Real World ABA

10/31/2025

Enjoy an evening filled of excitement, wonder and candy!!! At our center you can hear the laughter and feel the joy. Smiles are contagious and it creates beautiful environments for children to learn, love and belong.

10/22/2025

A candid moment. My mom (Sharon Gainforth) is an SLP and started a toy company 30 years ago so she could have access to the best educational toys for her autistic clients, I had the most important role… her trusted toy tester…. Looks like some jobs remain the same.

09/02/2025

Message to Every Parent!!

Give Yourself Grace This Week

The first week back to school can feel like a whirlwind… new routines, new teachers, new emotions, and a whole lot of adjustments for both kids and parents. If you’re feeling stretched, tired, or even second-guessing yourself right now, please know: you are not alone.

Transitions are rarely smooth. There will be bumps, meltdowns, forgotten lunches, and mornings that don’t go as planned. But those bumps aren’t signs of failure, they are part of growth. Every time your child struggles, learns, and tries again, they’re building resilience. And every time you show up with love, even when you feel imperfect, you’re teaching them the most important lesson of all: grace.

Take a breath and remember, you’ve already done something incredible. You’ve raised a child who is stepping into new spaces, learning new things, and discovering the world in their own way. Their potential is limitless, and your steady presence is their greatest anchor.

So this week, be kind to yourself. Celebrate the small wins, laugh off the messy moments, and trust that the process of adjusting is leading to growth for your child and for you. You are doing better than you think.

Your child doesn’t need perfection. They need you , the parent who loves them, believes in them, and keeps showing up. That’s more than enough. 💙

From your RealWorld family, we are here for you, we support you and we absolutely believe in your children!!! You got this!!!!

08/30/2025

The Gift of Lining Up Rocks

Today I watched something beautiful unfold in the sandbox. A beautiful childsat quietly, carefully lining up their rocks in the sand. To an outside eye, this might look like “just” repetitive play; something many adults might be tempted to stop or redirect. But instead, we chose to lean in and help them.
And that choice made all the difference.

Respecting Their Way of Learning

For autistic children, structured or repetitive play isn’t meaningless, it’s purposeful. Lining up rocks brought them joy, calm, and predictability. By honoring that, we showed them: Your way of exploring the world is important. We value it, and we value you.

Building Trust and Connection

When we joined them, they knew they weren’t going to be stopped or corrected. That created safety. Trust. A sense that we were on their team. And because of that trust, something magical happened…

The Spark of Spontaneous Communication

As they searched for “the right rock,” we celebrated with genuine excitement when they found it. Our enthusiasm was contagious. They began spontaneously imitating the words we were saying, repeating them, experimenting with them, playing with their sounds.
The rocks became more than rocks ... they became opportunities for language.

Singing, Sharing, and Purposeful Play

We sang together, turning their play into a joyful rhythm of words and songs. What started as lining up stones blossomed into purposeful play filled with connection, laughter, and growth. By the end, they had added lots of new words to their vocabulary, not through drills or forced lessons, but through an activity they loved, supported by people who believed in them.

Why This Matters

When we choose to support rather than stop, we open the door to trust, learning, and communication. What may look like “just lining up rocks” is actually a bridge... a way to connect, to learn, to share joy.

And today, that bridge was built one rock at a time.

08/17/2025

We are excited to announce that we will be onboarding all the parents and caregivers of our incredible individuals with Bridges Engage! I

BRIDGES Engage connects families with expert resources and personalized AI-powered support, helping them stay organized and informed throughout their child’s neurodevelopmental journey.

07/06/2025

They Took A Hand, and We’ll Never Forget!

On a perfectly ordinary day at the center, something extraordinary happened.

A little boy who usually walked with a lot of adult support reached out and took another child’s hand.

No prompt.
No reinforcer.
Just trust.

And across town, in our staff group chat, phones buzzed. A photo was shared.

In that moment, our staff room became a celebration room.

Because this wasn’t just a milestone for the child who reached out. It was a mirror of everything we believe in.

At RealWorldABA…

We don’t just teach communication
We notice it when it slips quietly between two tiny hands.

We don’t just write behavior plans
We write stories of courage, curiosity, and connection in real time.

We don’t just collect data
We celebrate life-changing little wins with heart emojis and teary eyes.

And maybe most importantly?

We don’t just build skills.
We build relationships, with our clients, their familieses, and with each other

This wasn’t a staged moment.
This wasn’t programmed.

It was pure. Spontaneous. Real.

And it reminds us why we do what we do.

Because when a child reaches out for connection, and a whole team responds with joy,
that’s not just a win. That’s a culture.

At RealWorldABA, we celebrate progress.
We celebrate people. And sometimes, we celebrate a single held hand like it’s the biggest breakthrough in the world.

Because to us…. it is.

06/27/2025

What If Peter Pan Was Right?

Peter Pan said he’d never grow up, and maybe, just maybe, he was onto something.

Not in the literal sense (we’re definitely still brushing our teeth and paying bills), but in the deeper truth behind his story: that joy, wonder, play, and authenticity are not things we “grow out of” but they’re things we should grow into.

We don’t promise pixie dust or fairy tales, but we do believe in creating spaces where childhood is honored, and every child gets to feel like they truly belong.

Not a fantasyland, but a space where children can be silly, expressive, quirky, quiet, wild, curious, cautious, loud, loving, or still discovering who they are… and all of it is welcome.

Because here, joy isn’t the end goal of progress. It’s the starting point.

We believe that when a child feels safe, accepted, and truly seen, that’s when the magic happens. That’s when learning sticks. That’s when communication blooms. That’s when connection is real.

Just like the Lost Boys, some of our kids arrive feeling misunderstood or like they don’t quite belong. But they don’t need to change to fit the world. The world needs to stretch to fit them.

In our center;
• Laughter is a teaching tool
• Curiosity is encouraged, not redirected
• Meltdowns are met with compassion, not control
• And everyone, no matter how complex their needs, has a place to belong

We don’t clip wings. We build safe spaces to try them out.

We don’t treat childhood like a race. We treat it like a story still unfolding.

And we don’t force growing up. We nurture growing into yourself.

So what if Peter Pan was right?

What if staying curious, playful, and deeply ourselves was exactly what the world needs more of?

At RealWorldABA, we believe it is.

06/22/2025

The Glass That Fits: Embracing Our Unique Perspectives

We often hear about seeing the glass as half full or half empty, but what if the real trick is just finding the right glass?

Some of us are like espresso cups, small but mighty, packing a punch in every drop. Others might be like a quirky mason jar, full of charm and a little unconventional. And let’s not forget the giant novelty margarita glasses, perfect for those who live life large and bold.

At RealWorldABA, we celebrate this diversity, knowing that everyone is perfect just as they are. Because in the end, the world becomes a much richer, more vibrant place when we stop worrying about whether the glass is half full or half empty, and instead celebrate that we all have our own unique glass.

After all, it’s not about being stuck in a one size fits all, but celebrating the unique glass that fits us best. So, what kind of glass or cup are you?

Post in the comments!

05/31/2025

05/11/2025

A Tribute to Racheal, A Community Hero

At RealWorldABA, Mother’s Day is more than a date—it’s a celebration of the fierce, resilient, and loving women who shape the futures of our children with every decision, every quiet sacrifice, and every moment of unshakable belief. Today, we celebrate one of our own community heroes: Racheal.

This morning, we received a message that stopped us in our tracks:

“Dante gave a heartwarming Mother’s Day gift!! Only people like you can understand… today, every time he needs my attention, he will assertively call, ‘mom mom mom…!!’. I can’t say he copied it from Ian because Ian calls me ‘mummy’. I am really happy.”

Those words hold so much more than meets the eye. For many parents of neurodiverse children, especially those on the autism spectrum, every milestone is a celebration. And this moment, a simple, intentional call for “mom” isn’t small at all. It is a reflection of connection, growth, and years of effort, love, and unwavering belief.

Racheal moved to Fredericton from Uganda with her family to pursue a PhD in physics, while also raising two remarkable children. Her eldest son, Dante, was diagnosed with autism and from the start, she embraced motherhood with grace, grit, and courage.

Dante is a joyful, energetic young man who brings light into every room he enters. His laughter is contagious, his energy uplifting. He’s learned and grown not despite his autism, but through the safe, supportive, and inclusive spaces his mother helped create around him.

From the moment we met Racheal, she stood as a vision of motherhood: making silent sacrifices and endless compromises, always asking the question, “What does my son need to thrive?” She wore many hats, educator, friend, speech-language pathologist, behavior analyst, chef, cleaner, advocate, but her most powerful role was simply being Dante’s mom.

She believed in him when others didn’t see what she saw. She collaborated with every member of his support team: BCBAs, teachers, social workers, community members, pushing not for Dante to be different, but for the world around him to be more supportive and understanding.

Because of Racheal’s unconditional love, fierce advocacy, and tireless determination, Dante has experienced life in full colour: he’s attended school full-time, learned to swim, play piano, shoot hoops, golf, kayak, ride bikes, cook meals, and camp under the stars. He’s done more in Fredericton than most Frederictonians!

Today, we honour Racheal, and all mothers like her, who redefine what it means to be strong.

To all the mothers walking this journey: your love builds bridges where others see barriers. You see possibility where others see challenge. And in doing so, you change lives, quietly, profoundly, and forever.

Happy Mother’s Day, from all of us at RealWorldABA.

(Posted with permission)

04/29/2025

At RealWorldABA, neuroaffirming care isn’t just something we say — it’s something we live, every day.

Today, we were reminded that connection is the heart of everything we do. Our staff was challenged to a basketball game by some of the incredible autistic youth we support. And you know what? We lost!
But in the ways that matter most, we absolutely won:
We won memories.
We won laughter.
We won moments of pure, unfiltered joy.

Neuroaffirming care means meeting each individual where they are — not trying to change who they are. It means honoring communication in all its forms, celebrating strengths, supporting needs, and creating environments where our youth feel seen, valued, and empowered.

Today, the scoreboard didn’t matter. What mattered were the high-fives, the teamwork, the cheers, and the moments of connection that will stick with us far longer than any final score.

At RealWorldABA, we believe that when we create spaces rooted in acceptance and joy, everyone wins.

03/30/2025

Eid Mubarak from all of us at Real World ABA! ✨ May this joyous occasion bring you peace, happiness, and countless blessings. Wishing you and your loved ones a beautiful and prosperous Eid!