Photo credit: Jeremiah Smith Media The center has Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) to offer Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy. There, they work with children between the ages of 2 – 12, where they do “play therapy” – in which they go at the child’s pace, help them learn to communicate, teach patience, help them play, work with social skills, and work with the fundamental foundations to get them ready for school. “We all love our jobs here,” said Ashley, senior BCBA at The Lori Center. She oversees the Registered Behavior Technicians (RBTs), who are on the floor with the children, one-on-one, as each child is provided that individual attention. “I do a lot of trainings with families, so a lot of the behaviors that they see at home, we work one-on-one to get the behaviors down. We also collaborate with schools, speech, occupational therapy, and physical therapy.” With those collaborations, they teach communication, social skills, life skills, how to tolerate sharing, toilet training, dressing themselves, not running off – teaching appropriate replacement behaviors. And Ashley’s favorite thing about being a BCBA? Taking a child from being non-verbal to verbal. Her memory is an example of the true life change that this therapy can provide to many children. RBTs set the goals and work on those goals all day long – repetitive action to change those behaviors to positive behaviors – a result of that and the one-on-one therapy that a child received from an RBT during their scheduled half-day time. The work here is child-led, which means they don’t push compliance, don’t do negative reinforcement, and so the children decide where they want to go and when they go. A notion that Betsy mentioned, as she explained the process, that doesn’t look like therapy, but it is. “They have goals that they’re working on, but they’re letting that child choose and start to make more preferred choices,” Betsy said of the process. Tolerance building is what Ashley and Betsy both state it is. Within the center, there are multiple areas for different needs for different children. There’s stimulation for high-energy participants, “chill” zones for those who may not like bright lights, an art room, various other activity rooms, and a playground. 74 OCTOBER 2026 | INTHEVUE.COM