Jarvis Mercer

Dr. Amanda Kelly: How Behaviorbabe Became ABA’s Most Recognized Ethics Voice Online

March 29, 2026 · 6:00 PM

Known across the ABA community as Behaviorbabe, Dr. Amanda N. Kelly is a BCBA-D, ethics expert, and the first licensed behavior analyst in Hawaii. With a podcast surpassing one million downloads, a…

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University of Oregon MS in ABA: The Program That Made Culturally Responsive Practice a Curriculum Requirement

March 29, 2026 · 2:00 PM

The University of Oregon's MS in Applied Behavior Analysis is the only program in this field that has built culturally responsive practice and the preparation of clinicians for racially and ethnically minoritized…

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Simmons Online MS Posts 78% First-Attempt BCBA Pass Rate in 2024, 24 Points Above National Average

March 29, 2026 · 12:01 PM

The Boston university's 20-month online Master of Science in Behavior Analysis — ABAI-accredited through 2030 — reports a 2024 first-attempt rate of 78% against a national first-attempt average of 54%.

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Pepperdine University MS in ABA: ABAI-Verified, No GRE, and Done in as Few as 12 Months

March 29, 2026 · 8:00 AM

Pepperdine University's online MS in Applied Behavior Analysis combines a nationally recognized private university brand with one of the most accelerated timelines in the field. ABAI program verification, no GRE requirement, and…

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Northeastern University MS in ABA: One of the Oldest Programs in the Country – and One of the Highest-Passing

March 28, 2026 · 6:00 PM

Northeastern University's MS in Applied Behavior Analysis has been training behavior analysts since before most online ABA programs existed. Its 76% first-time BCBA exam pass rate — 22 percentage points above the…

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Dr. Mary Barbera: How a Nurse-Turned-BCBA Built the Most Trusted Parent-Facing ABA Brand Online

March 28, 2026 · 2:00 PM

Dr. Mary Lynch Barbera holds a doctorate-level BCBA certification, a nursing degree, and a personal stake in autism as the mother of a son with autism. Her Turn Autism Around brand, which…

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Indiana’s Self-Reporting Ultimatum: FSSA Secretary Roob Gave ABA Providers Until April 3 to Confess

March 28, 2026 · 12:38 PM

Indiana Family and Social Services Administration Secretary Mitch Roob held a tense meeting with ABA industry stakeholders in mid-March 2026, requiring providers to self-report any practices that could constitute fraud, waste, or…

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Paige Layle: The Most-Followed Autistic Voice on TikTok and What Her Platform Means for ABA’s Public Perception

March 28, 2026 · 12:01 PM

With 2. 7 million TikTok followers and a bestselling memoir, Paige Layle has become the most prominent autistic self-advocate in the social media landscape.

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Florida: The ABA Industry’s Preferred State – and the Risks That Come With It

March 28, 2026 · 8:00 AM

Florida has the fourth-largest autism population in the nation, an early insurance mandate, a Medicaid program projected to spend more than $2. 6 billion on ABA therapy in a single fiscal year,…

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The Sleep-Autism Connection: Why BCBAs Are Becoming the Default Sleep Therapists for Autistic Children

March 27, 2026 · 6:00 PM

Research consistently finds that 50 to 80 percent of autistic children experience significant sleep disturbances - a rate far exceeding the general pediatric population. Behavioral sleep interventions are the most evidence-supported treatment…

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The Braff Group: The Firm That Prices ABA Deals – and Has for 25 Years

March 27, 2026 · 2:00 PM

No advisory firm has shaped the ABA M&A market longer or more visibly than The Braff Group. With more than 375 completed healthcare transactions and the most widely cited deal data in…

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The BCBA Ethics Code Revision: What Changed, What Didn’t, and What It Means for Practice

March 27, 2026 · 12:01 PM

The BACB’s 2022 Ethics Code replaced an eight-year-old compliance framework with a principles-driven document that restructured clinician obligations, strengthened supervisee protections, and introduced explicit dignity language for the first time. This is…

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AI Autism Screening Tools: Three Startups, One FDA Question, and a Lot of Families Hoping

March 27, 2026 · 8:00 AM

A growing number of companies are building AI-powered tools that promise to cut the time between first concern and autism diagnosis from years to weeks. Cognoa’s Canvas Dx became the first to…

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New York’s ABA Crisis: Medicaid Rates, OPWDD, and Why the Empire State Is Losing Providers

March 26, 2026 · 6:00 PM

New York was the 49th state to cover ABA under Medicaid, launching the benefit in August 2021 after years of advocacy. Less than four years later, the state is cutting the technician…

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California’s ABA Market: The Largest in the World, and the Hardest to Operate In

March 26, 2026 · 12:01 PM

California accounts for roughly 15 percent of all national demand for Board Certified Behavior Analysts, has the highest recorded autism prevalence among any CDC monitoring site, and runs the most structurally complex…

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Tara Phillips and Autism Little Learners: An SLP’s 25-Year Bridge Between Speech Therapy and ABA

March 26, 2026 · 8:00 AM

Tara Phillips is a licensed speech-language pathologist with more than 25 years of clinical experience supporting young autistic children. Her platform, Autism Little Learners, has grown to more than 91,000 Instagram followers,…

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Georgia’s ABA Desert: Why One of America’s Most Populous States Is Underserved

March 26, 2026 · 2:00 AM

Georgia ranks among the top five states in the nation for BCBA demand, yet its 159 counties include vast rural stretches with no behavior analysts at all. A combination of partial Medicaid…

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Sasha Long and The Autism Helper: How a BCBA Built One of ABA’s Most Influential Media Platforms

March 25, 2026 · 6:00 PM

Sasha Long holds a master’s degree and a BCBA credential. She is also a former special education teacher, the founder of The Autism Helper Inc.

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Mertz Taggart: The Behavioral Health Boutique That Keeps Setting the Offer Record

March 25, 2026 · 2:00 PM

Naples-based Mertz Taggart has built one of the most active behavioral health M&A practices in the country, publishing the quarterly market reports that compete most directly with The Braff Group’s data and…

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Indiana Billed $340,000 Per Patient to an Autism Clinic. Now It’s Shutting That Clinic Out of Medicaid.

March 25, 2026 · 1:07 PM

Indiana has moved to terminate Medicaid billing rights for one of the nation’s highest-billing autism therapy providers — acting two weeks after investigative reporting exposed a $340,000 per-patient billing average that immediately…

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The ABA Revenue Cycle Management Industry: A $2 Billion Back-Office Business Built on ABA’s Complexity

March 25, 2026 · 11:59 AM

Applied behavior analysis may be the most billing-intensive specialty in outpatient healthcare. Time-based CPT codes billed in 15-minute increments, heavy prior authorization requirements that vary by payer and state, modifier rules that…

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Direct ABA Diagnosis: Why Some States Allow BCBAs to Diagnose – and What Happens When They Do

March 25, 2026 · 8:00 AM

A small but growing number of states have expanded BCBA scope of practice to include autism diagnostic evaluations, a move that expands access in diagnosis-starved regions but draws sharp objections from psychology…

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Online BCBA Programs: The Accreditation Question That Will Define the Next Generation of Clinicians

March 24, 2026 · 6:00 PM

The first-time BCBA exam pass rate has dropped from 66 percent in 2020 to 51 percent in 2025. The number of training programs reporting data has grown to 192.

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The ABC Academy Model: Can School-Age Bridge Programs Solve the Graduation Cliff?

March 24, 2026 · 2:00 PM

The ABA industry has built a massive infrastructure for early intervention - but what happens when a child turns five and enters school? For most families, the answer has been a abrupt…

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The ABA Billing Fraud Playbook: The 7 Schemes That Keep Appearing in Federal Indictments

March 24, 2026 · 12:01 PM

Ghost sessions, forged signatures, credential laundering, kickbacks for patient recruitment - the same fraud patterns appear in DOJ charging documents and OIG audit findings from Minnesota to Massachusetts to Connecticut. A forensic…

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The Autism Family Financial Toll: What ABA Therapy Actually Costs Out of Pocket

March 24, 2026 · 8:00 AM

For families without comprehensive insurance coverage, a full-prescription course of ABA therapy can exceed $60,000 to $120,000 per year-or more. A ground-level examination of the math, the coverage gaps that create it,…

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The HHS-OIG ABA Audit Wave: How Federal Investigators Found $133M in Improper Billing in Indiana Alone

March 23, 2026 · 6:00 PM

The HHS Office of Inspector General’s December 2024 audit of Indiana Medicaid ABA is the first of a planned seven-state federal review series - and in every state completed so far, auditors…

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The Autism Family Waitlist Crisis: How Families Are Actually Coping Right Now

March 23, 2026 · 2:00 PM

The average ABA waitlist is measured in months - sometimes more than a year. In that time, children lose ground, parents improvise, and a multi-billion-dollar industry demonstrates that it has built capacity…

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Assent-Based ABA: The Practice Reform That’s Becoming Standard

March 23, 2026 · 12:01 PM

For decades, ABA therapy operated on parent consent alone. A child’s willingness to participate was treated as secondary. That is changing fast, and assent is becoming one of the clearest fault lines…

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Early Diagnosis at 14 Months: What New Research on Infant ASD Screening Means for Early Intervention

March 23, 2026 · 8:09 AM

The nationwide average age at autism diagnosis is still 47 months. New research shows reliable identification is possible by 14 to 20 months - if pediatricians screen the right way.

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