Big shoutout to McKenna and Paige representing AST in San Diego. They were exceptional from start to finish. Informative, professional, patient, thorough, enthusiastic, and cool. I feel confident and optimistic knowing these two women are part of the AST team advocating for my 4 year old son. read more

I've had the pleasure of working with the team at Autism Spectrum Therapies providing 1:1 ABA services for a student at my preschool and they are phenomenal! As a preschool Director, I've worked with similar programs in the past and AST is by far the most efficient and professional. From evaluation to service delivery, the entire process was seamless. The team is in constant communication with my staff and the level of collaboration is excellent! Also want to shout out the amazing tech & BCBA they sent over for one specific kiddo. They really matched personality and we've seen huge progress in a short amount of time because the team is such a great fit. You can tell their hearts are truly in their work and they show up with a positive, solution-focused attitude every day! Would highly recommend working with them and they will be my first referral in the future! read more

I can not recommend AST enough! My son has been working with them for a few years now for behavioral therapy, and the progress we've seen has been incredible. Catherine, Cecilia, Brenda, Melissa and Jenny have been incredibly skilled at working with children, and they have helped my son develop new coping mechanisms and communication skills that have made a huge difference in our daily lives. They are all patient, kind, and truly invested in my son's progress. They take the time to listen to our concerns and answer any questions we have, and they are always willing to adjust our approach if something isn't working. I appreciate how they include us in the therapy process and help us understand what our son is working on in each session. Overall, we're so grateful to have found AST and would recommend Catherine, Brenda, Cecila, Melissa, and Jenny to anyone looking for a skilled and compassionate behavioral therapist." My only wish is that they can expand to having a bigger place to do a large social skills group or like a pre k for kinds like my son Benji! We appreciate all that you all do so much! read more

I cannot say enough great things about AST! My team was blessed with a great team! They gave me hope! My younger twin went from barely speaking, she was quiet and now so social well behaved and is excelling at life as well as her twin! It's day and night! If you're on the fence about ABA don't be AST was 100% worth it! read more

We've been using AST now for over two years and I have to say they have been WONDERFUL! We had originally been given another ABA company but after repeatedly trying to get a hold of them I was referred to AST. I was quickly able to set up an initial appointment and within a couple weeks we were assigned a therapist and off we went! My kiddo has steadily progressed and the patience the therapists have with him make them saints in my eyes!! They have worked closely with me and my husband and have set realistic goals. They have always taken the time to listen to our concerns and address them. I highly recommend them!! read more

This company is not very good and I absolutely, whole heartedly do not recommend it as a ABA company for your family. It is the culture and management of AST. The BI's are not trained well, not paid well (due to the low hours assigned), made up of very young people and not well supervised. When you happen to get a good BI they move, or go to a better job that gives them more hours, or get promoted. AST assigns you a BI/ BCBA team. Working with a company like AST really isn't an ideal situation for families because once you are aware, educated, experienced with ASD the people they assign you (the majority of the time, unless your lucky or you know someone in management at AST) know less and are less experienced than you. The best BI's are only available during school hours M-F and it is the luck of the draw who AST assigns to you. The BCBA's have large caseloads and each individual family is of little major concern. The less hours your child has, the less they can bill the insurance, and the less your child matters, which is a management/ culture problem at AST. The parent training is nonexistent, but they bill for it and are required to provide this service stipulated in the plans submitted to insurance. The goals are from a bank and are rarely individualized to actually benefit the child with ASD. The only time you actually receive better services from AST is if you stay on top of the BCBA, demand certain goals, demand parent trainings, and are a case manager. I have received services from this company for 3 years and canceled today because I am tired of being assigned BI's that are under trained/ inexperienced and BCBA's that are under trained/ inexperienced and unable to supervise their caseloads appropriately due to the sheer volume of their assignments. The BCBAs large caseloads are another management/ culture problem at AST. My insurance at one point was paying them 8000 per month and more. So when AST was receiving close to or more than 100,000 per year for my child AST management was more accommodating with who they assigned to our case. Once his hours decreased and he aged, service providers diminished in quality, less supervision was provided and the overall quality of ABA continued to degrade to an unbearable degree. I only stayed at AST because the BI at my son's typical school was good, consistent, and we were fearful of him getting kicked out of the typical placement. Now that she isn't at his school any longer my family is done with this awful company and situation. A note to AST: AST, you need to put families and kids with ASD first. You need to stop charging insurance companies for services that you have not provided. AST you need to hire and train better BI's. AST, maybe if you gave your BI's more hours they would stay and be more consistent for families/ kids with ASD. AST you need to lower the caseloads of your BCBA's so they can actually help families and individualize programs for each family. My child is not a pay check or a number. Please improve and change the culture of your company and management as a whole because as it stands now you are not providing high quality and consistent ABA services as advertised. read more

BEWARE of their billing practices! For 3 years they never sent me a bill for my copays, then suddenly I get a bill for over $1,000 worth of copays! I fired them months ago, and I am still getting copay bills! I haven't been with this company for awhile now and I am STILL getting bills!!! They also over over charged my insurance company a few times, and when the insurance company made them pay the money back, they tried to charge me the difference!!! I think this is a decent company if you have the "typical" Autistic child. If your child has any severe behaviors (biting, kicking, spitting) this is NOT the company for you. Their main therapy technique is to ignore the behavior. This may work in a sterile environment, but when your child has siblings or goes to school, you can't expect the behavior to be ignored. They don't have any other techniques to fall back on if ignoring the behavior doesn't work. I also don't think their therapists are really trained in "actively ignoring" a behavior. One of their therapists locked my child in her room for a whole 2 hours session because she was having a meltdown. The whole 2 hours she played on her iPhone. Another issue I have with the company is that they do not do car ride therapy. My child has violent tantrums in the car, and we really needed help in this situation. They said it was unethical for them to do therapy during a car ride. Turn over in this company is also very high! In one month we had 3 different therapists quit on us. It seemed like we were going through the "getting to know you" phase for months. When our last therapist gave her 2 weeks notice, I wasn't informed by the company that she was quitting or that they had a replacement until her last session. I had even contacted our supervisor via text, email and voicemail that I wanted to know if they had a new therapist ready to pick up our case. It wasn't until I told them that I was going to start interviewing other companies that they started returning my phone calls. If you want a company who cares about the caliber of their employees that they hire, this is not the company for you. Most of the therapists we had were straight out of school. Not a single one had any real life experience having children of their own, and most were under 25 years old. We were with this company for 4 years. In the beginning they were great, but over the last 2 years the quality of the treatment and therapists has declined quickly. I am really glad I changed companies. read more

We were with them for 3 months and they were very rude, they didn't work with us and they wanted to make it a just themselves program, not including us. We need it help we are already going through hard moments as a family, they were supposed to make it a little tiny bit easier and all they did was make it worse, and because of that my son missed more than a year without ABA services, now we have another company that is actually helping us. read more

This company has negligently handled the billing of my son's Autism therapies since May 2016. Around July 2016 I began received one bill from AST for about $2000. There was no explanation in the letter or a breakdown of the cost or why I owed them money. I called about 15 times in a month to try to get ahold of billing and no one returned my calls and multiple emails to them as well with no response. Over the next few months a received the same bill for the same amount with no explanation. Finally after confirming it was real and consulting with SDRC I was encouraged to try and find the reason behind this bill. I finally got a hold of AST and was told I would get a call back. Instead, a received a letter in the mail with an attached bill, this time for $6090. I reached out again and received an email response saying my insurance company was responsible for billing me and that they would be cancelling my son's services. A few curse riddled emails back to them and I FINALLY receive a breakdown of this new bill dating all the way back to May 2016 to current. NOT ONCE did I receive an itemized bill for my son's sessions from AST or my health insurance. I filed a grievance with Sharp to investigate why I was never notified of these charges on a monthly or even session basis. Sharp then informed me that @autismtherapies had lied and it was their responsibility to inform me of the out of pocket cost and send an itemized projected bill before the contract started & a final itemized monthly bill. AST has refused to contact me back on why they failed to do all of this and gave me false information. INSTEAD, I have received a letter saying that they will be cancelling his therapies services and sending the bill to collections even though I WAS JUST INFORMED OF THIS AMOUNT and they will not be waiting to see the results of my grievance with my health insurance. AST your company's poor management has not only hurt me financially, but has effected the structure and stability of my son's schedule and life. Ignore my emails and my phone calls, but your company will be held accountable. The company has contacted me with generic responses as you see below, but STILL no explanation on why I was never notified of the copays or received bills appropriately. I also received a nasty email complaining about my consist inquiries. read more

Autism Spectrum Therapies AST - The billing department accidentally sent this to me. - Counseling & Mental Health Near Me - San Diego, California

After a good deal of research and five months of superior service and therapy, I can tell you that AST's program is the very best. The approach is inclusive, individual, and pays incredible attention to detail. They give my child a thorough tool box of skills so that he can build the logic for himself and truly learn. Their programs help the child, the parents, and the family. We've incorporated so many of the supervisor's ideas into our daily living and family games. AST works with the family to really develop an approach to teaching a child with autism that compliments the family, enhances a child's strengths and supports their weaknesses. Plus their game/date night on Fridays is amazing for parents and their children... for the first time I feel safe leaving my son! The entire staff both locally and corporate wide have helped me help my child and I just can't say enough great things. These people REALLY care about what they do, and it shows. read more

My 12 y.o. Is on the spectrum and has ADHD. We came to AST because he was having a very difficult time adjusting to middle school. Since starting services, we have seen a palpable improvement. My son's school sent me a print out in graph form of his points for the year. It was amazing to have visual confirmation of what we knew to be true; the therapy is helping! My son is less argumentative and more helpful and organized. Every request is no longer followed by a fight! And my son has his first crush on his service provider! He actually looks forward to the days that she comes. His therapist is awesome and has been in frequent communication with my son's teachers so that we are implementing the same techniques at home and at school. I cannot say enough about what this company has done for my son and family! read more

My son has been going to the facility in New Orleans and they seem very helpful and nice no issues yet the therapists and staff are very helpful and understanding I love it so far and my son does as well read more

We have been using AST's ABA services for over a year now, and we couldn't be more pleased! We have had the best therapists, and more importantly our supervisor Anthony Pavlacka has been the greatest asset to our ABA services! He has been our biggest support from day one, always offering a positive side even when things get tough, helping to guide our BI's (therapists), as well as coming up with an individualized plan that has done nothing but help my son in everyday life! My son has come a long way from where we started back in February 2014, and I credit a lot of our success to the amazing team we've had! I would strongly (& have) recommended AST to anyone who is looking to receive services! They've been helpful from day one, and continue to impress on a daily basis! read more

If you are a parent/guardian that wants to be involved in your family member's program, this is NOT the place for you.This company does not care to address parent input. Website advertises parent involvement being welcomed, but they run goals of their choice. There is no accountability when the Behavior Interventionist (B.I.) does not follow through with program goals. B.I. data reliability is questionable as well as the B.I.'s basic practices of ABA. One B.I. was tracking a tantrum under a stimmulatory behavior, another one was sending my child on break for half of the session, one B.I. came dressed ( regularly) in shirts that would reveal an entire bra cup or pants that would reveal her but crack ( without her having to bend down), very unprofessional!!! They consider a 9-month B.I. a long-timer, so don't expect consistency in the staff that comes to your home.This company has MANY inexperienced B.I.s that struggle, and the program supervisors do not provide the training needed to help the B.I. (probably because they don't expect them to make it to 9 months). SD AST Clinical Director does not care to work with the parents, she just allows the supervisors to handle issues as they wish. Their first solution will be to just reassign your B.I. to someone else, instead of training the B.I. ( that way they still bill for hours somewhere else), and put your family on a list for someone to eventually come to your home and hold sessions for you-it's so easy for them to remove the B.I. from your home the minute you start to notice they are inadequate. Also a few employees from the San Diego AST staff came from Bridges (ABA therapy), so you will face a conflict of interest issue should you try to escalate any concerns to the clinical director (person above your program supervisor). Our supervisor said she didn't even have to interview for her job because the clinical director was her already her friend from Bridges-so when we escalated or issues to her supervisor, you can imagine we got nowhere. Definitely not the place for quality ABA services since staff friendships are more important over holding their employees accountable when program issues arise. Beyond disappointed with the practices of this ABA provider, hope this helps any new parents/guardians that are thinking about signing up for services here. read more

Terrible company to choose for Autism services for older children. Management and directors of San Diego branch are neglectful, and unresponsive. They employee many therapists that should have no business working with children. They have not only failed my child with therapy services after a long time wonderful therapist unexpectedly was given a promotion, they also have charged me for services never rendered, and "accidentally" sent clients to collections. From the billing dept to the director you will never get problems resolved. They have also been unresponsive in my request to view my child's data and reports. I made a decision to give my services to another company for my older child due to the fact they said they had no one to service him and things were not going well in my home with the current girl they had placed, from grabbing my child to nasty comments she made, nothing was ever done to rectify the issues. Supervisor even kept sending her time sheet with the therapists for me to sign, yet was unresponsive to my requests to view data and reports. Look elsewhere, in hindsight the only reason we stayed for a few yrs was because we had an amazing therapist who did his job as well as the job of the Supervisor and we never had issues. It wasn't until he left, the cracks began to show. read more

weve been with ast fol like 5-6 years now. supervisors are great and the therapists are always good. very happy here. weve been with several other providers and this one is for us. read more