Budding Futures provides in-home, play-based ABA therapy for toddlers ages 2 to 5 across Colorado, building communication, play, and daily living skills while a child's brain is still growing fastest.
A landmark UCLA study found nearly half of toddlers in intensive early ABA reached typical intellectual and educational functioning. Clinical Director Rachel Blackburn, BCBA, designs every early intervention plan, and our parent coaching carries the learning into your everyday routines. We accept Health First Colorado and major insurance, and we verify your benefits before the first session.
A toddler's brain grows faster between ages 1 and 5 than at any later point. We see the difference at intake: the kids who start at 2 or 3 usually catch more ground than the ones who start at 5. A landmark UCLA study led by Dr. O. Ivar Lovaas found that nearly half of children who received intensive early intervention reached typical intellectual and educational functioning.
The CDC now identifies about 1 in 31 children with autism, and Colorado families often wait six months or longer to start care. At this age a six-month wait is a lot of ground, so we try to get toddlers started fast.
Budding Futures was built to close that gap for Colorado families. We start with a play-based plan your toddler can actually sit with, then change it as your child grows.
For a toddler, the therapy looks like play, since that is how a 2- or 3-year-old takes in anything new. Your BCBA builds a program using Natural Environment Teaching and gentle Discrete Trial Training, shaped around your child's attention span and interests. Most plans run 10 to 25 hours a week depending on need and insurance authorization, and every session happens in your home.
We follow what your child is already drawn to, then turn it into a teaching moment, like naming a bubble before blowing it or rolling a ball back and forth to build turn-taking. Reinforcement is built into the fun, so your toddler stays motivated.
We work on first words and requesting through verbal behavior, and for toddlers who are not talking yet we add PECS, sign language, or AAC devices so they can be understood from day one. Pairing speech with another channel often gets a child communicating sooner.
Eating, dressing, toileting, and sleep routines all sit inside an early plan. These daily living skills give your toddler a little more independence and take some pressure off the whole family.
Through structured play we build imitation, joint attention, and early social skills. Pointing, sharing, and copying look like small things, but they tend to open the door to talking and early friendships.
No two toddlers get the same plan, but most early programs work across four areas at once. Here is what each one looks like at this age and how Budding Futures teaches it.
| Skill area | What it looks like at this age | How we teach it |
|---|---|---|
| Communication | First words, pointing, requesting a snack or toy | Verbal behavior, plus PECS, sign, or AAC when needed |
| Play & social | Turn-taking, imitation, joint attention | Structured play that follows the child's interests |
| Daily living | Eating, dressing, toileting, sleep routines | Small steps practiced in your real home routines |
| Behavior & regulation | Big feelings, transitions, early frustration | Positive reinforcement and gentle coping skills |
Most providers put toddlers in a clinic. Budding Futures comes to your home, because a child who learns to request a snack in your kitchen is far more likely to do it again tomorrow than one who learned it in a playroom across town. This model is available through in-home ABA therapy in Highlands Ranch and ABA therapy for Boulder families.
Our parent coaching matters most at this age. Research in The Lancet found that parent-led early intervention produced gains that lasted six years after treatment ended. We teach you to fold learning into meals, bath time, and play, so progress does not depend on session hours alone.
Rachel Blackburn, BCBA, oversees every early intervention plan and uses validated tools like VB-MAPP to track your toddler's developmental trajectory. You can watch sessions, ask questions, and adjust the plan with her along the way.
Yes. Health First Colorado (Colorado Medicaid) covers ABA therapy for children under 21 with an autism diagnosis through EPSDT, and most commercial plans cover it under Colorado's autism insurance mandate.
Budding Futures verifies your benefits before the first session at no cost, and we handle the prior authorization paperwork. For your part of the metro, see ABA therapy for toddlers in Denver and Aurora, or our Colorado early intervention guide.
Colorado runs a statewide early intervention (EI) program for children from birth to age 3 with developmental delays, administered through Community Centered Boards. It provides developmental services at no cost to families regardless of income, and is often a parent's first point of contact.
EI behavioral support is usually only a few hours a month, while the research supports 10 to 40 hours a week of ABA for autism, so many families use EI for early screening while pursuing a dedicated ABA provider. At age 3, children transition out of EI into their school district's preschool program, which can create gaps in services. Having an ABA provider already in place keeps care continuous, and Budding Futures handles the prior authorization so therapy starts without delays.
The Early Start Denver Model (ESDM) is one of the most researched early intervention approaches for toddlers, and it is built on ABA principles. Developed by Sally Rogers and Geraldine Dawson, it was designed for children between 12 and 48 months.
ESDM is not an alternative to ABA. It is a form of ABA. The core techniques, including reinforcement, shaping, prompting, and data collection, come from behavior analysis, but they are embedded in warm, play-based social interaction that mirrors how toddlers naturally learn. Randomized trials have linked it to gains in language, adaptive behavior, and autism symptom severity. Budding Futures folds naturalistic, play-based strategies consistent with the ESDM framework into our toddler programming, tailored to each child with the VB-MAPP assessment.
There is no single correct number, and any provider who quotes you 40 hours before meeting your child is guessing.
Parents ask this more than almost anything else. On parent forums the same worry repeats: a center recommends 40 hours a week for a two-year-old, and the family cannot tell whether that figure came from clinical judgment or from billing. It is a fair thing to say out loud, and a good provider will not flinch at the question.
Here is what the research actually found. A 2017 study in Translational Psychiatry looked at 1,468 children receiving individualized ABA services and measured two separate things: intensity, meaning hours per week, and duration, meaning how many months a child stayed with the program. Both predicted progress across all eight skill areas the researchers tracked.
But duration carried the larger effect. For language, the effect size was 9.02 for duration against 1.85 for intensity. For academic skills it was 4.70 against 1.68. Staying with a program steadily mattered more than packing the week full.
Two honest caveats. That sample averaged 7.6 years old, so it is not a toddler-only finding, and effect sizes describe a pattern across a large group rather than a promise for one child. Read it as a reason to ask how a number was reached, not as proof that fewer hours are always better.
For a toddler in particular, an ABA program has to leave room for being two. Naps, meals, unstructured play, and ordinary family time are not gaps in the plan. They are where a toddler rehearses what therapy teaches. At Budding Futures the recommended hours come out of the assessment and your family's daily routine, we individualize them per child, and we will tell you plainly why the number is what it is.
It matters, and the evidence for children under three is genuinely strong. It is also worth knowing where the honest edges are.
A 2015 review in Pediatrics examined interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder under age three and identified several models with clear benefits. It highlighted three things in particular: the central role of parents, building learning into everyday activities and teachable moments, and helping a child carry skills beyond the room where they were taught.
That third point is the one families feel most. A toddler who greets a therapist in a clinic has learned to greet a therapist in a clinic. The skill only counts when it shows up at grandma's house. Evidence-based practice for this age group is built around that problem, which is a large part of why we deliver services in the home.
The honest edge is that gains vary. Some parents describe progress that felt modest against the hours invested, and with a very young child it can be genuinely hard to separate therapy from ordinary maturation. Nobody can promise you a specific outcome, and a provider who does is telling you something they cannot know.
Positive reinforcement means following a behavior you want to see again with something the child genuinely values, so the behavior becomes more likely next time.
With a toddler that is rarely a sticker chart. It is the bubbles restarting, the song continuing, the tickle, or an adult lighting up. Applied behavior analysis is the framework that decides which moments to reinforce and how to fade that support once a child learns the skill for its own sake.
A target behavior for a toddler is usually small and concrete. Handing over a cup to ask for more. Looking up when their name is called. Tolerating a diaper change without a fight. Challenging behaviors get the same analysis, because a two-year-old who screams is almost always communicating something they have no other way to say.
Reinforcement is not bribery. Bribery comes before the behavior to stop a meltdown already in progress. Reinforcement comes after, and it is planned, tracked, and deliberately faded out.
You do not need to have everything sorted before you call. Most families start with a diagnosis, an insurance card, and a lot of open questions.
The usual path runs in four steps. You have a free consultation, we verify your benefits and handle the prior authorization paperwork, a BCBA completes an assessment of your child, and then ABA sessions begin at the hours that assessment supports.
Day to day, a registered behavior technician runs the sessions in your home under a BCBA's supervision, and the BCBA writes and adjusts the plan. You are in the room. Parent coaching is part of the service rather than an extra line item, because the people with your child the other 150 hours of the week are you.
If you are still deciding whether to begin ABA therapy at all, that is a reasonable place to be. Ask us the hours question. Ask what happens if you want to scale back. A provider worth hiring will answer both without pressure.
Working with a two-year-old takes a different skill set than working with an eight-year-old, so ask specific questions and notice how specifically a provider answers: How many toddlers under age 4 are on your caseload? Do you use play-based teaching or mostly discrete trial? Is parent training built into the plan or billed separately? What assessment tools do you use, and how soon will I get a written treatment plan?
At Budding Futures, toddler programming is a core part of what we do. Rachel Blackburn, BCBA, designed our approach for children as young as 18 months, with session structure and supervision calibrated for early intervention. We answer all of these on a free consultation call.
Mostly they play. A toddler ABA session looks like games, songs, snacks, and toys, with a therapist building in chances to communicate, imitate, and take turns. At Budding Futures it happens in your home, so the skills show up at the kitchen table and on the living-room floor, not just in a clinic.
Short, playful, and led by the child's interests. For a 2-year-old we use Natural Environment Teaching, following what your toddler is already drawn to and turning it into a learning moment, like naming a bubble before blowing it. Sessions stay brief and positive to match a toddler's attention span.
If your 3-year-old has an autism diagnosis and is behind on talking, play, or daily skills, early ABA is one of the most studied ways to help, and starting now matters more than waiting. A BCBA evaluation is the honest way to find out. Budding Futures will tell you plainly whether your child would benefit and how much.
Modern, assent-based ABA can be a good fit for a 2-year-old, as long as it is gentle, play-based, and follows the child's lead rather than forcing compliance. That is how Budding Futures runs early intervention. The research on starting before age 4 is strong, but the program should always look like play, not drills.
Budding Futures offers ABA therapy for toddlers in the family home in each of these cities and across the rest of Colorado. See every Colorado city we serve or browse all of our ABA therapy services.
She writes and reviews every treatment plan, and supervises the therapists who work in your home.
Read Rachel's profile
He founded Budding Futures and runs the day to day, from a family's first phone call onward.
Read Mark's profileThe Early Start Denver Model is one of the approaches used in early intervention. Read more about ESDM therapy in Colorado.
One conversation is all it takes. We answer your questions, check your insurance, and connect you with a BCBA who will build a play-based plan for your toddler. Starting early matters, and we can move quickly.
See the in-home ABA page written for your child's stage.
Prefer to listen? Our parent podcast episode on ABA for toddlers and early intervention in Colorado covers the same ground in about seven minutes.
