Leasa knew something wasn’t right with her child Aiden. With the diagnosis of Autism, it changed her world completely. Having a child with autism brings a whole litany of challenges that most parents don’t have to face. But from this struggle, an organization was formed that now helps families impacted by autism all over the thumb area of Michigan.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Facing the reality of discovering a child has autism
- How one book changed Leasa’s and Aiden’s lives forever
- The spark that started an organization that helps thousands all over Michigan.
Transcript
And so my husband and I talked about it and he didn't want me to. And after really explaining to him, I don't think that I can be okay with not giving everything to that child. I was just too passionate about it. I gotta start a center to help families were in our same position.
Cliff Duvernois:Hello everyone and welcome back to Total Michigan, the show where we interview ordinary Michiganders who are doing some pretty extraordinary things. Today I'm speaking with a guest who reading her backstory, I really had to wonder how far it is that a parent would go to help their child. And I think today's guest really embodies that. Moving in the world of autism, she has started an agency, and we will delve into her backstory there, but she has started an agency here in Michigan that is doing some really tremendous things to help families that have been impacted by autism. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the show, the CEO and founder of the Spectrum Autism Center. That would be Leasa Androl. Leasa, how are you?
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:Good. Thanks for having me.
Cliff Duvernois:Thank you for taking time out to, be on the show today. We really appreciate it. Tell us a little bit about where you're from and where you grew up.
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:Well, I'm from Michigan, born and raised. And I, did move around a lot as a child. So I spent some younger years up north in the West Branch Row city area. Then, we lived in Midland for quite a while and that's where I actually graduated from high school. Bullock Creek High School. In mid in Midland. Then, now I live in Freeland, Michigan with my husband and our youngest son.
Cliff Duvernois:When you graduated high school, what was your plans going forward At that time,
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:going? I really wanted to go to college out. of state, but we were, we didn't have money for college. So I decided to join the Army, to get money for college.
Cliff Duvernois:Thank you for your service.
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:Thank you. And Yeah. I wa I was, in the army stationed in Georgia for three years and. Which gave me 25,000 for college, which was not nearly enough, but it was helpful. Yeah. And, was in there for, until, I came back to Michigan and started school.
Cliff Duvernois:When did you get married?
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:So I've actually been married twice. My, oldest son is from a previous marriage when I met someone in the Army. And I had a baby. Bryce, my oldest son, he's 26 right now. And we moved back to Michigan together. The marriage did not work out. And then I, that would've been when Bryce was about two. And then I remarried when Bryce was seven I believe or six. And I've been married for 21 years now to my husband Dave. And we have two additional sons together that we had. so I have three boys total.
Cliff Duvernois:So congratulations on 21 years. That's excellent.
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:Thank you.
Cliff Duvernois:When you moved back to Michigan, at what point one of your sons was born, but there was something different. So talk to us about that.
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:When I, married my husband Dave, he didn't have children of his own yet. And we were both young in our kinda late twenties, but young. And I knew he wanted to have a child as well. The plan was we would just have one and then we would have Bryce my oldest. And then we would have one together. But then, I feel like God had different plans. Our youngest son was a surprise that was not something that we were planning on. And I remember being somewhat devastated. He's only one year younger than his older brother, so they were pretty close together. is what I'm saying. And I remember being pretty devastated. I didn't wanna be have another child. I, the pain, the, everything about it. I just didn't want to. And so I just was devastated, cried a lot, and then, then realized like, all right, this wasn't my plan. So I feel like this is God's plan. And so then God must have some, something I don't know about. Yeah, he did.
Cliff Duvernois:so when your son was born, and I know that at some point in time you must have realized something was different about your son. So talk to us a little bit about that journey.
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:Yeah. At first there were some differences that I saw as really amazing and great from my first two, that now looking back in hindsight, might have been some early signs of autism. For example, he didn't cry much to get picked up. Very happy baby. But he wouldn't cry like when he woke up in the morning and we would just go and check on him. And he'd just be happily like laying in this crib. He wouldn't cry to when he was tired. He would often bounce himself to sleep in one of the Johnny Jumpers and stuff like that. But I was thinking, oh, look at this happy little baby. I'm not realizing that that might have been a sign that social attention was not quite the same as a typical child. And then by the time he was 18 months, I really had a lot of concerns. Because at by that point, he wasn't like either of my other two children. He didn't really have any words. He wasn't following any instructions. He was doing some repetitive behaviors, such as like he would take all the fridge and magnets and just throw 'em down the steps one at a time and he would do it, and then I'd pick 'em up and he'd do it again. I went to our regular 18 month visit. And I remember asking the doctor, could he have autism? Because I had seen something, I think, Jennifer McCarthy, I'd heard about autism, which was new for me to hear about. And she's oh no. some kids just talk later. Cuz I was like, my other two were talking almost, with two to three word sentences that they were very advanced. And she's like, well, some kids just talk later. And then if I shared those concerns with others, they would of often try to reassure me too. so-and-so's son didn't say his first word till he was four. So I was getting a lot of people trying to be like, no, you're, it's fine. I just kept waiting for a little while say
Cliff Duvernois:And then at one point, did you really start to push it? And I say that because I've heard stories about this before where it seems like doctors either don't recognize or they misdiagnose autism altogether. So at what point in time did you start to really push it and say, Hey, I really think there's something wrong here.
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:Yeah. So at that time, like for a child's development at 18 months, I mean, kids are trying to, they're learning things, in an explosive nature, And so every month that went by, after that 18 month checkup, I'm just like, yeah, but still, no. And it just, each month you are more and more concerned because now by the time he's two, okay, but at two he should have something. And he didn't have listener skills either, so that was a major red flag. So some kids might not like talk, but maybe they'll point and gesture and you can tell 'em like, Wave bye bye to Nana or things of that nature. But my son didn't have, couldn't follow any instructions either. So I just kept getting more and more concerned and, but I also was in denial, Okay. It took a, it took my mom and I getting into an argument about it for me to be like, really? Okay, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna try to figure out how you get a diagnosis.
Cliff Duvernois:And when you finally got the diagnosis, talk to us about your reaction to that.
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:I, At that point. so now he's almost, three. So he, we got, I think we got the diagnosis in May before he turned three in July. And by that point, being almost three and still no nothing we knew. We were very confident that he would, once they gave us a diagnosis, it was gonna be autism. And plus we had started reading and researching and watching, see we were looking for the signs. I should point out that it was really hard too for us because there were some things that he was really good at. And so we would read the list of symptoms and we'd be like, yeah, but that one, he doesn't have that. You know what I mean? Right. So we were looking. for him to fit all of it. And like when we would sing and play with him, his eye, he would stare into your soul. Oh. So we're like, see, it says poor eye contact. He doesn't have poor eye contact. He looks right at you when you're playing with him. So yeah so there was some definite denial, but you're like looking for, it might, might not be. But by the time we got the diagnosis, we were fairly certain and he they came to our house, it was people from early on, which is through the, education department. And they, gave us, and we're like, okay, we expected that. But then as a parent, it was still pretty devastating too. So, like, i, did cry later that night just at the reality of it.
Cliff Duvernois:This is one of those moments in life that can really define a person. Because at this point here, you now realize that, that having a child that has autism requires something a little bit more than just the support of the parents. It almost takes a community to do this. So when you went out and started looking around for resources that were out there available, talk to us a little bit about that.
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:At first I started with the diagnostic team. I'm like, okay, what can be done? And they were like, he can start early childhood education in, in the fall in August. And I'm like, look in. Okay, it's only May. I feel like no one's gonna do anything in the meantime. And they didn't really give me any other options. And I didn't know what they were, what my options were. So I did start researching. And you'll come across many different things if you look on the internet, right? One of the first things we came across was something called the Sunrise Program. And that was where you would go get trained, the author or the people that created the program were these parents that said that they, did this type of teaching with their son and, and now he can teach people and, talk and all these things. So, you know, you're looking for that cure. not really realizing at that point that it's a neurological disorder. So it's not like there's necessarily a cure. you can just help people grow in their skills. So in any case. everything was so expensive though. We had to do a fundraiser to be able to afford that program. At the time we, we were single family or single income family, and I think my husband made like 25,000 a year. And we had, this is our third child, so we live in a tiny little house and we didn't have money. So we did have to put fundraisers together. And then we got enough money to go to this program. It was out in Massachusetts and it was, I wanna say a week long training.
Cliff Duvernois:Wow.
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:Yeah. And it was very expensive. I don't, I can't really remember exactly in the thousands, $8,000 maybe for us to do
Cliff Duvernois:for one week. Now, was it, was this program something for the entire family or was it just something for your son?
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:It was to teach the parents, so me and my husband how to teach my son and Okay. And hopefully that we would learn their techniques and then we would be able to work with him. And other people, they, they encourage you to find volunteers, which is cool but it has some challenges too. So we went and got our training and then we came home and we put signs up for volunteers everywhere. And we started to try to implement it. And we did see, like some progress but not a lot. Our volunteers, there wasn't a whole lot of direction and ongoing support for the program would've been ongoing money that we didn't have. So we were okay, this isn't really working very good. And so I, started to lose hope a little bit.
Cliff Duvernois:Did at any point in time you sit there and ask God why?
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:Yeah. And it was about this time when my, when I started to become very depressed
Cliff Duvernois:Okay.
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:Yeah, very depressed. So I did talk to my doctor about it and I'm like, yeah, I'm not saying I'm suicidal. I'm saying I don't want to wake up in the morning. No, that's, I'm overwhelmed. I ask God, please let me not be here tomorrow when I wake up. That's really sad to say. And people might wonder like, why? It's not just that my son was autistic, It was, there's many autistic individuals who have lots of different skills. It has nothing to do with his autism of why I was feeling this way. The reason I was feeling this way was I was overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed because I was a stay-home mom. And he was, he added a challenge to an already hard job, right? So all I do every day is clean. And while I'm cleaning the kitchen, Aiden's over destroying the bathroom. I'm downstairs doing laundry and he found a Sharpie and his writing all over the walls. Or he didn't ever understand safety. I'm playing with his brother or, something of that nature and he gets out the door somehow and is, walking towards the street. So it was a daily stressor, cause of, not the autism, but some of the challenges that he had of not understanding safety, not understanding rules. And some of the problems that I had being a young stay-at-home mom, not knowing how to navigate that stress and pressure. So long story short, my doctor did, prescribe me an antidepressant, which was hugely helpful. And I was on that for six months and I was able to then, wean off of that. Partially because I started to have hope again when I found a book, called, Let me Hear Your Voice by Catherine Maurice. I was at Barnes Noble looking in the autism section and came across this book. And I started to have hope again after reading the book. That's when I learned about Applied Behavior Analysis, which is referred to often as a b a therapy.
Cliff Duvernois:Which has actually become the cornerstone of what it is that you're doing today.
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:It has yes.
Cliff Duvernois:At some point in time you decided to actually start, or did you do this before you got your bachelor's degree in psychology? So now, was this after Aiden was born? Was this before Aiden was
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:No, actually my first bachelor's degree is in business management. Okay. from Northwood University. And I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, which is so funny how things came full circle. And I started a company with my husband, technology company. So we were doing that when Aiden was diagnosed. And then it wasn't until after I had read that book that I realized I needed to go back to school and get another degree in psychology.
Cliff Duvernois:Why did you decide to do that?
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:So I read the book. And I find out that there's this therapy that helps children with autism learn new skills. And so I started to look into it like, okay, how do I get this therapy. I looked and there was only a couple places in Michigan at the time where you could even find this therapy, and it was in like bigger areas. So like down near Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids area, or down by the Detroit area. There was nothing in our area. And the main reason talking about the thumb area? Yep. In Saginaw, anything up, basically above Lansing you wouldn't find the therapy. And the main reason for this is because it was not covered by insurance at that point in Michigan. And it's extremely expensive because what it is a highly qualified individual, one-to-one. And they're implementing this therapy, and then you also have a master's level person that has to oversee them. So it's extremely expensive. I was like, okay, it's very expensive. And that was depressing as well. I was like, oh, it's only for the rich. Cause I had also read, like Dan Marino's kid had ABA therapy and Jenny McCarthy's son. I mean, she always talked about other things. But if you read her books, her son got ABA therapy at UCLA. So the rich people could afford the therapy. and so that was pretty upsetting and it gave me a passion. I'm like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna learn how to do this. And I'm going to start a nonprofit and, be able to provide this therapy to children. But I might just wanna skip back a little bit after I'd read the book, and I found out that no one was doing the therapy in our area. yeah, I was bummed about it. But I was also determined. And I found that Catherine Maurice had an actual manual to how to do the therapy. So I Order that on Amazon. And I get my book in the mail. And I remember it was about a year after my son's diagnosis. And he had hardly made any progress with going to school and with the sunrise therapy that we were trying to do with him. And I read the book and I started to implement it. And then the month of May, I taught him how to follow 20 different instructions.
Cliff Duvernois:Wow.
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:And it was amazing. We were so excited. Like he can learn. He he's picking up on this really easily now that we just know how to teach him. So I was really excited about it, not only for my own son, but that other people could have this if I would go back to school and if I just would make it available. So that's what I did. I went back to S V S U, Saginaw Valley State University and started working on my second bachelor's degree in psychology.
Cliff Duvernois:For our audience, we're gonna take a quick break to thank our sponsors, and when we come back we're gonna talk about the awesome organization that Leasa created to support this dream. We'll see you after the break. If you are enjoying this episode, Well then let me tell you, there's plenty more interesting stories to come. Michigan is full of people doing extraordinary things, and you can get these great stories sent directly to your inbox. Just go to total michigan.com/join, enter your email address and join our community. When you do, we will also send you our top five interviews, the powerful lessons we've learned from these people. An invitation to our Facebook group behind the scenes stories and pictures as well as advanced notice of upcoming guests and events. Just go to total michigan.com/join. It's fast, it's free, and it's easy. Sign up today. Hello everyone and welcome back to Total Michigan where we interview ordinary Michiganders who are doing some really extraordinary things. In today's guest is a perfect example of that. Leasa, before the break, you were just telling us about getting your bachelor's degree in psychology because there was this program out there that you had discovered in the book. You tried it on your son and you were getting results, which is very exciting. You've got your degree now. At what point in time did you say to yourself, we need to open up a facility?
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:That came before the degree. because there just was no one. So I had, that's what I set out to do. And to get to that point, I'm gonna need the right education and credentials. So after I got my bachelor's degree, I had applied to graduate programs that I could get the training that I, the more advanced training in Applied Behavior Analysis. And I was accepted into Western's master's program. The original plan though, I believed, I thought I was gonna get a doctorates and come to find out the program, I got into it, you would get your master's first and then you would reapply to get your doctorate. So at that point we had decided we don't wanna move our whole family to Kalamazoo for two years with no guarantee of those other four years for your doctorate. So at that point, we just agreed that I would go. And so this is, my husband's a saint, right? So I got a second house, rented a house down in Kalamazoo and then commuted for those two years to get my master's degree in behavior analysis. And in the meantime, my. my mom, who's a huge support came with me with my autistic son, Aiden. And then my husband took care of our older two sons and got them to school and just took care of them all week. And I would come home, usually get home about nine o'clock on Fridays. And I'd have, I get to spend Saturday with my kids and husband. And then I had so much studying to do that I'd leave bright and early Sunday morning to go back to Kalamazoo. But we did it. It was a long two years and I got that degree. Now what happened in the meantime that really changes the story is when I set out to do this, it was because insurance didn't cover this therapy. But it was needed. So I was like, I'm bringing this back to our area. If I have to start a nonprofit, I'll, bill out, try to get grants. I'll beg everyone. I'd already raised the, money to get my son, some therapy for a week and then also some additional parent training. So I was like, I can do this In the meantime, the laws changed in Michigan and they passed something called an autism mandate, and that was in 2014, I believe. Which was coincidentally the year I graduated from Western Michigan.
Cliff Duvernois:What is the autism mandate?
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:So prior to the autism mandate, insurance companies would deny services specifically, th this services, they would say it was too experimental. And they would often if a child had a diagnosis of autism, they would deny different like OT and speech services as well. As being too experimental. It hasn't been shown effective with kids with autism. So like a speech path would have to like, find another diagnosis if they wanted this kid with autism to get services. But the autism. mandate did was it said, no, there's plenty of evidence. You can't discriminate based on this diagnosis. So it forced insurance companies to one. Cover a b a therapy, and two, not discriminate on that diagnosis anymore of autism. And basically changed everything for kids with autism in Michigan when that happened. It, ment was op opportunities for actual therapy, where prior to that, they were parents with, kids with autism were like fighting for services because even the limited speech and OT that they could get was often denied if it was found out that the child had autism.
Cliff Duvernois:Man, that breaks the heart. So the laws have now changed, which is bodes well for you. You've gotten your master's degree now, so you can go forth and practice.
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:And I might have misspoke. I believe the mandate happened in 2012, which would've been the year I started grad. My grad program. But the Good news is by the time I got done with my grad program, it was all the kinks had been worked out. There were providers now starting to offer the services. Many people, Western Michigan has one of the best and longest a, Applied Behavior Analysis programs in the country. It's well known. But what would happen is people would come for that program. They would come to Michigan, but then they would leave for the jobs. Because there was other states that already had this kind of man mandate. So when you look at like California, Florida had the mandate. Indiana had the mandate. So people were receiving this service, but it just wasn't in Michigan or other states that didn't have the mandate.
Cliff Duvernois:So now you've got your master's degree. And at some point in time you decided to open up a facility. To help others. So the first question I got is, why open a facility? Why not just focus on your own son?
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:I love that question actually. I am such an empathic person. When I thought about how other parents might be struggling the way I was when I felt hopeless. That really breaks my heart. And I talked to God about it. I'm one of those people that do have conversations and I just felt as though I was okay with Aiden just the way he was. I had gotten past that hopeless feeling. And it didn't matter if he learned one more thing. I was fine and perfectly happy. We were gonna be okay. So for me, I had to make that choice because it is an all in on what I'm my, what I'm doing. And it did definitely take me away from my own children to do it. And that's where that came from and was deciding that I, I would hear horror stories. People that would reach a point of hopelessness and not be able to feel like they had any other options. And to me it was way more important that I could help those parents because we were okay now. Yes, I did not put Aiden in ABA therapy. I, we kinda lived it. I. I. gained the skills. So he was continuously gaining skills just through our everyday life. Just in all of the ways I learned how to prompt and reinforce. We lived that life and I felt like other families needed to have the help more, more than we did. And when I did get out in 2014 out of grad school, I didn't have to necessarily open an autism center anymore because they were popping up everywhere because now there was funding. And so there was autism centers in Michigan and then we had Centria. And so there were companies everywhere coming to Michigan to provide these services now. and I thought, well, that, that's good. This was four years at this point, I believe, of just really hard work sacrifice for me and my family. And now I could just take one of those jobs and chill out and have a, an easy go of it. So I spent my first year at another company. And it was hard for me at that point just because when it is these companies that are coming in because they see a financial opportunity and they're, coming in as big corporations owned by investors. It still fell off to me. It was like, yes, the service is here, but quality is, quality of that service isn't the number one priority. And so my husband and I talked about it and he didn't want me to, he was like, we've already sacrificed enough you know that, why do you wanna do this? It's all this risk. And after, really explaining to him, I don't think that I can be okay with not giving everything to that child because of, I don't know, saving money for shareholders or something. I was just too passionate about it. I was just, I can't do that. I gotta start a center to help families were in our same position. And so we did. And he, He decided to have trust that would work out. And we didn't know if it would. I had a nice paying job at that point. I got a master's degree, it was a big jump of faith too, to go ahead and take on this debt and start a center of our own.
Cliff Duvernois:Now, when you talk about starting that debt, talk to us about when you signed that first agreement to get your first building. Were you scared outta your mind?
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:I. at first I wasn't, I'm a, I feel like I have the entrepreneurial spirit where I feel, and I've also a very optimistic person, so I always think everything's gonna work. Everything's gonna be just fine. and I'm practical too. I write down the numbers and I'm like, it's gonna be fine, and here's why. However, it did not go as expected.
Cliff Duvernois:oh.
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:yeah. So. I got the building, had an open house. Everything seemed wonderful. I didn't have the knowledge on insurance companies and credentialing. And so we weren't getting any clients. And by December of that year, so we had purchased the building in June. By December of that year, all of our money was gone. Everything that we had got to start this company and my income. And we didn't even have money for buying Christmas presents that year. And we went to Dave's aunt and can we borrow $2,000? Who was gracious enough to let us borrow money. But keeping the faith, everything started to change around in January of of, I guess it would be 2016. Cause we started the company in 2015. And clients started to come and things just started to go really well. And we were helping a lot of kids. And also making a lot of staff passionate about this field. Many people that never worked with autistic individuals before. Many people, that didn't know what ABA was. And it's really cool now in 2023 to see how many people that started with me, in 2016, that fell in love with what they do and then continued their education too. Went and got their bachelor's degree,
Cliff Duvernois:Oh, nice.
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:Their master's degree. It's really cool to see.
Cliff Duvernois:What do you think was the point, the pivot point, because you were talking before about how basically up until December there was nobody, but all of a sudden in January people started coming. What do you attribute that to?
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:I didn't understand credentialing and contracts. There was some learning curve. And we did need to have credentialing and contracts with all these different insurance providers. So that's basically what we were spending our time doing. But that's a process that I didn't anticipate, that sometimes it can take three to six months to get credentialed with an insurance provider. an insurance company. And so also to get to be able to bill to Medicaid, you have to go through the community of mental health. so then they have a whole process to get a contract with them. So yeah, it was just something that I did not anticipate going into it. I just thought, oh, we'll just offer the services and we'll just bill 'em out. No, that's not how it
Cliff Duvernois:Yeah. They'll send us a big check in the mail. No, that's not how that works at all. Oh, wow. That's, it's a, actually, that's, I didn't know that either. Now you're starting to really figure this business out. You're helping people. You're making a genuine impact in these people's lives. At some point in time you said to yourself, let's do this again. Let's open up a second facility. Why?
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:It's funny that the second one is I think a funny story. The second one, we opened is in Paw Paw, Michigan, which is very far from our location in Freeland, Michigan. The problem was, you know, how I went to school and got my master's degree? You have to do this service, you have to have a board certified behavior analyst. you'll hear the acronym B C B A And currently also have to be licensed. But those jobs were everywhere. But the number of people who could fill 'em were not. We would try. But we didn't have the kind of money to compete with some of these big companies. They were literally offering people you know, tropical vacations and a company car and way more than I could afford to pay as a small, tiny business. So I had met someone that really wanted to own her own center someday. And she had reached out for mentorship. But then she had a lot of doubts and she was nervous and she didn't know how to do the things. So I made an agreement with her. I said, if you'll come, she lived in down in Kalamazoo area, I think in Portage. If you'll come to Freeland for a year, I'll start a center down near you that you can run. And that was the, that's why we have PawPaw yep. And then later after that, she still wanted to have her very own thing, even though she was running PawPaw. So I helped mentor her to be able to start her own company. And she has several locations down in southwest Michigan now that provide ABA therapy. Beautiful. So it's like our passion too, to get other people excited about the field, teach them about how we like, the ways that we like to do it with the compassion, the respect, and making it fun. And then teaching those people and letting them go off into different directions and spread that kind of client first mentality, I guess you would say.
Cliff Duvernois:How many locations are you up to today?
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:So as of June 5th, that's when we opened our door to our fifth location. so,
Cliff Duvernois:Congratulations. Thank you. That is impressive. Now it's, it would be easy for somebody to sit there and say, of course you're billing the insurance companies. But I think the piece that's missing here is that if you weren't getting results for kids, they wouldn't keep bringing them here. Kinda like when you were talking about your beginning adventure there, it was hard to find someplace that could help you give Aiden the skills that he would need in life. And then you found ABA therapy. So talk to us a little bit about the parents and the families who are coming here. What, what is some of the feedback that you're getting from them?
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:Yeah, we get really good feedback. from our parents. We do feedback surveys as well, but I think some of the the things that I have been most excited about are when we do something that is like so impactful for the family, like when we work on something that just makes life so much better for them. So it could be like a, this might sound silly, but I did a program with, a little boy on the dentists. So that they didn't have to put him under for surgery. And so then it's so exciting when we've been working on this for six months and then he is able to tolerate that dental procedure. So there's all sorts of good memories I have from parents that will reach out and say oh, my child did this. The people that work for me are constantly posting. We have these little work chats that we talk about. And they're like talking about their parents texted that, little Jimmy made it the whole weekend without any accidents. We work on toileting with kids, and I gotta tell you, I remember that as a autism mom my son was six before he was potty trained. You don't think about even though potty training is hard for any kid, when you add a disability on, it can take that much longer. And so imagine, you're changing diapers of a six year old. It can be life changing when that happens. So that's the kind of things I get excited about is when I hear parents just so excited about something that happened that changed their world, that opened it up a little bit, I guess you would say.
Cliff Duvernois:Now, Lisa, I understand that the ABA therapy has been around since roughly about the eighties. So why don't you talk to us a little bit about maybe some of the things that ABA started with, but how has it grown today and why you personally have staked your business on this?
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:There have been a lot of changes, especially in the last, I would say five years. And it's really what we're supposed to do as scientists are to like take new information and improve the science, right? So a long time ago, they would do things that were criticized by people with autism like In ABA, like forced eye contact, forcing children to look at at you in the eye. They would maybe do mass compliance trials and, and really kind of creating what teachers used to refer to as like, okay, well they have skills but they act like a robot. And that was a common criticism of early A B A. So how things have changed over the years is today's A B A is very compassionate and respectful, or it should be. It is focusing on the most socially significant outcomes for the child and not on just massive compliance. And you just have to fit into society. And I think you can see that all over our world right now. Luckily, people become more accepting over the last 20 years as well. And with that, the ABA needs to change. We don't need to do what they did back in the eighties and like, oh, well, you know, they're gonna get kicked outta the restaurant if they make like strange noises or something like that. Today, we can say, you know, they can make strange noises. That's just what they like to do. We're not working on anything that isn't socially significant in helping this child to gain new skills that they would likely want to have. And if they are able to give consent, we ask them, do you wanna work on this? And it's just like, um, what you and I might do if we went to get therapy for something that we wanted to work on. Right? And so that's the biggest change in in ABA today.
Cliff Duvernois:If I was a parent that had a child with autism and I was thinking about ABA, or maybe I'm listening to this interview and I never even heard about it before, whatever it is, what are some of the things that I would need to think about?
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:Okay, so I would ask them if you went to a center, I would ask them about their turnover rate. In our field, it's, since it can be a very challenging job at times, it has a high, a high turnover rate. The national average is 63%. So if you can ask the company that you're considering going to what theirs is. Hopefully it would be much lower than that national average. And I would ask that because people don't stay employed as a behavior specialist or technician, um, if it's not good at ABA because they just wouldn't. So turnover rates huge to ask about. Also, just being in the environment are, if you go do a tour, are you hearing kids screaming everywhere or are you hearing kids laughing? I would wanna hear kids laughing. And not that that some, some kids won't have to work through some maybe a difficult, you know, tantrum or something. But in general you can walk through a facility and you should see laughter and fun being had. And then also the reliance on what I would call extra unnecessary reinforcers. So that would be, you know, kids just staring at a device like an iPad or something. So if they're, if you were doing a tour and there were a lot of kids looking at their iPads, that means they're u using that as a reward and there's possible side effects of that. Or if they're using food as a reward. Um, that there's side effects to that that parents don't think about. So I would try to avoid that kind of ABA. And then know that there's also other options besides A B A that some kids would benefit from, um, as well. So to look at all of your options and say, is this right? The ABA is intensive, and that's not right for everyone. Many of our clients come to us 30 hours a week, one-on-one. For some kids that would be too much. And so you might consider other therapies that, um, might also help and are less, um, intensive.
Cliff Duvernois:Because ABA is a tool that parents have access to, but it is not the tool.
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:Correct. Yes. And you can find out lots more tools by visiting the Autism Alliance of Michigan's site too, that.
Cliff Duvernois:Why don't you talk to us about your thoughts on the future?
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:Spectrum is going to continue to grow because the need is so great. Specifically, we're starting in Wyoming, Michigan, which is near Grand Rapids. We're opening a center. The children with Medicaid in that county, it's Kent County, have to go through the CMH there, which is called Network 180. They currently have over 400 kids with autism waiting for services.
Cliff Duvernois:Oh wow.
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:It's so sad in the fact that some of them are just desperate for wanting someone to help. I told you how I felt very desperate and trying to figure out how do I help my child. And then you're just on a waiting list for two years. We just started a, did an assessment for a client down there that's gonna start with us. And they were on that list for two years, just waiting. So yeah, we're gonna continue to grow, as we can. I'm, it's just me. I don't have investors and I don't want investors for the reasons I mentioned earlier. So you can't just like grow so fast that you can help all those 400 kids. But we're definitely gonna do our part, right? Everything we can do and what's really cool about that location and our pa other PawPaw location is we're leasing inside of churches. Yeah, and it's such a cool thing with the Wyoming. When my husband was taking my son down there, the my son Aiden who has autism. And they were going just for fun to Dave and Busters. And I'm like, Hey, they have a great need down there. When you're down there, where you look around, see if maybe there's any churches, they were going during the week that look like they have a Sunday school but that it's not a school. And, one of the first places he came to, he contacted him and it was Pastor Dean who has a child, an adult child with autism. And they were immediately like, yes. Yes. Come use our church, our Sunday school area during the week to help these kids. So it's really exciting. We see like lots of ways that we can continue to help when there's a need.
Cliff Duvernois:Leasa, if somebody's listening to this and they wanna reach out. Or they wanna learn more about the services you offer, maybe for a family member, what would be the best way for them to do that?
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:So I would offer two things. One, they could go to our website, which is spectrum autism center.com. If they wanted specific information or to learn more about our story. I would also like to give the resources of the Autism Alliance of Michigan. Because there's people all over the state. And we might not be there, but they might be wanting more information. And what Autism Alliance of Michigan does is they have a, like a navigator, on their website of all the different services that are available in Michigan to people with autism. And they also have a phone number and they'll help those parents, direct them to wherever they need or who can help them. So I think that's a really great place for parents to go as well. If they want just, information about services in their area and they're not specifically maybe located in one of our areas.
Cliff Duvernois:Leasa, thank you so much for taking time to talk with us today. We really appreciate it. Thank you.
Leasa Androl, Spectrum Autism:Thanks again for having me.
Cliff Duvernois:And for our audience, you can just go to total michigan.com, click on Leasa's interview and you'll be able to see the links that she just mentioned above. We'll see you next time with another great story. See you then.
