New England Center for Children


The New England Center for Children is an independently-operated, private special education residential school in Southborough, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1975, NECC is a renowned educational and research instituition providing intensive applied behavior analysis interventions for students with autism spectrum disorder between the ages of 14 months and 22 years old.

History

Founded as the Efficacy Research Institute by Vincent Strully, Dudley Orr, and John Pangburn in 1975, it was initially located in the Taunton State Hospital in Taunton, Massachusetts. In 1986, the school's name changed to the New England Center for Autism and relocated to Southborough before the title revised again to the New England Center for Children in 1996.
The school earned several awards, including the national award for model professional development from the U.S. Department of Education, the award for enduring programmatic contributions in behavior analysis from the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis, the New England innovation award from the Small Business Association of New England, and the award for international dissemination of behavior analysis from the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis in 2000, 2005, 2015, and 2017, respectively. Strully also received the earnest and young entrepreneur of the year award and won business leader of the year by Worcester Business Journal in 2007 and 2017, respectively.