Simmi Santha is the founder and director of Precious Souls Services Inc., a behavior therapy services center for individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in Ontario, Canada. A member of the Ontario Association of Behavior Analysts (ONTABA) and the Association for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI), she is a strategic interventionist committed to providing evidence-based practices and bringing significant progressive changes to students and their families. She founded the Reeta Peshawaria Center for Autism and ABA Services in Kerala, India. She has passionately delivered positive outcomes in the past twenty-five years as a therapist, trainer, consultant, analyst, project manager, and mentor in India, the USA, and Canada.
She is a doctoral candidate in developmental psychology and a board-certified behavior analyst (BCBA) dedicated to sweeping social change beyond geographies. Besides undergoing rigorous training in various ABA-related programs and courses, she completed her Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) program in Medical and Psychiatric Social Work and a Child Day Care Management program. In addition to her doctoral pursuit, she is currently pursuing a parent-mediated intervention program called The PLAY Project.
With the aim of capacity building in her staff members, she developed the forty-hour Registered Behavior Technician (RBT) program to impart an ABA knowledge base to therapists as outlined by the Behavior Analyst’s Certification Board (BACB). Simmi has specialized in customizing program plans and services for families of diverse ethnic, linguistic, cultural, social, and economic backgrounds. She has conducted several parent and teacher training programs to empower them with the necessary skills to work with individuals with ASD. She has written several articles on autism for magazines to educate caretakers of individuals with autism and presented a paper at the National Academy of Psychology Conference in India. She was a team member of a team that presented a poster at the Association of Behavior Analysts International (ABAI). She has developed a manual for parents of individuals diagnosed with ASD called Understanding Autism. Simmi received the Thakur Hari Prasad gold medal for being an outstanding student in her undergraduate program in 1995 and the Reeta Peshawaria-Menon Fellowship Award in 2014 for advancing work and understanding of autism spectrum disorders.