, who has a dual diagnosis of autism and Down Syndrome, met for three hours every weekday with a specialist who helped him learn day-to-day tasks like eating meals and using a toilet."They helped us figure out how to motivate him to accomplish things,” says Rudisel. She says the autism therapy provided by the Miami-based startup Elemy has been crucial for her child, who is nonverbal and communicates with a tablet device, especially given the disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In an emailed statement, Yakubchyk said “87 families in active care” were affected by the changes, which was a “single-digit percentage” of total families. The company declined to provide the total number of families it serves. That made the abrupt shutdown of in-person services all the worse for her son. In the initial email, Elemy promised a “smooth transition,” which would include a list of other local providers and a copy of the child’s discharge report. In a follow-up email sent this week, Elemy said families can continue to get “ongoing clinical support” virtually from a behavior analyst, which will be “free of charge” until the end of the year or when a family finds a new provider.