Elkhorn, NE: New clinic to help with 12 mo wait for autism diagnosis

May 29, 2025, WOWT, Omaha, NE: Elkhorn clinic helps families get quicker access to autism screening

Long waitlists can often delay a diagnosis for autism. A new screening clinic aims to provide Omaha-area families with faster and increased access to services they may need.

At age 3, Everleigh Wilson is engaged in her play.

“The biggest thing for her is how well she communicates, she’s really vocal. She’s smart as can be, I mean we’re already working on handwriting,” says her mother, Mia Wilson.

And as she grows, Wilson has been noticing new habits.

“She’s got very big emotions, she has great words so she can tell me what she needs but if she gets upset it’s more or a screaming, crying. Sometimes she stims, so for people who don’t know what a stim is, it’s like hand flapping or spinning in a circle,” says Wilson.

It’s reminiscent of behaviors she saw in her older daughter who was diagnosed with autism at age two. At first Wilson thought maybe Everleigh was mimicking behaviors of her older child. She’s since started to observe slightly different behaviors between her two girls.

“It’s hard too though, because I feel like it’s easier to diagnose boys. Like girls often go undiagnosed because we get told it’s just their personality or this, that and the other,” says Wilson.

Based on Mia’s experience, she knows the typical waitlist for a diagnosis can be long.

“That waitlist was pretty long. We were told between six months and a year for Everleigh,” says Wilson.

“In the Omaha area, the average wait time these days for an evaluation with a psychologist is about 12 months. That’s a huge amount of their lifespan in a really important developmental time. A diagnosis is really what opens up access to services,” says CEO of Bloomwell Autism Therapy, Logan Pratt.

Bloomwell Autism Therapy in Elkhorn now offers a no-waitlist clinic for families, so kids can be evaluated in a more timely manner.

“We never want cost to be a barrier for any family that is looking for this type of testing. So we are able to offer a pretty generous financial aid to folks who may not cover this type of testing or it may be really expensive for them,” says Pratt.

During these clinics, Bloomwell professionals use Applied Behavior Analysis, or ABA therapy, which is considered the gold standard of therapy for autism, according to Pratt. . . .

 “There’s really been a huge growth in resources in Nebraska recently as far as ABA goes, but still there’s a huge supply demand imbalance. Many more people need our services than we are able to provide,” Pratt said.

Last month, the CDC reported that one in 31 American children are diagnosed with autism by their 8th birthday. The author of the report largely attributed this increase to improvements in detecting autism.

“There’s the tests like I said at the pediatrician that maybe they didn’t have back then, so they’re giving us the ‘Hey, heads up, you’re child might be on the spectrum’ — ‘early intervention is better’ — and they will tell you that,” Wilson said.

 “There’s some things, like I said, she really needs help with, and I want her to have a good outcome, the sooner the better. I just don’t want her to struggle in life, struggle in school. She’s just a normal kid like everybody else, and she deserves to be treated as such,” Wilson said.

For other parents who may be in a similar situation to the Wilsons, Mia offered this advice:

“At the end of the day, do what’s best for your kid. I know it may be a hard pill to swallow to get your kid an autism diagnosis, but once you know there’s so many resources out there available to you that you can utilize now.” . . .