How a mother of children with autism helped open a support center in Elkins

ELKINS, W.Va. (WBOY) — Since 2017, Mountainside ABA in Elkins has worked to give children with autism more independent lives, but there’s a personal story for how the service came to be.

At the service’s Life Skills building, clients learn necessary tasks like communication, household chores, and how to generally navigate the world. Behind Mountainside’s methods is Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy—an evidence-based treatment for children with Autism recommended by the American Psychological Association.

Erin Martin told 12 News that over ten years ago when her first son Noah was diagnosed with autism, nothing like Mountainside existed in Randolph County. It wasn’t until her second son Izaiyah was also diagnosed several years later that the state informed her of a newly forming ABA treatment center coming to the area.

Mountainside ABA founder Elizabeth Simons told 12 News that she was already looking to expand access to ABA Therapy in West Virginia before founding Mountainside but finally did so after she and Martin began talking. Martin expressed her interest in getting in the field, and very quickly went from being just the mother of one of Simon’s clients to a coworker and eventually supervisor at Mountainside.

Martin is a Board Certified Assistant Behavior Analyst and continues to further her education in this field in a Master’s program. Two of the employees Martin supervised went on to get Master’s degrees in the field, alongside her daughter who has been inspired to pursue the same career.

Martin said that it is amazing to think about all of the lives impacted by her son’s life. “My dream is for all communities to be served that have autism,” she said. She added that while she wouldn’t change anything about her sons, she “would change the world to be more for them.”

Editor’s note: This story has been edited to correct the language used to describe the facility.

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