%

Black or African American 8.87%

Hispanic or Latino 8.56%

Unknown 5.81%

White 70.80%

Gender

female 70.86%

male 29.14%

Age - 40

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 40

Stress Level

8.6

Stress level is very high

7.1 - high

Complexity Level

6.5

Complexity Level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work Life Balance

6.5

Work Life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a therapy aide

Explore therapy aide education requirements

Most common therapy aide degrees

Bachelor's

53.8 %

Associate

18.2 %

High School Diploma

12.3 %

Start to develop specific therapy aide skills

Skills	Percentages
Patients	27.53%
Patient Care	16.13%
Rehabilitation	15.96%
BARS	10.36%
Physical Therapy	5.48%

Complete relevant therapy aide training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New therapy aides learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a therapy aide based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real therapy aide resumes.

Research therapy aide duties and responsibilities

Assist in implementing clinical treatment programs using ABA (apply behavior analysis).
Prepare patients for physical therapy treatment by welcoming, comforting, providing and/or assisting patient into physical therapy apparel.
Require the physical ability and training to conduct CPR.
Fabricate and modify splints according to Dr. Gupta's specifications.

Prepare your therapy aide resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your therapy aide resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a therapy aide resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Therapy Aide Resume templates

Build a professional Therapy Aide resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your Therapy Aide resume.

Apply for therapy aide jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a therapy aide job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do therapy aides rate their job?

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Therapy Aide reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Jul 2019

Pros

Seeing the progress in the residence and a chance to work one on one with residence