The New England Center for Children (NECC), a global leader in autism education and research, continues to expand its international footprint with the opening of a new clinic in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi. The NECC Clinic in Abu Dhabi will provide session-based, applied behavior analysis (ABA), and speech and language services to clients and their families across all nationalities in both English and Arabic.
The new NECC Clinic will also provide consultative services to support students in school-based, home-based, and center-based programs, something NECC has been doing for more than 15 years for children and adults in countries in and around the Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC).
“Our goal is to continue to contribute to this vibrant community by providing NECC’s world-class comprehensive services grounded in nearly 50 years of education, curriculum development, and research,” shared Kristin Buchanan, MSEd, BCBA, executive director of Gulf Consulting.
Buchanan added that while effective autism services are in high demand everywhere, there is a great need in this particular area. She shared that while there are indeed some clinics in Abu Dhabi serving individuals of determination, not all of those provide high-quality services. For example, there are clinics providing ABA services without any BCBAs on staff. The NECC Clinic-Abu Dhabi employs six BCBAs, two speech therapists, and one occupational therapist.
“There are a lot of children who aren’t able to access services when they’re younger and need that early intervention,” she explained. “In addition, we also have a lot of older clients who are no longer able to access services in a private school setting, and we are able to provide them with an opportunity where they can learn valuable educational and vocational skills.”
Buchanan shared that in an effort to support these older clients, the NECC Clinic is working to partner with a lot of businesses in and around Masdar City to provide community vocational opportunities. “We’ve been lucky to be serving children for so long, and now that they are older, we need to continue supporting them in the community and their vocational pursuits.”
NECC has been working with children with autism in Abu Dhabi for more than 25 years, beginning with private consulting in 1997. After a decade, NECC opened a day school, NECC-Abu Dhabi, that was later renamed the Mohammed bin Rashid Center for Special Education operated by NECC (MRC-NECC). While MRC serves Emirati children of determination, NECC’s Gulf Consulting has served more than 300 students from all backgrounds in the GCC through its consultative services and clinics. NECC opened an ABA clinic in Dubai Healthcare City in December 2019, and the Allied Health Clinic—a pediatric specialty clinic that provides one-on-one or group occupational and speech and language therapy—in Dubai in April 2023.
For more information on the NECC Clinic in Abu Dhabi, visit https://necc-consulting.org/necc-clinic-abu-dhabi/.