At CR Unite 2026, providers and industry leaders came together to share what’s working, tackle the field’s biggest challenges, and explore what it will take to deliver high-quality, sustainable care in the years ahead.
Three days in Boston. A room full of ABA providers, practice owners, and operational leaders. Big announcements, big ideas, and a lot of hallway conversations that turned into "wait, we can do that?" moments.
The field of ABA is at an inflection point. Demand for autism and IDD care is growing, payor scrutiny is rising, AI is opening new doors, and workforce shortages aren't going away. None of us can solve this alone, and that's why we got together to shape what "good" looks like in the next era of care.
That's the idea behind our tagline and the backbone of our 2027 Product Roadmap: Connected. Confident. Ready.
- Connected: providers, families, data, and workflows working together instead of in silos
- Confident: trust, quality, and outcomes you can stand behind
- Ready: technology and teams prepared for what's next in autism and IDD care
This year's conference themes were trust and accountability, sustainable growth, and practical ways to use technology to boost efficiency and impact. Here's how it all came together.
CONFIDENT: Defining What "Good" Looks Like in ABA
We opened with a standing-room-only conversation moderated by our Director of Research, Rick Rubina. CentralReach's Scientific Advisory Board, featuring Dr. Tom Frazier, Janet Twyman, Summer Mingo, and Starlette Sharp, took on the toughest questions in the field: trust, data, and standards.
Confidence starts with clarity. To rebuild public trust amid negative headlines and bad-actor cases of fraud, waste, and abuse, ABA needs to define what quality care looks like. The panel's answer was two-part:
- Standardized process metrics, like learning opportunities per hour
- Person-centered outcome measures that bring in quality of life and caregiver perspectives alongside individual progress
There's no single definition of success in ABA, because every learner has different goals and abilities. But shared standards make sure every learner has the tools to make progress in the ways that matter most to them.
The panel also tackled the ethical use of AI, and the message was clear: keep a human in the loop at key decision points to check output quality, catch bias, and protect care integrity. The nuance they added is that it has to be the right humans, meaning experts who can interpret and evaluate what AI produces.
Attendees left with a clear path forward: transparent quality benchmarks, investment in clinician training and retention, and technology that drives clinical consistency without sacrificing personalized care. That's the foundation for high-quality care, and for weeding out the bad actors.
CONNECTED: A Community That Showed Up and Shared
Beyond the keynotes, CR Unite is where the ABA community comes together. Attendees traded case studies, swapped lessons learned, tested new features at user testing sessions, and got one-on-one time with our product experts at the Genius Booth.
"It was helpful to see the people and the thought leadership behind the platform rather than just interacting with the product day to day."
- Asha Christy, Director of Scheduling, Opal Autism Centers
Our customers took the stage
The best part of any CR Unite is hearing directly from the people doing the work. A huge thank-you to the organizations that came ready to share real stories and real results as co-presenters this year:
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