Center For Autism and Related Disorders

I worked for this company as an assessor. They claim that they can «cure» autism. Quite a claim not exactly backed by science. Speaking of which did you know that they have their own research and development department and they use their own research results to back up the efficacy of their approach? Testing assessments typically included only CARD interventions as part of the feedback, which may or may not be the best treatment plan for your child. Like most ABA agencies, the quality and consistency of the ABA therapist that comes to your home varies widely. Consider these aspects when you are vetting not only CARD, but any ABA service.
Check with your private insurance or Medical for assessment and behavioral service options rather than with CARD personnel who will naturally steer you toward CARD services.

My son received services through CARD from summer 2014 up until last week. My experience was very disappointing. First, the therapists I encountered were very young (college kids) and inexperienced, but they were also very, very nice. Second, they kept pushing us to increase our hours because we had unused hours that had accumulated. We were already getting 13 hours a week. Never once did they take into account my child– all they wanted to do was use the hours. One week we had 4 different therapists that would be «filling in» for my son’s assigned therapists. How can that be productive? My son’s head was spinning with all these new people coming and going.
I finally put a stop to it and contacted the supervisor. I told him that I wanted to change the therapist that my son was seeing because it seemed like she had no idea what she was doing. I asked the supervisor what her experience was and he told me that she had just finished training and had none. I did not want my son to be her «work experience» I thought to myself. So I requested a therapist with experience. The supervisor told me that he would speak with his supervisor to see what they could do and that he would call me the next day. Well, he did call me the next day just to ask when they could stop by and pick up the log book and get my final signatures… so much for that.
In my experience, I felt that CARD was more concerned about getting their therapists more hours to complete their work experience as opposed to really caring about their clients. It makes sense seeing it in hindsight– CARD offers ABA training, and after you complete the training, they give you work.

I am a parent of a child on the spectrum who received services from this company. They are currently in practice of fraudulent billing attempting to collect for above an HMO plans provisions. Please, please, please parents for the sake of your children, who already have enough life burdens to bear without these «crooks», DO NOT use the company. Do your homework first. The in home therapist are lacking in autism knowledge, struggle to implement the programs properly and spend hours in your home doing nothing. I even had to buy ice cream for one therapist as he accompanied us on an outing during a behavioral session because he was hungry and «forgot his wallet». 1:1 supervision over the summer involved reports to me (by the day program staff not affiliated with CARD) that the staff member was texting all day, leaving my autistic childs sibling to supervise and provide behavioral intervention for him. Behavioral intervention included calls to me at work for assistance. They claimed my childs lack of progress was because he had limited therapy hours and pushed me to allow them into our home more often. After the fact, and sadly a little too late, I realized this was all part of the billing scam. They run up the bills over 1 year and then demand a baloon payment, they do not offer explanation of benefits or even verify insurance until they had racked up thousands of dollars in your debt… This is a very questionably company with very poor experience had by our family. I DO NOT RECOMMEND. My hope is that at least one person is saved the same trauma that has arisen for us after dealings with this agency. Shame on them for duping the autism community.

I worked for this place right out of college. The senior staff there are pretty knowledgeable about Autism and use a pretty strict behavior therapy approach for working with children with Autism, yet the training for new staff isn’t very comprehensive for what you’d expect paying so much. Make sure you are able to meet and talk with the staff working with your child to make sure that they know what they are doing. If your child does have Autism, or shows signs, get him tested and treated early. Avoid the denial because the earlier the intervention, the better the outcome.