Dr. Ivar Lovaas has passed away. So many of us parents of children with autism have a deep gratitude and respect for this person that dedicated his life to making a difference for individuals with autism. Dr. Lovaas applied and proved that ABA methods were effective for individuals with autism. My own son was able to start learning at 2 ½ when we started using the ABA methods. Up to that point my son had been slipping further away in early intervention to the point he had no expressive or receptive language, his babbling had diminished to “mamamamamama…”, and he was becoming increasingly frustrated. We owe the life my son now has to this man who decided to make a difference.
There is now a small army of professionals that are continuing to refine and apply ABA methods after Lovaas started this work and showed the way. Dr. Lovaas’ work inspired me to apply the methods to educational software so that our kids could at least learn some of what we need them to know on their own time. I was amazed that educational software did not include the basic principles of ABA and software was therefore usually ineffective with our kids. So I dedicated my life to helping individuals with autism and other learning challenges and now my company is impacting tens of thousands of individuals with autism. We have so many people to thank for helping us in our mission to create effective and affordable educational tools especially for individuals with autism, but without Dr. Lovaas we would not have even started this mission.
Our condolences and deep gratitude go out to Nina, Eric, and the rest of the Lovaas family. A whole community of individuals with autism, their families, and others are better off for the life of Dr. Lovaas. There are countless stories of how Dr. Lovaas has changed our lives.
-Karl Smith
Accelerations Educational Software
