Texana Center, headquartered in Rosenberg, was notified on March 7, that it received a highly competitive grant from the Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services (DARS) in the amount of $1.25 million to provide intensive services using applied behavior analysis (ABA) for children with autism ages 3 through 8.

The funding, which started April 1, will allow Texana Center to expand services provided through their Behavior Treatment and Training Center (BTTC) Day Treatment Program, located in Rosenberg. This state of the art program, which has been in operation for over four years, provides one-on-one treatment to children with autism 32.5 hours per week.

Research has shown that such an intensive program using ABA has the greatest results with regard to increasing skills in these children and decreasing or in some cases eliminating the symptoms of autism. The BTTC Day Treatment program is managed by Christie Enzinna, Board Certified Behavior Analyst.

Although this program has had great success, access for most children has been limited due to the tuition rate for which support from state or federal funds has not been available. This grant will enable reduction in tuition and expansion of professional services.