Most families who search for behavior support are past the general advice. The sticker charts did not work. The consequences did not work. Waiting did not work. What is left is a behavior that is running the household, and a family that is exhausted in a way that is hard to explain to anyone outside it.
Mastermind Behavior provides in-home ABA therapy, including behavior support, for children and young people with autism through age 21 across Georgia.
Behavior support in ABA starts from a different premise: behavior is communication. Before anything gets changed, it gets understood, through careful observation and data, in the place where the behavior actually happens. For our families that place is home, so that is where we work.
If the behavior shows up at school, the school system has its own process. Federal special education law requires the IEP team to consider positive behavioral interventions and supports when behavior interferes with learning, which in practice often means the district conducts a functional behavior assessment and writes a behavior intervention plan for the school day.
The school's plan covers school. It does not follow your child home, and home is usually where the hardest hours are. In-home behavior support fills that half of the picture: a functional behavior assessment done in your home, a behavior intervention plan built for your routines, and coaching so the adults respond the same way every time. Findings from the home assessment can also inform the school's process.
Georgia also regulates who can do this work. Behavior analysts are required to be state-licensed, and our BCBAs serving Georgia families hold both BACB certification and a current Georgia license. The person writing your child's plan is credentialed for exactly this.
For situations that have grown beyond what a home plan can hold, Georgia's Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities is the state's door to additional developmental disability supports. We are not that system, but we can work alongside it.
Behavior support is ABA therapy, and Georgia treats it that way for coverage purposes. The rows below are the parts of the state's picture families ask about most. The full detail lives on our Georgia ABA therapy page.
| Coverage element | Georgia detail |
| State mandate | Ava's Law (HB 429, effective July 1, 2015), amended by SB 118 (signed 2018, effective January 1, 2019) — codified at O.C.G.A. § 33-24-59.10 |
| Annual dollar cap | $35,000/year for ABA services (Federal MHPAEA parity may make this unenforceable on plans subject to parity — verify per plan) |
| Medicaid | GA Medicaid (DCH) covers ABA for individuals under 21 since January 1, 2018, via EPSDT. Up to 40 hours/week for under-6, 25 hours/week for ages 6–20. Requires DSM-5 ASD diagnosis from a licensed professional and prior authorization through the assigned Care Management Organization. |
| BCBA licensure | Georgia Behavior Analyst Licensing Board operational; behavior analysts are required to be state-licensed. Our BCBAs serving GA families hold both BACB certification and a current GA license. |
It starts with a functional behavior assessment: careful observation and data collection to identify what happens right before the behavior and what happens right after it. Not a theory about your child. A record of your child.
The behavior intervention plan is built on that data, using the least restrictive, most positive strategies available. A large part of the plan is teaching rather than stopping: functional communication training gives your child a faster, easier way to get what the behavior was getting, and replacement skills give them something to do instead.
Parents are in the plan from the start. Behavior changes when the response to it is consistent, so we coach you on exactly what to do in the moment, and the plan is adjusted as the data comes in.
Programs are designed and supervised by a BCBA and delivered by Behavior Technicians who work with your child consistently rather than rotating through. Assessment takes about four weeks, and there is no onboarding waitlist.
Behavior support often runs alongside our other Georgia services: parent training deepens the coaching side, early intervention serves the youngest children, and transition planning picks up the teen years.
Our Georgia team works from the Macon office at 4658 Presidential Pkwy, serving families across the state.
