Business View Magazine May 2023

159 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 5 we’ve moved from providing those services in a school setting to what we call clinical centers. So now, it’s all either center-based or in-home.” For those parents who aren’t able to accommodate the necessary changes to the home environment, center-based services tend to be the preferred option to deliver ABA intervention, whereas in-home services are usually offered to families who cannot meet the treatment schedule on site, or the child has special circumstances that are not suitable for center-base. ABC currently has 7 centers operating out of Sacramento and the greater region, East Bay, Stockton, Inland Empire, and the North L.A. area and 3 international centers in Singapore, Philippines and Portugal. All US and International regions offer in- home ABA services as an option for parents. “We favor center-based because the ability to monitor quality control and clinical effectiveness is higher,” Terzich-Garland insists. “But, if you’ve ever had an opportunity to watch ABA intervention in action, you’ll know that it doesn’t matter what setting per se the intervention occurs. The environment is always structured in such a way that we’re able to identify stimuli that we want the child to respond to. Whether it’s teaching them to make sounds, put words together, or learn play skills, we work with the environment to build those unit responses into more complex repertoires where the child is able to thrive APPL I ED BEHAVIOR CONSULTANTS and interact with peers and family members.” From a business perspective, Terzich-Garland found the ESOP concept was one of the most natural ways of maintaining the legacy of this R.E.AL . Model™, which she developed over 25 years of clinical ABA experience with ASD kids, and to ensure the integrity of its delivery. “I developed the R.E.A.L. Model™ as a conceptual framework to teach for generalization within ABA intervention, and I wanted to stay true to that model to make sure that it was interwoven with every aspect of our company and specifically, in the way that we went about training staff at any level”. “I don’t just mean clinical people—when you look at our administrative billing team, our operations team, they’re just as committed to that process in the way that we provide intervention. The ESOP was a way for my business partner, Dr. Joseph Morrow, and myself to ensure that the integrity of treatment was maintained, that we remained effective in our treatment, and that we delivered those services with compassion to each child. That means that every client who comes our way gets served in the way that Joe and myself intended to do it.” Dr. Morrow heard about the ESOP option while away on a salmon fishing trip in Alaska. A fellow