Success Stories
"Kelley and her therapists have made a huge difference in our daughter’s life. When we began working with Behavioral Consulting of Tampa Bay, our 22-month-old could not communicate her wants or needs in any way other than crying. Within three days of starting therapy, she was imitating sounds and words! Her progress in the early weeks was nothing short of amazing. While our journey is far from over, after eight months of therapy our daughter can say hundreds of words and is quite affectionate."
The Proctor Family
Between 18 and 24 months of age, our little boy lost all the words he had once used. He had no language other than babbling, and no effective communication other than pulling us around by our hands and crying in frustration when we didn’t know what he wanted. After a year of Speech Therapy and Occupational Therapy, there was little improvement. Our son was diagnosed PDD-Nos in May 2009, just after he turned three. We immediately sought ABA therapy at Behavioral Consulting of Tampa Bay. We only wish we had known about their programs and started a year earlier! Within weeks, he was able to learn enough sign language to ask for certain foods and drinks. In the past ten months, he has mastered many steps that are precursors to speech. He has dozens of signs for toys, actions and play. He asks us to move out of the way, throw a ball, or tickle him! More and more, he has learned to imitate our every day behavior. He is now imitating mouth movements for speech and can repeat most letter sounds. Occasionally, he speaks words like “ball” and “apple”. We have seen vast improvement in his eye contact and his receptive understanding of speech.
What was once a child with a small, closed perspective on the world has now become an open, aware, and curiosity-driven boy who likes to explore new toys, people and places. He notices when someone enters or leaves a room, and waves in reply to their “hello”. He has learned patience, to make eye contact, and how to interact more with others. He has genuine pride in his own accomplishments and claps for himself when he finishes a puzzle or task. After observing him at Behavioral Consulting, we were reinforcing “matching” photos at home when we realized that he could match word flashcards with objects or pictures. If not for his therapy, we never would have known that he could already read dozens of words at the age of three! We are constantly astonished at how smart our little guy is, now that he can communicate that to us.
The knowledgeable and dedicated therapists he has worked with at BCOTB always show genuine interest and caring for our son and his progress. We have had them meet with his preschool staff, and it greatly improved their ability to work with our son in a blended classroom environment. His BCOTB therapist is always full of effective suggestions and ideas to implement what he learns in our everyday lives, and is always happy to answer our questions. He adores working with her, and cannot wait to get to his sessions. The staff members of BCOTB have become our trusted allies in his fight against autism.
We are optimistic that he will be talking soon. The therapy our son receives from Behavioral Consulting of Tampa Bay has been effective, life changing, and we believe it is exactly what our son needs to recover his ability to communicate and successfully overcome his autism spectrum disorder.
Sincerely,
Mother of a young boy with autism
"Our son's journey began at 3 years old when my son Julian was diagnosed with Autism. Since then, he started receiving speech therapy and occupational therapy while he was in the school system at the same time. We didn't see so much progress so we decided to start ABA therapy. What a blessing it has been! He's been in the program since he was 5 and from been non-verbal now he is able to imitate, repeat sounds and words while using sign language at the same time, and his eye contact improve a lot. Julian is 6 year old now.
Although Julian's journey is just starting, we are very pleased with our son's progress while he has been at Behavioral Consulting of Tampa Bay. The support and genuine caring is evident everyday. We are very grateful to Laura, who worked especially hard to bring out the best in Julian."
Carlos & Mildred Flores, Parents of Julian
Our family has employed Kelley Gardner, Behavioral Consulting of Tampa Bay, since April of 2005. She began working with our little boy when he was only 16-months-old, and he started improving almost immediately.
For over five years, she has coordinated exceptional ABA therapy for our son while providing invaluable support and consultation for our family. Kelley has not only provided excellent care, but has gone above the call of duty to become the single most reliable resource for our family. Kelley’s commitment to exceptional, quality service is pervasive within all staff members at Behavioral Consulting of Tampa Bay, and we cannot praise them enough for the incredible care that our son has received.”
Mother of an Exceptional 6-year-old with Autism
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I just wanted to say Don and I were so excited to see Zane eating Chicken nuggets for dinner last night, then pancakes for breakfast today, then HOT DOG, CHERRIES, and PASTA for lunch today also!
What a blessing it is to see him eating real food instead of goldfish and gummies!
Just wanted to say thank you so much!!!
Michelle Ziglar
We weren't sure if we needed an ABA therapist for our son, nor did we quite
understand what one would do. Now We Get It! Jamie helps Ethan and our
family in SO many ways.
From one on one therapy, to strategy sessions, IEP
meeting support, classroom support, parent training, crisis management. I
truly do not know how we held it all together before Jamie! Our son ADORES
Jamie, looks forward to their sessions, and has grown TREMENDOUSLY with her
help. We are Forever Grateful!!!
Parents of a young boy with autism
When our pediatrician first noticed developmental delays in our son, my wife and I weren’t sure where to turn for help. We were living in another state at that time and did not have access to the full spectrum of therapies and interventions available. Luca’s language and social delays become more concerning. Despite employing all the early interventions we could find, he was falling further and further behind.
We moved to Tampa when Luca was 3 ½ years old and at that point, he was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and his language development was estimated to be around 15 months – we were stunned. We knew he had a delay but we had no idea that it was that severe. We finally connected with Behavioral Consulting of Tampa a few months after Luca’s fourth birthday, and right after we started with ABA, we noticed striking changes. Luca immediately connected with his wonderful therapist, Katie, and started saying and doing things for her he had never done before.
His language has developed at a phenomenal rate and his social interactions have turned completely around. He is doing so well now that he is in the process of mainstreaming into regular classes at school less than a year after starting with BCOT. We could never have imagined that Luca would make so much progress so quickly. There is no adequate way to express how profoundly our lives and Luca’s future have been made better by the gifted people at BCOT. We can only say ‘Thank you’ with our utmost sincerity and we unreservedly recommend Behavioral Consulting of Tampa.
Luca's Mother
Our twins were both diagnosed with autism by the age of 3. After several months in a special education pre-k class, we were not seeing the progress we hoped and decided to seek additional therapy for them. BCOTB turned out to be the answer to many of our prayers. We have been receiving services from BCOTB since the spring of 2011 and our experience has been absolutely amazing. We started with 10 hours of therapy each week but we saw so much progress that we recently increased both kids to a full-time therapy schedule. We have seen significant improvement in language (expressive and receptive), attention span and social skills.
BCOTB therapists and office staff really go the extra mile. We work with Jamie and her team at the Wesley Chapel office and they are exceptional. Our twins love their therapists. We’ve received help from them in areas ranging from preparation for IEP meetings to home visits for potty training assistance. They value our opinions and incorporate our input into our children’s therapy goals. We are continually impressed and forever grateful for the skill and compassion of this team.
Parents of 4 year old twins with autism
