ABC Group Hawaii Celebrates it's 20 Year Anniversary!
Dr. Amy began her journey in special education via working at her father’s restaurant as a child in the 1980s. Growing up in a restaurant that her parents built from the ground up, required some help from the children as well. Her father was an early pioneer of helping people with disabilities and provided them with opportunities to learn a task that could be helpful to a business. He hired a few men with developmental and intellectual disabilities from Great Oaks Center, an institution in Maryland that provided residential care to adults with disabilities. Among these people that provided Dr. Amy with her first experiences with people with disabilities, was a man named Fred. Amy and her brother and mother sat with Fred and a few others on Saturday mornings and taught them how to fold pizza boxes, sweep the floors, remove plates and cups from the tables and empty them into the trash cans, and then wipe the tables clean after a guest departed. Fast forward to highschool, it was with Fred that Amy began to do additional volunteer work to fulfill community service requirements for highschool, taking Fred out into the community, to the movies, to the mall, to the grocery store and more. It was at this moment in time that the calling was clear, and the seed was planted for a career devoted to helping people with disabilities. The seed was planted for ABC Group Hawai’i. Her heart felt full and happy helping and teaching others!
While obtaining her Bachelors of Science in Special Education at University of Maryland, Amy trained as a Lovaas therapist for a family of a two-year-old boy diagnosed with autism, and worked 1:1 with him under the consultation of The Bancroft School in New Jersey. It was in this role that she learned about the career path called Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), and the value of life changing care that was provided to families and their children.
Upon graduation after the 5 year program at University of Maryland, Amy soon chartered her course for Hawaii to teach and do a little surfing! It was here that she taught special education for a short time, and then ventured back into the world of ABA where she felt she could make the most impact. Amy was an early pioneer of ABA in Hawaii in the 1990s and early 2000’s, working for the Department of Health, and the Department of Education in many roles which included training and consultation of teachers, parents and staff throughout the island chain of Hawai’i.
In January 2006, Autism Behavior Consulting Group, Inc. was born on the island of O’ahu. ABC Group Hawai’i started as a sole ABA practice, and grew into a tiered model relatively quickly. Initially, Tricare was the sole funder starting in 2004 until 2016 when Hawai’i passed its insurance law, mandating all insurance companies to provide coverage for Autism treatment (ABA).
Since 2007, ABC Group has grown steadily in square feet as well as the number of children/families served has grown to over 100! In 2026 we will celebrate 20 years on Oahu! We hope you will join us in the celebratio