About
Who’s behind this.
Fifteen years, one question: what happens to these kids after the programming ends — and what would have to change now to make that answer better.
Dr. Shanna Bahry
Ph.D., BCBA-D · LABA (MA) · LBA (RI)
I am a board-certified, doctoral-level behavior analyst, licensed in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. I have worked with individuals with autism spectrum and related disorders for over fifteen years — across every age, every ability level, and settings ranging from classrooms to living rooms to job sites.
I did not choose this focus casually. I kept meeting families whose children had worked hard for years, whose programs looked fine on paper, and who arrived at adulthood with no plan and no skills to carry them. That is a preventable outcome, and preventing it is what I do now.
I earned my Ph.D. in applied behavior analysis from Endicott College under Dr. Peter Gerhardt, and I co-wrote Make it Meaningful with him — the book that makes this argument to practitioners.
I am also the Executive Director of Meaningful HOPE, my practice. That is where the professional side of this work lives — training the behavior analysts and school teams who write these programs, and consulting with the agencies they work for. Same argument, delivered to the other side of the table. If you have landed here from one of my other sites, that is the connection.
This book is the version I wanted parents to have. You are the one constant in your child’s programming. Every practitioner is temporary. You should have the same information they do.
Find me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and at Meaningful HOPE.
Meaningful HOPE
Continuing education, staff training, and program consultation for practitioners, schools, and agencies.
Make it Meaningful
The practitioner’s guide, co-written with Dr. Peter Gerhardt. Worth putting in your team’s hands if they are open to it.