About the founder

The person behind the method.

Kate Gardner, BCBA. Founder and CEO, Backspace Prep. A Board Certified Behavior Analyst with over a decade of clinical practice, and a first-attempt pass built on the method she now teaches.

MS, Behavior Analysis and Therapy, SIU Carbondale·Chicago-area clinical leadership
The short version

Credentials, and the part that actually matters.

Kate Gardner is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst with over a decade of clinical practice. She earned her master’s in Behavior Analysis and Therapy from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, after a bachelor’s in Psychology from Illinois State University, and has led clinical training, onboarding, and multi-site behavior therapy teams across Chicago-area practices.

Backspace Prep wasn’t built from credentials alone. Kate spent years being told she was a bad test-taker before realizing the problem wasn’t her ability. It was the method.

She rebuilt the way she studied around retrieval, applied it to the BCBA exam, and passed on her first attempt. Since then, she has taught the method to dozens of BCBA candidates with a near-100% pass rate across past candidates.

Backspace Prep is Kate’s method, finally made accessible.

Practice

10+ years clinical

Clinical training, onboarding, and multi-site behavior therapy teams across Chicago-area practices.

Proof

First-attempt pass

After years of hearing she couldn’t test, she rebuilt how she studied and passed the first time.

Results

Near-100% pass rate

Across the dozens of past candidates she has taught the method to.

“I was told I was a bad test-taker my entire life. Turns out I was being taught wrong.”

Kate Gardner, BCBA · Founder of Backspace Prep

Work with Kate directly.

Kate runs the method herself: the diagnosis, the card feedback, the sessions. Tell us where you are and we’ll point you to the right fit.

Get Started
The two ways in: The Method The Guided Method

Passing is possible.

Questions for Kate? kate@backspaceprep.com gets a real reply.