---
title: "Teaching Assistant, Special Education"
description: "Assist a preschool, elementary, middle, or secondary school teacher to provide academic, social, or life skills to students who have learning, emotional…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/teaching-assistant-special-education"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Teaching Assistant, Special Education

**Category:** Educational Instruction and Library · **SOC code:** 25-9043 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 25-9043.00

Assist a preschool, elementary, middle, or secondary school teacher to provide academic, social, or life skills to students who have learning, emotional, or physical disabilities. Serve in a position for which a teacher has primary responsibility for the design and implementation of educational programs and services.

Also advertised as: Assistant Instructor; Co-Teacher; Educational Assistant; Paraeducator; Paraprofessional (Para); SPED Aide (Special Education Aide); SPED Para (Special Education Paraprofessional); SPED TA (Special Education Teacher Assistant).

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $37,010 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** Not published by BLS
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $27,360 to $55,520, with the middle half between $31,200 and $46,000
- **Total US employment:** 1,584,440
- **Typical entry education:** Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** 0.0% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 201,900 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 52/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 1,584,440 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $27,360 |
| 25th | $31,200 |
| 50th (median) | $37,010 |
| 75th | $46,000 |
| 90th | $55,520 |
| Mean (average) | $39,260 |

### Pay by state

OEWS publishes no state-level wage estimates for this occupation.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 1,668,500 in the 2025–2035 base year to 1,669,000 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 500 jobs, or 0.0%. Slower than average: 0.0% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 201,900 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 39.2% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 24.6% |
| Some College Courses | 18.2% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 14.5% |
| Master's Degree | 3.6% |

## What the work involves

- Supervise students in classrooms, halls, cafeterias, school yards, and gymnasiums, or on field trips.
- Instruct and monitor students in the use and care of equipment and materials to prevent injuries and damage.
- Provide assistance to students with special needs.
- Distribute teaching materials, such as textbooks, workbooks, papers, and pencils, to students.
- Present subject matter to students under the direction and guidance of teachers, using lectures, discussions, supervised role-playing methods, or by reading aloud.
- Enforce administration policies and rules governing students.
- Teach socially acceptable behavior, employing techniques such as behavior modification or positive reinforcement.
- Tutor and assist children individually or in small groups to help them master assignments and to reinforce learning concepts presented by teachers.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- English Language — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Social (S), Conventional (C), Artistic (A).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| S — Social | 7.00 |
| C — Conventional | 3.57 |
| A — Artistic | 3.34 |
| I — Investigative | 3.29 |
| E — Enterprising | 2.14 |
| R — Realistic | 1.98 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ENFJ | 71.8 |
| ESFP | 68.3 |
| ESFJ | 67.7 |
| ENFP | 65.5 |
| INFJ | 65.4 |

Best-fitting types: ENFJ, ESFP, ESFJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Special Education Teacher, Kindergarten](https://nuecareer.com/careers/special-education-teacher-kindergarten) — median $67,170
- [Special Education Teacher, Secondary School](https://nuecareer.com/careers/special-education-teacher-secondary-school) — median $74,260
- [Special Education Teacher, Elementary School](https://nuecareer.com/careers/special-education-teacher-elementary-school) — median $67,170
- [Teaching Assistant, Preschool, Elementary, Middle, and Secondary School, Except Special Education](https://nuecareer.com/careers/teaching-assistant-preschool-elementary-middle-and-secondary-school) — median $37,010
- [Special Education Teacher, Middle School](https://nuecareer.com/careers/special-education-teacher-middle-school) — median $66,810
- [Instructional Coordinator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/instructional-coordinator) — median $77,440
- [Elementary School Teacher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/elementary-school-teacher) — median $63,970
- [Special Education Teacher, Preschool](https://nuecareer.com/careers/special-education-teacher-preschool) — median $64,830
- [Kindergarten Teacher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/kindergarten-teacher) — median $62,680
- [Tutor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/tutor) — median $43,350

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

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