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Success Stories

Over the years, we’ve met many amazing children with autism and worked closely with their families to help them through some challenging issues. Here are some of their success stories.

Disclaimer: These success stories are real, unsolicited, and from former clients of Breakthrough Autism.

  • I am a mother of 2 boys diagnosed with Autism at age 5 and 2.5, both had limited speech. My younger one had difficulty articulating words in the beginning to the point that only I understood his needs and wants. Breakthrough Autism assessed their needs and immediately started ABA therapy with Verbal Behaviour training. Together with Parent Coaching and ABA, both were soon speaking in full sentences. Later on their needs change and their skill sets are not the same as peers in their age group. In the earlier years, our school had suggested that we consider Community Class based on their limited skill sets. Instead of following the school’s suggestion, we embraced the ABA programs at BTA to provide the skills my children need to be successful in school, at home, and in the community. Over the years of ABA, through school observations, parent &/or school meetings, their individual gaps were identified and individualized ABA programs were updated. Some programs were 1:1 and some were set in group environments to learn shared attention. With the help of BTA, my children have learned to use language more appropriately, improve fine and gross motor skills, self regulation and as they got older Executive Functioning skills like time management, problem solving and focus. With BTA’s ABA programs, parent coaching and other collaborative efforts, my oldest will be entering high school next year in the mainstream program and on track for potential post secondary education. Hopefully my youngest will follow suit. I am so proud of everything our children have accomplished and I know without the ABA programming at BTA, without the parent coaching, my children would not have achieved all that they have today. Thank you so much Nancy, Jennifer and our BTA Team! We couldn’t have succeeded without you!

    Mother of two boys aged 12 and 14 years
  • Thank you for all of the ABA services you and your team provided for my son! I wish I had started with you guys when he was younger. But he has come a long way for the time he was with you. You run an amazing center. We will always be so grateful!

    Mother of a 5 year old boy with autism
  • When our son was diagnosed with ASD in 2012, we were confused and weary about our son’s future. We wanted to do all we could to help him reach his full potential but just did not know where and how to start. When we met Nancy and her team, we were felt very comfortable and placed our most precious gift in their able hands. The centre has been a blessing for us and we were extremely pleased with the level of care and service that Breakthrough Autism provided. The Instructors were always happy to see our son, which in turn put a smile on our faces. Our son loved going there! I mean, who wouldn’t love going to a place where all of your achievements, whether big or small, are celebrated?

    Our son has evolved so much in the past few years under the guidance of the Breakthrough Autism team. He has gone from non-verbal and aloof to a budding boy who requests for things and plays games meaningfully. We still have some work cut out for us but we are definitely much more optimistic.

    Mother of a 5 year old boy with autism
  • Our daughter was so excited to graduate from Breakthrough, we believe it’s a sense of accomplishment for her. We are extremely happy with her progression from her first session with Breakthrough to this point. The whole Breakthrough Autism team has been great, words can’t describe how we feel about you all. Thank you so much for all your hard work and dedication in helping our daughter.

    Parents of 8 year old with autism
  • The last few years at Breakthrough Autism have been life-changing for our son and I’m sure for all the others that come through your doors.

    Your dedication, positive attitudes and caring about our son has made a huge difference in his life skills, academics and many other things. I think our son will remember you all for a long time. I know you all believe that every child with Autism has potential, just as I do, and we will make sure that what our son has learned at Breakthrough Autism will help him through school and life in general.

    The only regret I have is not being with your center sooner, but he has come a long way and will continue on his journey.

    To all of the staff at Breakthrough Autism, thanks, thanks, and thanks. My husband, my son, and I wish all of you at Breakthrough Autism success and as Mr Spock said…LIVE LONG AND PROSPER.

    Mother of an 11 year old boy with autism
  • I wanted to share something fantastic about about my son that we credit to the wonderful work that the Breakthrough Autism team did with him.

    For our son’s first communion celebration he had been selected from a class lottery to do a reading. He had been practicing it all week and pretty much had it memorized.

    When his turn came up, he started reading and then stopped for a few seconds, then slowly proceeded to finish, we noticed the first part of the reading sounded different than what we had been practicing. We simply told him he did a fantastic job.

    That night, he spontaneously volunteered to me: “Mommy, did you know that my reading changed?” He told me that when he got up to read, the reading they had for him had different words. He said “but I didn’t get upset, I stopped, slowed down and then read what was there”. Not sure if he read the wrong line or if they put a reading with same meaning but different wording, but he was completely unruffled in a packed standing room only church! I’d say he’s pretty much mastered handling changes in routine!

    Both me and my husband know that without Breakthrough Autism there is no way he would have handled that so flawlessly! Thanks again!

    Mother of a 7 year old boy with autism
  • After our daughter was diagnosed as being on the Autism Spectrum, we knew that we had to do everything possible to help her improve. We immediately began to look at private therapy since we were told early intervention was crucial. We decided on “Breakthrough Autism” (BTA) for a number of reasons. When we met with Nancy, she was professional, but more importantly we could clearly sense her passion for helping children. She provided an outline of how this treatment would be specifically designed for each child’s unique needs in mind. We were also impressed with Nancy’s experience and credentials.

    Before treatment began, our goal was to move our daughter along the Autism Spectrum toward “normal”. She didn’t have joint attention (our cat was even better), she was clumsy when she walked, her vocabulary consisted of a few simple words, and she wouldn’t even respond to her own name. It seemed that she was getting left behind while other children her own age were quickly advancing their skills. We didn’t even know if she would be able to have normal speech or even a normal life. We were frightened.

    When treatment began, Nancy’s passion was also evident in her staff. You could tell the members of BTA loved working with children and enjoyed their roles. They were quite patient with our daughter and ensured that the naturalistic teaching would be enjoyable. Just after a few sessions we noticed improvement. Our daughter was coming out of her shell. She began to notice things and she began to quickly master the programs that BTA had designed. She was improving and each week she was getting better and better and catching up to her peers.

    Just a little more than a year after treatment started, our daughter graduated from IBI treatment. She had mastered everything that IBI could assist her with. When our daughter started daycare we did not tell them of the diagnosis. She is indistinguishable from other children her own age. We highly recommend Breakthrough Autism and early intervention. We believe the tremendous work Nancy’s team provided enabled our daughter to catch up to her peers and act like other children her own age. We hope that all parents of children with autism can share in our success.

    Mother and Father of a 3.5 year old girl with autism
  • Our daughter was diagnosed with ASD in December 2011, and it took us several months to begin to understand how different programs work and to seek the best help we can offer. In April of 2012 we started ABA services with Nancy and the Breakthrough Autism team. From the very beginning Nancy recognized our needs, and guided us through the initial evaluation process, recommended the number of hours we should allow and be comfortable with financially, and provided a complete setup of a program custom-tailored to our daughter. She trained us to understand that ABA treatment is not one big race, but rather a long marathon, for which we have to cautiously pace ourselves. Her understanding of the constraints ASD puts on the whole family unit, and her sensitive approach to our individual needs are what we will always remember her for. Nancy’s staff is exemplary, very well trained, and top notch overall. Their dedication, positive energy and passion for their work really shows. And if we know it now, our little girl appreciates it as well.

    Father of a girl with autism
  • After having worked with Nancy, we saw such improvement in our four year old. Nancy was able to really become “intune” with our son and his abilities, making his ABA therapy fun and exciting and having her special programs work for him. Nancy has a unique capability of really listening, not only to our son’s needs but also to our needs as parents. She incorporated us into the ABA therapy making things easier to understand and to carry through in day to day life without her here. Using her programs, we have been able to work through his tantrums, understand the reasons why he has tantrums, improve his social and play skills, teach him how to get people’s attention properly and greatly improve his communication skills (he’s now working on conversational skills!).

    Nancy knows how to make things work. She was very empathetic and understood all things in and around our lives and our son’s life. She was very positive and showed it every step of the way. Your amazing Nancy, we were very blessed to have you in our son’s life.

    Mother of a 4 year old boy with autism
  • Nancy worked with my son when he was a preschooler. She has a unique ability to not only come up with an amazing program for each individual issue but she truly understands each individual and will not give up until she reaches success.

    Nancy takes the time to track and take all the necessary data to get to know the issues at hand. Nancy always included me in all decision making and programming. She not only helped to transform my son but she played a major role in my training and as a parent that is the most powerful tool in helping your own child.

    Nancy is extremely easy to work with and really listens to what the parents are telling her. She is one of the only professionals that I have dealt with that did not think she already knew what to do or how to handle all situations before even meeting my son or asking me one question about him! Nancy is always researching all the latest studies and is always finding new strategies to work with our kids. She has been an integral part of my son’s development and successes. Nancy truly loves what she does and is easy to work with. She takes pride in her work and loves the kids. She is an amazing team player and offers a wealth of knowledge and experience. She is extremely professional and maintains a very high level of privacy.

    I have learned more than I can possibly say from her and I keep on learning. Nancy has helped us through some major behaviour, fears, language issues, learning styles, social skills issues, self help skills and school readiness issues. I honestly have been so fortunate to have Nancy on my team and I can honestly say that I believe my son and I would never have made the huge gains that we have without her. She has enabled me to know what strategies to use and when. She has taught me how to track data and recognize function of behaviour. She has empowered me to know how to teach and work with my own son and there are honestly no words to express my gratitude for all she has done for my family.

    Thank You Nancy!

    Mother of a 12 year old boy with autism
  • When we first met Nancy, we were really having a hard time toilet training our son. We had tried so many times to get him out of diapers but we were never successful. It had gotten to the point where he refused to even walk into the bathroom because he was afraid to use the toilet.

    The first thing that Nancy did was take the time to really get to know and understand the needs of our son. She didn’t jump to any conclusions about what to do, instead she taught us the importance of assessing the entire situation and taking data before we even started working on the issue. Then she used that information to develop a program that addressed our son’s specific needs. Nancy made sure that we were involved in our son’s toilet training from the beginning to the end of the program.

    We started off very slowly with him, at first we just worked on getting him to go into the bathroom without any behaviours. Then once he was successful at that, we started working on getting him to use the toilet. Nancy taught us the importance of taking small steps and making sure that our son was successful every step of the way. Anytime we ran into any problems, we worked together with Nancy to overcome them. After a while, not only was our son using the bathroom but he was requesting to go all by himself! We couldn’t believe it!

    Nancy was not only incredible working with our son but she was also an amazing teacher! By teaching us how to teach our son such an important life skill, Nancy gave us an amazingly beautiful gift! A gift that we will cherish forever!

    Mother and Father of a 6 year old boy with autism

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