For decades, autism was a diagnosis few families expected to hear and even fewer professionals fully understood. Services were limited, insurance coverage was rare, and parents often found themselves navigating a fragmented system with little guidance and even fewer treatment options.
Today, the picture looks dramatically different. Applied Behavior Analysis, commonly known as ABA, has become the dominant therapy in autism care. Thousands of clinics operate across the country. Medicaid programs spend billions of dollars annually on behavioral services. Private equity firms have invested heavily in autism provider networks, and nearly every state now requires some form of autism insurance coverage. At the same time, ABA has become the subject of increasing scrutiny from aut…
