How we verify listings

What we check

Every listing is reviewed by a person before it appears. We are two autism parents, not an algorithm, and the directory moves at the speed of what we can actually confirm. For each provider we try to verify:

• The organization exists and is operating — a working website or an active phone line, not a parked domain.
• It has a real presence in the county it's listed under. A physical location serving that county, or clearly stated in-home and school-based service across it.
• Contact details match the provider's own materials — phone and address as the provider publishes them, with an area code that makes sense for the state.
• The service category is accurate — an ABA clinic listed under ABA, a diagnostic clinic under diagnostics.

Where a detail can't be confirmed, we leave it blank rather than guess. An empty phone field is honest; an invented one wastes a parent's afternoon.

What we won't list

County pages exist to answer one question: who can actually help my family, near me. That means we decline some things that would make the directory look bigger:

• National directories and lead-generation sites.If a submission is a search tool rather than a provider of direct services, it doesn't belong on a county page — regardless of how useful it may be elsewhere.
• Registered-agent and virtual-office addresses. A mailbox in a state is not a presence in a county.
• Chain locations in counties they don't serve. Large providers are welcome, but listed only where they actually operate.
• Anything promising cures or recovery from autism.

We would rather a rural county page say “we haven't found local providers here yet” than fill it with listings that waste your time. Empty is honest. Padded is not.

What the labels mean

Each listing carries where its information came from:

• Verified by Autism Parent Club— we confirmed the details against the provider's own website or by contacting them.
• Compiled from public sources— drawn from the provider's published materials, state agency lists, or licensing records, and not yet individually re-confirmed.
• Submitted by the provider — the practice sent us their own details, which we reviewed before publishing.

Listings also show a last verified date. Details change — clinics move, waitlists open and close, phone numbers get reassigned. A date lets you judge how much weight to give the entry, and tells you when to call ahead.

What we removed

The most useful thing we can tell you about our standards is what happened when we held our own data to them.

An early version of this directory was assembled far too quickly. When we audited it properly — checking every website and cross-referencing phone area codes against the states they claimed — a significant share didn't hold up. Dead domains, parked pages, numbers from the wrong part of the country, and national chains listed in counties where they have no presence.

• ~619 listings removed entirely — defunct organizations and locations that could not be confirmed to exist.
• ~919 dead website links suppressed — the entry may remain where the organization is real, but we will not send you to a broken or parked page.

We rebuilt from there by hand, county by county, starting with our own state. That is slower, and it is why some counties are still thin. We think a smaller directory you can trust beats a large one you can't.

What's paid, and what never will be

Right now, nothing on this site is paid. No provider has paid to appear, to rank higher, or to be featured. There are no paid placements and no sponsored listings anywhere on the site today.

We do expect to offer paid placements to providers in future — it's how we intend to keep the site free for families, rather than charging parents or filling pages with ads. We'd rather tell you that plainly now than surprise you with it later. When it happens, a paid placement will buy a provider position — a highlighted spot nearer the top of a county page — and nothing else. Specifically:

• Anything paid will be labelled as paid, on the page, in plain language. You will never have to guess.
• Paying can never remove or hide a free listing.A sponsor appearing above other providers will push them down the page, and we won't pretend otherwise — but every free listing stays on the page, stays complete, and stays findable.
• Paying can never buy verification. The source label on a listing reflects how we checked it, not whether anyone paid us.
• Paying can never get a competitor left off.
• Our guides stay free and unsponsored. We will not sell editorial content, and no provider will review or approve what we write.

This page will describe the arrangement before it launches, not after.

We are not a healthcare provider, a school, or an insurer. We don't diagnose, and we don't recommend one provider over another. Being listed here is not an endorsement — it means we confirmed the provider exists and serves the area.

Tell us when we're wrong

We will get things wrong. Clinics close, staff change, waitlists shift, and we are two people covering a lot of ground. If you find something inaccurate — as a parent or as a provider — please tell us and we'll fix it, usually the same day.

Every county and provider page has a correction link, or you can reach us through our contact page. Providers can also submit or update a listing directly.