Results

The President of Pacific Autism Center, Laura Cook, is dedicated to providing only the highest quality ABA services. Mrs. Cook is the parent of an autistic child who is fully mainstreamed in a regular education classroom with no additional support. After 5 years of intensive treatment, her child is considered to be recovered. Mrs. Cook’s leadership in the autism community, her personal insight into understanding the road to recovery through quality programming, and provider skill development makes her a valuable asset to this organization.

Mrs. Cook created the Pacific Autism Center as a place that children can receive quality programs in a supervision model that rivals the best programs in the nation for autism. As she looked back over her own son’s program and analyzed the areas that slowed her son’s progress, she recognized much of it had to do with a lack of on-going and on site supervision. This decreased the quality of the program on those occasions, increased the duration of time on specific programs, and caused the team to get off track frequently. She estimated that her son could have reached the end of his program 1-2 years earlier, had the level of supervision existed that our center currently offers. Even our therapists who have a lot of experience with home based ABA programs feel that we are able to move more quickly due to this team approach. A supervisor’s immediate responsiveness to program issues and the training and skill of our therapists, are a strong reason for this success.

Her story of bringing a child from moderate-severe autism, to appearing indistinguishable from his peers, is a powerful reminder and inspiration that children can achieve a normal, healthy life despite the damaging effects of autism if treated early on.