Smita Awasthi

Smita Awasthi

Smita Awasthi

Momentum India Foundation

India

Smita Awasthi is a Masters in Psychology (topper 1983) and a PG Dip in Counseling from NCERT, India. She completed her ABA Education from University of North Texas, USA to become the First Behavior Analyst in 2004.
In a career spanning 32 years; she was involved with rehabilitation work in villages on a UNICEF project in 1984, taught psychology and was involved with parent training and resource building for children with autism in India & the Middle East (2004-till date).
She has pioneered the ABA movement in India and is involved with Advocacy, Training, Mentoring & Application of ABA principles in the field of Education, Development Disabilities & Autism in India & the region.
She was involved with counselling, teaching psychology students at Mithibai College Mumbai. Between 2000-2008 she is involved with ABA training for the staff of many NGO’s across India. Since 2004
she has conducted workshops for parents of children with autism and professionals across India (Bhilwara, Korba, Raipur, Bhubaneshwar, Madurai, Lucknow, Kanpur, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai) and abroad (Dubai, Muscat, Belfast, Abu Dhabi). She has done extensive workshop of five days with The Social Welfare Department of Chhattisgarh in 2007.
She continues to mentor ABA professionals and some of her mentees are now certified behavior analysts. Since she has started working with children with Autism in 1994 she has spent more than 75000 hours in the field working hands on with children between the ages of 1.8 months to 28 years.
She founded ABA-India in 2009 an affiliate chapter of ABAI. She advocated for early intervention in autism.
She founded Behavior Momentum India (2010) and pioneered 1:1 format teaching and formed the first systems based organization in special needs for children with autism in India. She supervises 12 centers across the country and have trained more than 600 para professionals in field of Autism. Due to the resource pool crunch she started the First ABA Course in India (2013). A BACB, USA approved course of which she is Program Director.
She formed BMI Foundation India (2013) towards an Assisted living facility for Adults with Special needs in India.
She is a PhD student at the Queen’s University Belfast, Ireland.
She has been a keynote Speaker at the European ABA Conf (2012–14), and at many Conferences in India and abroad.
She is a Full Member of the ABA International, USA.
She has presented papers and posters at conferences organized by ABA International between 2005 – till date.