About the Owners
Acorn Autism is locally owned by an LPA / HSP-PA / BCBA and her husband, who live in the Sanford area and are building Acorn as a long-term part of the central North Carolina community.
The BCBA owner brings more than 25 years of experience working with children with autism across educational, psychological, medical, and clinical settings. Her husband brings extensive experience in technology, business operations, and building strong systems.
We have no private equity investors or outside business partners. As a Christian family, we believe we are accountable for doing what is right for the children and families we serve—not simply what is most profitable.
Our goal is to build a place where we want to work, where good clinicians can do their best work, and where children make meaningful progress because decisions are driven by their needs.
Why We Started Acorn Autism
We started Acorn Autism to create the kind of care environment we believe children and families deserve.
We wanted a clinic that is smaller, consistent, and thoughtfully run—where clinical decisions are guided by what is best for each child, and where families feel known and supported over time.
Our goal is to provide care that is practical, meaningful, and focused on real-life skills, while also creating a workplace where staff feel supported and able to do their best work.
We are here to do what is right for children, and we measure success by the progress they make and the support we provide to their families.
Our Commitment to Excellence
At Acorn Autism, we are committed to providing high-quality, consistent care for every child we serve.
In many settings, individuals providing 1:1 ABA therapy may not be required to hold a formal credential. At Acorn, all direct-care staff are Registered Behavior Technicians (RBTs), regardless of minimum insurance requirements. We believe this provides a stronger foundation in training, consistency, and accountability.
Our commitment goes beyond initial certification. We invest in ongoing staff development through regular, in-depth training and collaboration. As a team, we review clinical concepts, refine teaching strategies, and work together to ensure consistency across staff and programs.
This level of training is not required by insurance and is not reimbursed—it is something we choose to invest in because quality care depends on well-trained, well-supported people.
Our BCBA owner has worked with autistic learners from early diagnosis through adolescence and adulthood—including some of the same learners across decades. That experience has shaped how we think about early intervention. We have seen what our learners are capable of, which skills become especially important as they grow, and the difference it can make when meaningful skills are taught early.
We believe deeply in the potential of our learners. Over the years, our founder has worked with young children who began with little or no functional communication and significant challenging behavior that interfered with daily life, and later watched many of those same learners earn regular high school diplomas, find meaningful work, and live with far greater independence then others might have imagined when they were young. Every child’s path is different, but those experiences have taught us never to underestimate what a child may be capable of with thoughtful, effective teaching and time to grow.
For us, early intervention is not simply about starting young or filling a child’s day with therapy. It is about using that time well—building functional communication, independence, play and social engagement, safety, learning, and school-readiness skills that children can carry with them into the next environment and throughout their lives.
We believe the quality of a child’s progress depends both on what we teach and on the quality of the people teaching it.
Our Commitment to our team
At Acorn Autism, we believe that the quality of care a child receives is directly tied to the quality and stability of the team working with them.
We are committed to building a workplace where staff feel supported, valued, and able to do their best work. This includes providing consistent schedules, ongoing training, and a collaborative environment where staff can continue to learn and grow.
All of our direct-care staff are Registered Behavior Technicians (RBTs), and we invest in ongoing training through regular team meetings and clinical development. When sessions are canceled or schedules shift, staff remain engaged in meaningful work, including collaboration, preparation, and program consistency, rather than losing hours.
We also prioritize stability by offering full-time staff predictable income and benefits, including comprehensive health insurance. Our goal is to create a workplace where staff can stay, grow, and build lasting relationships with the children and families they serve.
This commitment to our team directly supports our commitment to families—because consistent, well-supported staff lead to better outcomes for children.