12-24 weeks program • 5+ hours per month • All ages
Therapy for profound support needs
Individualized support for profound autism, focused on safety, communication, daily living, and quality of life for your whole family.
how we help
Support that works with your family
Complex needs don’t need a more rigid plan. They need a smarter one — individualized, flexible, and designed to work inside the routines your family already has.
One dedicated
provider
One provider who doesn’t just know your child’s file — they know what 3pm looks like at your house.
Progress that
matters
We build skills to fit into your everyday routines – mealtimes, bedtimes, family activities, the moments that matter most.
Support from
home
Video visits mean no waiting rooms, no clinic transitions, and no extra travel — just practical support where life happens.
What we help with
The hardest
parts of your day
The moments that no one fully prepares you for — and that most providers don’t address with enough depth or honesty. We work here.
Understanding what's driving the behavior — not just managing it. We help you build proactive strategies that reduce crises and protect everyone's safety.
Your child is communicating, with or without words. We help you read signals, respond to them, and build connection through the ways they already engage with the world.
Sleep, eating, toileting, getting dressed — the routines that shape your family's entire day. We build practical, sustainable strategies that fit your real life.
Sensory experiences that overwhelm, shut down, or dysregulate. We help you understand your child's sensory world and create environments where they can feel safe.
Request more information
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Our Team
Meet our VP of Clinical Services
“Families of children with profound autism are often told what their child can’t do. We start with what they can — and build from there, with the family at the center.”
— Dr. Nancy Langdon, VP, Avela Clinical Services
Frequently asked questions
What is the FIT™ program?
FIT™ is Avela’s individualized intervention and support program. Rather than starting with a diagnosis, a standard package of services, or a preset number of hours, we begin by understanding what is most affecting your child’s and family’s daily life.
Together, we identify meaningful priorities across areas such as communication, emotional regulation, health and wellbeing, daily routines, participation, autonomy, and safety. Your provider then develops a FIT™ Support Plan that explains what we will work on, how we will approach it, and what level of support is clinically recommended.
For children with profound autism or high support needs, this often means working closely with caregivers in the routines where challenges occur—such as getting dressed, eating, leaving the house, handling transitions, communicating needs, or staying safe. The goal is to improve communication, safety, participation, comfort, autonomy, and quality of life.
The focus and frequency of support can change over time. As your family makes progress or new needs emerge, we revisit the plan, adjust the intensity of services, and discuss whether additional in-person, medical, school-based, or specialty supports may also be needed.
What do you mean by ‘profound autism’ or ‘high support needs?’
Families and providers use several terms to describe autistic people who need substantial support. These terms overlap, but they do not mean exactly the same thing.
“Level 3” is a diagnostic description in the DSM-5TR indicating that a person requires very substantial support. It typically is assigned when a diagnosis is given although some providers may not assign a level, as they can be very subjective and a person may require significant support in some but not all areas. “High support needs” is a broader phrase that can describe people who need significant help in one or more areas of daily life. “Profound autism” is a term some families, advocates, and researchers use for autistic people with very significant communication, cognitive, adaptive, or safety needs.
A person with profound autism or high support needs may use few or no spoken words, have an intellectual disability or medical conditions, require help with personal care, or need close supervision to remain safe. However, no single profile describes everyone.
At Avela Health, we look beyond the label to understand the individual person: how they communicate, what they enjoy, where they are most comfortable, what is making daily life difficult, and what supports will improve safety, participation, connection, autonomy, and quality of life.
Does a Level 3 classification tell you what support my child needs?
Not by itself. A diagnostic level provides general information about how much support a person may need, but it does not tell us which supports will be most helpful.
Two children with the same severity level may have very different communication abilities, medical needs, sensory experiences, emotional needs, daily living skills, and safety concerns. Their families may also have different priorities and circumstances.
FIT™ begins with that fuller picture. We identify the specific factors affecting your child’s daily life and develop an individualized plan rather than assigning services based only on a diagnostic label.
Can Avela Health really support a child with profound autism over telehealth?
For many children and families, yes. Your child does not need to sit in front of a screen, answer questions, or participate in a conventional therapy session.
Avela Health’s approach is often caregiver-mediated. Your provider observes and learns about what happens during real routines—such as meals, dressing, transitions, leaving the house, play, or bedtime—and works with you to develop and test practical strategies in those settings. Your provider also can work with others who provide support to your child, such as providing consultation to teachers, and working closely with other specialists.
The goal is not to turn you into your child’s therapist or add a long list of assignments to your day. It is to help you understand what may be contributing to a challenge, make routines more manageable, strengthen communication and regulation, and use strategies that fit naturally into family life.
Telehealth is not the right or only service for every child. Some children also need hands-on, in-person, medical, speech-language, occupational, school-based, psychiatric, or crisis support. During intake, we will talk with you about whether FIT™ is an appropriate match and what additional services may be needed.
My child is minimally speaking or non-speaking. Is Avela Health right for us?
Using few or no spoken words does not prevent a child from participating in FIT™. Communication includes much more than speech, including AAC, gestures, facial expressions, movement, behavior, pictures, signs, and other individualized signals.
Your provider will work with you to understand how your child currently communicates and where communication may be breaking down. We can help families support the consistent use of an existing AAC system, strengthen functional communication within daily routines, and coordinate with a speech-language pathologist when specialized AAC assessment or treatment is needed.
You bring essential knowledge about your child’s history, preferences, and daily life. Your provider brings clinical expertise. Together, we develop supports that help your child express needs, make choices, connect with others, and participate more fully.
Does Avela Health offer ABA for high needs autism?
Avela Health is not a traditional comprehensive ABA program. FIT™ may incorporate focused applied behavior analytic (ABA) strategies, but it also draws on developmental, communication, emotional, family-based, and contextual approaches.
We do not begin with a predetermined recommendation for 25 to 40 hours of services each week. We determine the type and intensity of support from the child’s clinical needs, meaningful goals, and daily circumstances.
Compliance, appearing less autistic, and eliminating harmless autistic behaviors are not goals. We focus instead on outcomes such as communication, safety, emotional regulation, daily participation, autonomy, and family wellbeing. This may involve teaching new skills, changing routines or expectations, adding accommodations, strengthening communication, and helping caregivers respond differently.
Some families need intensive, hands-on, in-person ABA or other specialized services that Avela Health does not provide. When that is the case, we will say so directly and explain what kind of additional support may be appropriate.
We've had a bad experience with services before. How is this different?
If prior services felt dismissive, rigid, blaming, or harmful, we take that seriously. Families should understand what is being recommended, why it is being recommended, and how it is expected to help.
At Avela Health, you are an active partner in the support plan. Goals are based on what matters in your child’s and family’s daily life—not on making your child appear less autistic or comply without question.
We look at what can change around the child as well as what the child may need to learn. That may include adjusting expectations, modifying routines, introducing communication or sensory supports, and changing how adults respond.
You will work with a consistent provider whenever possible, receive a clear explanation of the plan, and regularly review whether the approach is helping. When something is not working, we revisit it rather than continuing simply because it is part of a standard program.
What does working with Avela Health look like from week to week?
You will meet regularly with your provider—and that person remains the same throughout the time you work with Avela. Sessions are shaped around your child’s current goals and what is happening in your family’s daily life.
A typical session might begin by reviewing how a routine or concern has been going since your last meeting. You and your provider may look together at what happened before, during, and after a difficult moment, identify what may be contributing, and decide what changes or supports to try next.
Depending on the goal, your provider may observe part of a real routine, watch a brief video you have chosen to share, demonstrate a strategy, or coach you as you try something with your child. Your child may participate directly when that is useful, but they do not need to remain on camera or engage in a traditional therapy session.
Together, you will agree on one or two practical next steps to use within routines you are already managing—not a long list of assignments. At future sessions, you will review what helped, what did not, and what needs to be adjusted.
The work may look different from week to week. One session may focus on communication during meals, another on making transitions safer, and another on helping your child participate in personal care with less distress. Throughout FIT™, your provider tracks progress with you and adjusts the plan as your child’s and family’s needs change.
Support is not limited to what happens at home. If your child is struggling at school, in an after-school program, or in another setting, your provider can—with your permission—meet with teachers, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, and others involved in your child’s care. Your provider can also coordinate with physicians, psychiatrists, and other healthcare professionals to help everyone understand the child’s needs, address problems together, and make the overall plan of care more connected.