Newsletter
Volume 28 | 2005 | Number 2
May Institute: Past, Present, and Future
April 2005 marked May Institute’s 50th year of providing comprehensive services in the fields of behavioral healthcare, education, and rehabilitation. Over the course of its history, May has been at the forefront of providing applied behavior analysis to individuals with autism, brain injury, developmental disabilities, and other behavior disorders. The Institute continues to take a leadership role in providing empirically validated behavioral services in schools, clinics, group homes, and other community-based service settings
The organization has its roots in a family’s desire to provide a better life for their twin boys with autism. In the 1950s, May Institute founders Dr. Jacques May and his wife Marie-Anne joined with other parents of autistic children and several professional friends to launch a residential school in Boston. They later moved the school to Chatham, Massachusetts, where the May family purchased several acres of land and three residential buildings. This school for children with autism and other developmental disabilities formed the foundation of what was to become May Institute.
Today, the Institute is one of the largest organizations of its kind in the country, providing behavioral services to over 25,000 individuals and their families annually at nearly 200 service locations in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Southeast United States. The Institute’s staff of over 2,000 includes more than 60 licensed and credentialed doctoral-level professionals, all with significant experience in behavior analysis, a concentration of expertise that rivals that of many universities. The organization is guided by a Professional Advisory Board that includes many leading authorities in behavior analysis. It maintains active affiliations with more than 40 universities, teaching hospitals, and human service organizations.
Advancing Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) Through Service Programming
Incorporating the principles and practices of applied behavior analysis into its service delivery models, May Institute provides the following programs and services:
- Four school programs in Massachusetts and one in Maine for autistic children and adolescents.
- A school in Massachusetts for children and adolescents with brain injury.
- Community-based residential services for children and adolescents with autism, brain injury, and behavior disorders in 22 group homes in Massachusetts and Florida.
- Seventy-seven group homes and 16 supported living apartments for adults with autism, developmental disabilities, or psychiatric disorders in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Florida.
- Seven day-treatment and vocational rehabilitation programs in Massachusetts.
- Thirty-eight behavioral health programs in Massachusetts for children and adults, including clinics, hospital-based programs, and community drop-in programs.
- A Treatment and Aftercare for Probationers and Parolees (TAPP) program that provides case management and reintegration services for discharged inmates in Georgia with a primary mental health and/or mental retardation diagnosis.
- Home-based and early intervention services to well over 500 families per year in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee.
- Comprehensive, systemic behavior support training and consultation to over 200 school districts each year.
Providing Professional Training
Over the past 25 years, May Institute has provided behavior-analysis training to hundreds of students and professionals from countries around the world, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Kuwait, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and West Africa. It has also provided behavioral training to over 9,000 public school teachers over the past 15 years. Additionally, the May Institute operates a number of training and degree-granting programs for professional staff. It has provided tuition reimbursement support to hundreds of its staff who have enrolled in graduate degree and certification-granting programs over the years:
- In 1998, the Institute established an APA-accredited internship program, and has supervised 48 pre-doctoral clinical psychology interns in behavioral programmatic settings. It has also trained and supervised 26 post-doctoral fellows since 1998.
- In partnership with Northeastern University, May Institute trains 120 of its own and other organizations’ staff yearly, through one of the earliest and now largest master’s in applied behavior analysis (MABA) programs in the country. To date, over 700 graduate students have received their master’s degree in applied behavior analysis. The program is unique in that it emphasizes the integration of basic and applied research and offers an extensive curriculum in stimulus control.
- The Institute recently established a Graduate Scholars Program, supporting eight students annually in a three-year program of intensive study and behavioral practice.
- In partnership with Fitchburg State College, May Institute offers a master’s degree in Special Education, and has established the ABA Institute, which provides an approved sequence of courses to prepare students to sit for the BCABA exam. Currently, 19 doctoral- and master’s-level staff are enrolled in a BCBA instructional program or are under active supervision through the May Institute, and 12 are enrolled in a BCABA program.
Publications and Presentations
Since 1978, professionals at May Institute have contributed to the body of literature on behavior analysis through publication of 228 peer-reviewed articles, 47 book chapters, and 17 books/monographs. The Institute’s extensive bibliography, which can be viewed on line at www.mayinstitute.org, includes publications in the areas of the experimental analysis of behavior, applied behavior analysis, and organizational behavior management. Over the past 30 years, May Institute staff have conducted over 1,500 invited presentations on best practices, effective behavioral treatment, and applied research to international, national, and regional audiences.
Honors, Awards, and Accreditations
In May of 2005, May Institute received the AABT 2005 “Outstanding Training Program” award in recognition of the organization’s outstanding contribution to the field of behavioral therapies. The AABT (Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies)—formerly the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy—award will be presented in November in Washington, DC.
In 1997, May Institute was one of only 88 nonprofits chosen nationally to be featured in the book In Search of America’s Best Nonprofits (Jossey-Bass, 1997) for its databased approach to staff training and organizational management.
In 1996, May Institute received the largest and most comprehensive accreditation ever granted by the Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO). More recently, the Institute approached the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) to develop a new approach to the accreditation of a behavioral agency of the Institute’s size and scope. Approximately one-third of Institute programs have now received three-year CARF accreditation. This constitutes one of the largest and most comprehensive accreditations that CARF has ever awarded for a network of behavioral programs. By 2007, all Institute programs will have gone through CARF accreditation.
In 1987, May Institute received the United States Department of Education “School of Excellence” award for its first autism school. This recognition set a standard for special education programming based on the principles of applied behavior analysis.
Looking to the Future
In the fall of 2005, May Institute will open a state-of-the-art facility in Randolph, Massachusetts that will provide a new home for its corporate headquarters as well as for two of the Institute’s schools. This spacious new facility will also become the headquarters for the National Autism Center, a new, groundbreaking nonprofit organization whose initial development is being sponsored by the May Institute. The National Autism Center is dedicated to supporting effective, evidence-based treatment approaches to autism. It will provide training and consultation services to parents, teachers, and practitioners; model best practices in service delivery for nationwide implementation; support basic and applied research; and work to shape public policy concerning autism and its treatment through development of national standards of practice. The National Autism Center, and other future initiatives, will help May Institute continue its long history of improving the lives of those it serves.