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New facility for children with autism celebrates grand opening in Round Rock

Austin American-Statesman - 5/18/2021

A new support center that helps children with autism opened a new facility in on Wyoming Springs Drive in Round Rock on May 9.

Action Behavior Centers, a company founded in Austin in 2017, provides therapy for children on the autism spectrum to make improvements in verbal and nonverbal communication, life skills and behavioral challenges, according to its website.

"We really got to celebrate it because we know how much this will mean to so many families," said Whitney Jones, office manager at the new facility on Wyoming Springs Drive in Round Rock. "Our North Austin area in particular has always had a high need from families for our services, so it was great to know that our team worked so hard to push this along as fast as possible to get our Wyoming Springs location open as soon as possible for these families."

With 45 locations across the United States, CEO Hersh Sanghavi said the new Wyoming Springs center is the ninth in Texas.

"We support pediatric patients as young as 18 months to 12 years old that have been diagnosed on the autism development spectrum," Sanghavi said. "We're the largest provider of ABA (applied behavior analysis) therapy in the state of Texas."

The new center has a variety of learning environments, ranging from smaller therapy rooms for a more direct one-on-one experience, large play rooms and arts and crafts areas.

"Families will drop off their child first thing in the morning with staff waiting for them, and they go through a full day of different activities and the parents pick up their child at the end of the day," Sanghavi said.

RELATED: Action Behavior Center plans to help train more specialists, reducing student loan debt

Sanghavi said the facility will continue its COVID-19 protocols amid the ongoing pandemic for its patients and staff.

"A year ago, we implemented temperature checks, the basic sanitary protocols and proactive testing three times a week for our staff and patients," Sanghavi said.

Jones said the Wyoming Springs location will require the same protocols from when the pandemic started.

"We sanitize and clean the center every day, as we have people who are sanitizing the play area, toys that kids are playing with throughout the day," Jones said. "As we've gone through this pandemic, levels have changed over the last year where sometimes the cases are higher or dip down, but we have remained consistent in our protocols and how we're handling this pandemic."

Families who are interested in the services can contact the center at (512) 720-7210 or visit their its website at actionbehavior.com.

"Austin is our hometown and it was created because in the state of Texas there are more than 150,000 kids that are living with autism yet there are only 8,000 that are serviced so there is a massive gap between services available versus the number of kids that need help," Sanghavi said. "Access is a major issue and so our hope to adding this additional center in Round Rock is so we can continue to provide hope and access to care for families."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: New facility for children with autism celebrates grand opening in Round Rock

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