If you would have asked me what ABA was about 10 years ago, I probably would’ve looked at you blankly. I had never heard of anything like that before. That all changed when one of my children went from mischievous toddler to a difficult hard to manage child. In school, his teachers and principals weren’t sure if he would be able to stay in the school and at home we were at our wits end. He was constantly bothering his other siblings and getting into trouble and each day his food jags grew more difficult to predict and he wouldn’t even allow us to give him a kiss. He was constantly getting himself into trouble, without realizing what he had done wrong.

 

The school social worker recommended that we have him evaluated. After two days of testing by a Neuropsychologist we were told that our son indeed was on the autism spectrum. She told us that our child would never be able to interact normally with other children And would never be able to play on a sports team but that with ABA therapy we could help him manage his day-to-day life.

 

We started to research and we signed up our son with an ABA agency. My son was getting therapy from various therapists and had a BCBA on his team, however there was no home involvement and my wife and I felt as though we were not a part of the process. We were frustrated and didn’t see results. We almost gave up. We thought that maybe ABA doesn’t work. We gave it one more try…

 

This time we joined another ABA agency. This new agency actually listened to us and involved us and made sure to have an amazing RBT come to our home and educate us on how to teach our child how to function in a normal society. We had therapists in the school and in our home work with our child and before we knew it within months our child was a different child.

 

It took time, tears and a lot of hard work but years later we look at our son and we are completely incredulous. He still struggles with executive functioning and he still looks at the world in a very black-and-white fashion, but he has friends, he plays on sports teams and takes music lessons and he is able to sit through class.

 

We felt that what we experienced was miraculous and we wanted to share that miracle with others. And so I decided that I wanted to start an agency for ABA that cares about each child and helps him or her achieve the greatest potential that they can with the encouragement and support of his or her family.

 

Welcome to the iThrive family. We hope to help you see your miracle and take pride in your precious child.

 

-Joseph Sheinfeld

Founder & CEO, iThrive ABA