In a candid interview with Forbes magazine mother turned entrepreneur Susan Butler explains how she turned her son’s autism diagnosis into her vocation for helping people with autism.
Ms Butler founded SCEAP (South Carolina Autism Project) which offer a range of intensive therapies for children from 21 months old to adults of 21 years of age with autism.
SCEAP uses therapies based on ABA (applied behaviour analysis) which nurtures basic skills such as social interaction, listening, communicating and emotional understanding to learn new skills, breaking down barriers which sometimes inhibit children and young adults with autism to learn.
Ms Butler’s son Collin was diagnosed with autism at two years old in 994, and her personal experience with autism drove her passion and understanding for helping people in similar situations.
During the interview with Forbes contributor Mike Kacsmar she talks about the shortage of qualified ABA therapists in South Carolina and Wisconsin which drove her passion for change.
She said:
“That feeling of helping other families and giving them hope was intoxicating to me. It fueled my leap to be an entrepreneur, and it fuels me every day. Now, Collin is an independent, successful, 21-year-old young man in college on academic scholarship and the wonderful by-product of the hard work and dedication from his amazing team of talented and loving therapists, led by Ann Eldridge — Collin’s angel and my incredible partner.”
Her journey into entrepreneurship has not been easy, and she talks about the effect of the Affordable care act that will be in force in 2014:
“We want an effective, research-based treatment model and protocol to be offered, but the autism treatment protocol is not a national standardized benefit and varies from state to state. We hope that the benefit doesn’t get reduced down once we go to a national health care system.”
The full interview can be found here.