CentralReach Acquires AFLS® and AFLSonline™, the Market Leading Assessments of Functional Living Skills for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Strategic acquisition offers ABA providers the industry’s only online assessment tool for essential functional living skills for individuals of all ages with autism and related disorders

 

Fort Lauderdale, FL - January 10th, 2022 - CentralReach, the leading provider of electronic medical record (EMR) software and services for applied behavior analysis (ABA) and related behavioral health providers, today announced the acquisition of the AFLS and AFLSonline  assessment solutions related to essential functional living skills for children, adolescents, and adults with autism or other developmental disabilities from Stimulus Publications, Inc., an entity founded and operated by Michael Mueller, Ph.D., BCBA-D. The acquisition follows CentralReach’s previous acquisition of the ABLLS-R® and WebABLLS® assessment solutions developed by James Partington, Ph.D., BCBA-D.

 

As part of the acquisition, Dr. Mueller will join CentralReach as a strategic consultant to further enhance the AFLS assessment tools and assist with the development of innovative products to help providers improve clinical assessments and learner outcomes.

 

By combining AFLS and AFLSonline with its prior acquisition of the ABLLS-R and WebABLLS solutions, CentralReach is now the only software provider in the ABA industry to offer assessments that cover the full range of verbal and behavioral skills for the youngest learners through adulthood, providing deep functional living skills that enable increased independence. Additionally, with AFLS, the digital curriculum powered by CR Elements, and avail’s assistive technology solution, CentralReach is solidifying its suite of products and market leadership for adolescent and adult learners in school and employment settings, to enable them to reach their potential and live more independent lives. 

 

AFLS, which stands for Assessment of Functional Living Skills, is a skills-based system of assessment, curriculum, and tracking that addresses skills in the areas of basic living, home, community participation, school, independent living, and vocational skills of an individual with autism and other developmental delays. It is used as a tool to help develop customized curricula to teach functional living skills to teens and adults particularly with autism or other developmental disabilities.

 

“By integrating both the ABLLS-R and AFLS assessment tools into CentralReach and leveraging the combination of data sets from our industry-leading client base and these assessments, we will be able to provide unparalleled insights that will enable CentralReach clients and the community we collectively serve to connect the dots between the assessment results, the curricula used, and the outcomes achieved in a more granular and seamless way than is possible on any other platform today,” said CentralReach CEO Chris Sullens. “And adding the two pre-eminent experts in the assessment field, Dr. Partington and Dr. Mueller, to the talented CentralReach team will enable us to create assessment innovations that can only be done by having both the industry-leading verbal and behavioral assessment and the only functional living assessment under one roof. I’m beyond excited to be able to partner with Dr. Partington and Dr. Mueller to make this vision a reality.”

 

Improving learner outcomes was the driving force behind the creation of AFLS and AFLSonline, and its integration into the CentralReach platform will further amplify the assessment tool’s capabilities, according to Mueller. 

 

“Dr. Partington and I created AFLS and AFLSonline together to offer clinicians a best-in-class skills assessment tool, tracking system, and curriculum guide for teaching people with autism and related disorders the essential skills needed to be more independent. And both formats increased the ability to help assess like no others had to date,” said Dr. Mueller. “Now, with AFLSonline in the CentralReach platform, learners of all ages will be able to benefit from the assessment like never before. I’m looking forward to consulting with CentralReach to grow AFLS, integrate the assessment platform into their other digital products, and create an experience for learners no other provider can match.”

 

“I’m very excited that CentralReach is now able to provide both the ABLLS-R/WebABLLS and the AFLS/AFLSonline assessments to ABA providers, educators, and parents,” said Dr. Partington, AFLS’s Co-Creator and the founder of ABLLS-R and WebABLLS. “Over 10 years ago, Dr. Mueller and I had discussions about the need to assess basic life skills and develop programs to teach those important skills to individuals with autism or other developmental disabilities. We worked together for several years to compile a list of critical life skills and model the assessment after the ABLLS-R format. The resulting AFLS assessment was immediately seen by the community as a very valuable tool. By fully integrating both AFLS and ABLLS-R into the CentralReach platform, it will give providers access to a unique and powerful digital assessment tool that provides a complete continuum of skills for individuals of all ages that no other provider can match.”

 

This marks the ninth acquisition that CentralReach has made in the past two years and the seventh acquisition to support its investment in its clinical suite including the acquisition of Precision Xceleration Holdings to provide CR Elements with powerful prebuilt, evidence-based curricula, Thread Learning, a powerful but easy to use data collection platform for special education, and Avail Support to provide assistive technology with the capability to accelerate the care plan by digitally supporting and reinforcing an individual’s clinical care plan outside of the in-person sessions.