The Center for Autism and Related Disorders grew to 265 clinics. Then private equity took over
Five years after being bought by a private-equity firm, one of the most successful companies serving children with autism declared bankruptcy. What happened?
Like many parents of autistic children, Misty Richard was thrilled in 2017 to find a clinic close to her home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that could help her son, Javier Bautista, known as J.J. The facility was operated by the Center for Autism and Related Disorders, a nationwide company that had 265 locations at its peak. Known as CARD, the center specialized in Applied Behavior Analysis, an individualized program that uses reinforcement strategies to help autistic children cope, learn and communicate.
Initially, J.J., now 9, did well at the clinic. But after CARD was acquired by the Blackstone Group in 2018, a prestigious private-equity firm in New York City, Richard said she began to see troubling changes in staffing. Still, she kept her son at the clinic.
Then, in June 2022, J.J. came home one day agitated about thunderstorms, a deep-seated fear for him. The weather was clear, so Richard asked clinic officials if anything had happened with her son that day to stir his distress. After repeated emails asking for details that Richard said the clinic only reluctantly provided, she was shown a video of her son in a therapy session with a staffer flipping the lights on and off in the room, apparently to mimic lightning. In the video, J.J. was visibly upset by the staffer's action, Richard said.
“It’s stressful for me to watch my child be so upset when he had not a care in the world,” Richard told NBC News. Finally, she said, “they tried to say it was part of an emotional lesson to help him identify what he was scared of.”
Richard withdrew J.J. from the facility and filed a complaint with the Louisiana Behavior Analyst Board, reviewed by NBC News, that identified the CARD staff member who had been flicking the lights. On Feb. 21, the Behavior Analyst Board disciplined that person, its website shows, for sending messages “stating her intention to provoke” a client at the clinic and for ignoring the client’s demand “to stop an action that was agitating and provoking the client.” Under a consent decree, the staffer, a behavior analyst, agreed to perform 30 hours of continuing education, reimburse the board $5,000 for costs and not apply to reinstate her lapsed license until January 2025.
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