WALNUT CREEK, Calif., May 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — After decades of growth without a unifying structure, a new era in the autism field began May 8 with the launch of the National Society of Autism Professionals (NSAP) – a first-of-its-kind organization bringing together professionals across disciplines under a shared purpose to improve the lives of autistic individuals and their families.

NSAP establishes a long-missing professional hub for clinicians, educators, researchers, policy leaders, innovators, advocates, and other specialists. By aligning a historically fragmented field, the organization aims to strengthen standards, improve transparency and forge a unified voice capable of shaping systems, policy, practice and the future of autism services and care.

Robin McLeod, Ph.D., a Minnesota-based licensed psychologist with decades of experience in autism support, was named chief executive officer. She grew a solo psychology practice into a multidisciplinary behavioral health organization with clinic locations across the Twin Cities, including 23 satellite sites embedded in hospitals, pediatric clinics and schools. For NSAP, McLeod will lead the organization as it builds infrastructure and forges collective direction the field has long lacked.

“The autism field has grown rapidly, but it’s been grown in silos,” said McLeod, who led professional practice guidelines development for the American Psychological Association and served as CEO of educational data science company EDataSci. “Professionals are doing deeply important work, but they’re often doing it in isolation – within disciplines, within systems and across different stages of life. There has never been one place where all of that expertise comes together. NSAP changes that.”

NSAP was created to address that leadership gap by serving as the connective tissue the field has been missing. By aligning clinical care, education, research, policy, workforce design, innovation and advocacy within a shared professional framework, the organization is designed to enable collaboration that amplifies the voice of autism professionals as they blaze a trail forward.

Over the past two decades, autism services have expanded significantly across behavioral health but without a shared forum to connect them. As a result, professionals have largely operated side by side rather than together.

“When professionals don’t organize themselves to lead, others step in,” McLeod said. “NSAP ensures that the people doing the work – those closest to autistic individuals and their families – are defining quality. We need to come together and guide the future of a field that has too often been stuck in the past.”

NSAP exists to establish professional standards that define quality practice in autism services while ensuring those standards carry weight in policymaking, systems design across the lifespan and meaningful outcomes in real-world autism care. The organization convenes professionals across disciplines to advance rigorous practice guidelines, build shared competencies, and align systems and stakeholders that shape the lives of autistic individuals and their families.

“We have strong research in some areas and emerging evidence in others,” McLeod said. “What’s been missing is a way to objectively evaluate that evidence and translate it into guidelines the field and policymakers can trust. That’s one of the roles NSAP is built to play.”

NSAP is intentionally designed as an inclusive, member-driven organization, with its direction and priorities shaped by the professionals it represents.

“This is not a top-down organization,” McLeod said. “The authority of NSAP will come from its members. Our job is to build the infrastructure that allows autism professionals to lead.”

Creation of NSAP was spearheaded by The Catalight Group, a nonprofit behavioral health organization informed by more than a decade of real-world data and driven by clinical innovation. In providing founding support to launch, Catalight recognized firsthand the costs of fragmentation in access to care, outcomes measurement and advocacy.

“There’s an entire population of professionals who advocate for autistic individuals and their families guided by a shared purpose to shape truly meaningful, life-changing outcomes for autistic individuals and their families,” said McLeod. “By bringing autism professionals together, along with all of their expertise, wisdom, and insight, we end up with exponentially greater impact overall.”

NSAP is now welcoming founding members in the United States and around the world, including individuals and organizations interested in helping shape the organization’s early direction, standards and initiatives. For more information, visit the NSAP website www.nsap.org.

About the National Society of Autism Professionals 

The National Society of Autism Professionals (NSAP) is a member-driven professional association unifying cross-disciplinary professionals whose work focuses on bettering the lives and futures of autistic individuals and their families. NSAP exists to break down silos, define shared standards and strengthen objective accountability – creating a unified professional voice to improve outcomes across the lifespan. The organization was launched with founding support from The Catalight Group, a nonprofit behavioral health organization dedicated to expanding access to evidence-based, outcomes-driven care.

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SOURCE Catalight Foundation, a California non-profit corporation; National Society of Autism Professionals (NSAP)