Our new series, “Spotlight on Black Professionals in ABA,” continues with an interview with Maia Jackson, the clinical development manager of LEARN Behavioral’s Autism Spectrum Therapies (AST) office in Oakland, California, in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Years ago, in an undergraduate social psychology class, I recall my professor focusing an entire lecture on how the industrial revolution affected our relationship with nature. Specifically, the professor talked about the migration to cities and the increasing amount of time children spent inside, whether working or at school.

Last fall, when Xavier DeGroat received an opportunity to work at the White House as an intern in the Office of Presidential Correspondence, he packed his bags at his home in Lansing, Michigan, and relocated for three months to the thriving metropolis and national capitol of Washington, D.C

When Evie Mutsch, at age two-and-a-half, started applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy at the Wisconsin Early Autism Project (WEAP), she spoke no words and tended to express herself in tantrums, her mom, Kelly, says.

Eye contact. “Quiet” hands. These were goals for autistic children everywhere in ABA programs in the 1990s. As a generation of autistic children have come of age and grown into autistic adults, we’ve heard their criticisms, a few of them being: eye contact is painful; stimming is soothing; I shouldn’t need to change myself for your comfort.

As you know, April has been Autism Awareness Month for several decades now. This year, after careful consideration, we are shifting our focus for the month from Autism Awareness to Autism Acceptance. Why Acceptance, instead of Awareness?

This week, in honor of Women’s History Month, we asked three female leaders at LEARN what it’s like to work in a STEM field—and how they use science, math, and data analysis in their positions. The women include Chief Clinical Officer Hanna Rue and Senior Vice President Sabrina Daneshvar, in addition to consultant and Women in Behavior Analysis (WIBA) Conference Director Devon Sundberg.

Preparing a child who has autism spectrum disorder (ASD) for any routine change can be a significant challenge. In fact, insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior are common traits and characteristics for children on the spectrum.

The global pandemic of COVID-19 has directly claimed 2.6 million lives worldwide, with roughly 20 percent, or 525,000, of the departed living in the United States. Indirectly, the cost of and on lives is vast—beyond vast, actually—and we are all facing this vastness together, now and for future generations.

Children learn language best when they’re engaged and interested—something the right book can evoke in an instant. Since children on the autism spectrum sometimes struggle with reading comprehension, it’s important to build positive routines around reading as early as possible in your child’s life. Why?

Our new series, “Spotlight on Black Professionals in ABA,” kicks off with an interview with Brandon Whitfield, the clinical director overseeing LEARN Behavioral’s Autism Spectrum Therapies (AST) Beach Cities office in beautiful, sunny Los Angeles.

In honor of Black History Month, and because this is an essential topic for all families, compiled below are six books for children and teens that address race, racism, and the Black experience.