Morning routines, dressing, chores, and independence, taught in the rooms where they actually happen. In-home, BCBA-led, statewide.
Getting dressed. Brushing teeth without a battle. Packing the backpack, clearing a plate, getting out the door by 7:40. Budding Futures ABA teaches daily living skills to children and teens with autism in their own Colorado homes, where those skills actually live. Rachel Blackburn, BCBA builds each plan, Medicaid families usually pay nothing, and there is no waitlist right now.
Daily living skills are the routines that carry a day. Most kids absorb them by watching. Children with autism usually need them taught on purpose, step by step, with enough practice that the skill holds up on a rushed Tuesday morning and not just in a calm session.
For teens, the list grows up with them: managing their own morning alarm, making a simple meal, keeping a room livable, moving through a store with a list. We serve ages 18 months through 18 years, so plans stretch from first shoes to almost-adult independence.
ABA therapy teaches daily living skills through task analysis. The BCBA breaks a routine into its real steps, and "brush your teeth" turns out to be seventeen of them, from picking up the brush to putting it back. Your child masters the steps one at a time, usually starting from the last step and working backward, because finishing a routine yourself feels better than starting one.
Every step is practiced in the real place with the real objects. Your sink, your closet, your kitchen. That is the quiet advantage of in-home ABA therapy: nothing has to transfer from a clinic bathroom to yours, because the teaching happened at yours. A VB-MAPP or ABLLS-R assessment tells us where to start, your child's RBT runs the daily practice and records data every visit, and Rachel reviews progress at roughly 20 percent supervision, about four times the BACB minimum.
Goals stay measurable and honest. One example of the shape they take: given the picture schedule, your child completes the four-step bedtime routine with one reminder or fewer, five nights in a row. When the data says a step is stuck, we split the step instead of blaming the child.
A therapist is in your home a few hours a day at most. The morning routine happens every day, whoever is there. So structured parent coaching is built into every daily living plan: you learn the same prompts, the same reinforcement, and the same data sheet, and the routine keeps working on the days we are not standing in the kitchen. Families tell us this is the part that changes the household, because it replaces nagging with a system.
We are an in-home, statewide practice: Denver, Aurora, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, Boulder, Grand Junction, and every Colorado city between, 8AM to 8PM. A named clinical authority, Rachel Blackburn, BCBA, reviews every plan. Our RBTs complete 40 hours of training plus a competency assessment and fingerprint background checks. And we handle the Colorado insurance side ourselves: Health First Colorado under Provider Types 83 and 84, the CES Waiver, Aetna, Cigna, Anthem BCBS, UnitedHealthcare, Kaiser, Tricare, and Humana, with benefits verified before you commit. Parents currently rate us 5.0 on Google.
| Ages | 18 months through 18 years |
|---|---|
| Setting | Your home, statewide across Colorado |
| Best fit | Kids whose routines need daily adult push-through: dressing, hygiene, meals, bedtime, chores |
| Typical cost | Medicaid usually $0; commercial $0 to $500; private pay $2,000 to $8,000 |
| First step | Free consultation, benefits check, then a VB-MAPP or ABLLS-R assessment |
| Wait | No waitlist right now |
Daily living is one of the core areas we teach. See every skill ABA therapy teaches at home.
Very. Skills often show up where demands are structured and vanish where they are not. Because we teach in your home, the plan targets your home's version of the routine directly, then we coordinate with school so both places expect the same thing.
It depends on the routine and the child, and anyone who promises a number is guessing. What we promise instead is data: you will see each step's progress on paper, so nobody is left wondering whether it is working.
Daily living goals are a standard part of an ABA therapy plan, and Colorado requires state-regulated health plans to cover ABA for autism. Health First Colorado usually covers it at $0. We verify your benefits first, and we never balance-bill.
No. We work with teens through 18, and independence goals matter most right before adulthood: alarms, meals, money errands, self-management. The steps get bigger, the method stays the same.
She writes and reviews every treatment plan, and supervises the therapists who work in your home.
Read Rachel's profileHe founded Budding Futures and runs the day to day, from a family's first phone call onward.
Read Mark's profileTell us which routine is hardest at your house. We answer your questions, check your insurance, and connect you with a BCBA who will build the plan around your family's real day.