Staff Report
BUDA — Therapy Center of Buda (TCOB), a locally-owned therapy practice that has served Buda and surrounding communities since 2008, will be seeing clients at its new location at 3480 Jack C. Hays Trail Aug. 17.
Located on the Buda-Kyle border, the new location allows TCOB to remain rooted in the community it has served for nearly two decades, while making its services more accessible to families in Kyle and other rapidly growing areas of northern Hays County, according to a news release. The new location provides a more central option for families traveling from both communities and gives the practice room to continue serving a growing population of clients who need individualized speech, language and occupational therapy services.
TCOB provides speech-language therapy and occupational therapy, with a special clinical focus on supporting autistic and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) clients. The practice also supports clients with communication differences, AAC needs, executive functioning differences, sensory processing differences and other developmental and communication needs.
A central part of the practice's approach is neurodiversity-affirming care, the release continued. Rather than focusing on making a client appear more “typical,” therapy is individualized around each person's communication, sensory needs, autonomy, strengths and quality of life.
For families seeking an alternative to Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) or other behavior-focused approaches, TCOB offers a different model of support. The practice does not use compliance, normalization or the suppression of autistic traits as measures of progress. Instead, therapy focuses on communication, self-advocacy, autonomy, regulation, meaningful participation and skills that matter to the individual client.
“Families are sometimes told that ABA is simply what you do after an autism diagnosis and many don't realize there are other options,” said Amy Grant, MS, CCC-SLP, owner and clinical director of TCOB. “We want families to know that support doesn't have to be about changing who their child is. You can build communication, independence and quality of life, while respecting the person in front of you.”
For Grant, this approach is closely connected to the disability rights principle: “Nothing about us without us.”
As an autistic and ADHD (AuDHD) clinician herself, she brings both professional training and lived experience to the philosophy behind the practice, the release stated.
“Neurodivergent people deserve to have a voice in what good support looks like,” Grant said. “Being AuDHD doesn't replace my clinical training, but it absolutely informs the way I listen to our clients, the things I notice and the kind of practice I wanted to create.”
“We want therapy to be a place where clients don't have to hide who they are in order to be considered successful,” Grant continued. “For our autistic and ADHD clients especially, our goal isn't to teach them to look less autistic or less ADHD. It's to help them communicate, advocate for themselves, access the support they need and feel understood.”
The new location was also chosen with the client experience in mind. Rather than a traditional medical-office environment, the space offers a more comfortable, home-like setting designed to help clients and families feel at ease.
“Therapy Center of Buda has been part of this community since 2008 and remaining connected to Buda was incredibly important to us,” Grant said. “At the same time, Kyle is growing incredibly quickly, and we know many families are traveling farther than they should have to for affirming therapy. Being right at the edge of these two communities puts us in a really unique position to serve both.”
“It's a new address, but we're still the same practice, the same team and the same commitment to our clients and families,” Grant said. “We're excited to make this space our home and, hopefully, a place our families feel at home, too.”
