Mapy Chávez Askins sits on the couch in her light-filled Quail Creek home, her feet tucked beneath her. The Naples-based behavioral analyst leans forward and speaks with luminous intensity about the film she credits with changing her life—Son-Rise: A Miracle of Love, the true story of a 3-year-old boy with autism whose parents refused to accept the diagnosis as untreatable. The movie shaped Mapy’s trajectory, eventually leading her to co-found the telehealth nonprofit Alcanzando, which provides screening, diagnostic and counseling services to Spanish-speaking children with autism and their families and teachers on three continents.
The oldest of five children, studious and hard-working, Mapy was 11 years old and living in Lima, Peru, with her family when she came across Son-Rise. The film struck a chord with its depiction of a family developing their own home-based, child-led treatment program for their son, Raun (the movie has been criticized for portraying Raun as ‘cured’ of autism).
Mapy thought about her younger brother. He’d struggled with selective mutism, an anxiety disorder affecting social communication, until his first-grade teacher—through empathy and personalized interventions—helped her brother find his voice. Mapy knew she wanted to help other families break through similar barriers of neurodevelopmental and emotional disorders.
Mapy’s path unfolded before her, winding in and out of that moment—from undergraduate work at Florida Atlantic University to a master’s degree and PhD at Columbia University. After receiving her doctorate, Mapy spent five years teaching in New York and developed a course called Autism in Latin American Countries, which involved the students working with Peruvian children in Lima. The group saw myriad youth from every socio-economic status—in schools with dirt floors, church back rooms and high-end institutions with the latest technology.
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Photography by Anna Nguyen
mapy chavez askins with family
Mapy—pictured above with her husband—launched Alcanzando with her sister in 2008 to fill the gap in autism care for Spanish-speaking families. The organization provides telehealth treatment, and empowers caretakers and teachers through trainings.
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Photography by Anna Nguyen
mapy chavez askins with a child
Everywhere Mapy looked, she recognized a need: Autism, a complex, lifelong developmental disability, affects people of all races and backgrounds, yet the available support and resources vary across cultures, with a glaring delay in diagnosis for Spanish-speaking communities. Research shows Latino children are diagnosed with autism two-and-a-half years later than white children, often due to resource scarcity, hindering crucial early intervention.
In 2008, Mapy co-founded Alcanzando—the Spanish term for reaching or attaining a goal—with her sister Antuanete Chávez, also a behavioral analyst. Initially, the pair moved back to Peru, where they envisioned working directly with children, six at a time. But, word spread, and soon, they had an overflowing waitlist. The model evolved as the sisters realized they could reach more people by training families to work with their own children.
Six years later, the sisters expanded into the United States. After moving to Naples in 2014, Mapy had taken note of the growing number of Spanish-speaking families in Collier County and the severe lack of resources available when she connected with churches and doctors’ offices. The women registered Alcanzando as a Florida nonprofit and contacted local churches, doctors and hospitals to promote their services and seek funding from private donors. They also worked to expand their team, recruiting nearly 50 international psychologists, clinicians and special education teachers. At the heart of the nonprofit is the drive to empower parents and educators to serve as children’s primary therapy providers.
Alcanzando follows a Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Intervention model, an evidence-based approach that takes place amidst the rhythms of daily life, with a focus on following the child’s lead and training caretakers to implement the applied behavior analysis (ABA) strategies. Learning opportunities often arise from the child’s interests, like teaching about colors or counting wheels when they reach for their favorite toy truck; talking about food groups when they want a snack; or mimicking the kid’s sounds while maintaining eye contact to simulate conversation. “As a parent, you don’t want to change your routines, which are just as important to your child’s stability,” Mapy says. “You want to incorporate effective strategies into the everyday.”
Photography by Anna Nguyen
mapy chavez askins holding a small child
The Columbia University graduate taught in New York before launching the nonprofit. Her can-do, giving spirit extends to everything: When a friend called last year about a baby boy needing a home, Mapy and her husband didn’t hesitate. “We had 48 hours to prepare,” she says.
All services—from diagnosis to parent and teacher workshops—are offered via Zoom in the home, at school or at care centers. Working with an Alcanzando specialist, caretakers learn how their kids’ minds work, key focus areas and evidence-based interventions. Mapy likes to joke that they were using Zoom before ‘Zoom’ became a verb. “It’s a beautiful tool,” she says. “We work with parents worldwide, teaching them parent-mediated strategies while the child remains in their home environment.” Research shows parental involvement is the number one factor in determining the success of ABA therapies, since it offers children consistent practice and generalized application of learned behaviors in their various settings.
Alcanzando’s approach bridges the gap in the availability of board-certified ABA therapists as autism rates rise. Since moving to Naples, it has reached about 200 kids in Southwest Florida, tapping into the large population of Spanish-speaking families, of whom many had been on a waitlist for care for nearly 18 months. “Other organizations offer workshops and even a bus to shuttle families to and from the service, but Immokalee-based immigrants who may not be here legally are not going to get on a bus,” she says. “They’ll find a way to log into a Zoom call, though.” The same goes for remote Amazonian regions where Mapy and her team can reach the unreachable, conducting twice-weekly telehealth therapies.
From diagnosis to counseling to general education, the team has reached more than 6,000 children throughout the U.S., Latin America and Spain. They recently wrapped up a 40-hour course for school teachers to learn effective strategies for elementary school kids who present with communication and social issues in Cusco, Peru. The team has also hosted trainings to help families, teachers and healthcare professionals identify signs of autism. “They may not have the tools or the language to ensure autistic children are included, but we do, and we can train them,” Mapy says.
She brings this roll-up-your-sleeves attitude to everything in her life. Last year, a friend in social services called her with an urgent situation. A baby boy needed a home quickly. Mapy turned to her husband, and the pair agreed. “We had 48 hours to prepare,” she says. “My friend called on Monday morning, and the baby was here Wednesday night.”
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Photography by Anna Nguyen
mapy chavez askins on a zoom call with patient
Relying on Zoom to provide services, Alcanzando reaches families who otherwise wouldn’t get care. “Immokalee-based immigrants who may not be here legally are not going to get on a bus. They’ll find a way to log into a Zoom call, though,” Mapy says.
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Photography by Anna Nguyen
mapy chavez askins interacting with a small child
The new dynamic has shifted her already packed schedule. “I’m answering emails at 10:30 at night, sometimes 2:45 in the morning,” she says. Even as her life grows fuller—and more rewarding—she continues to ask herself, ‘What else can we do to help children with autism? And how can we do it better?’
“We ask a lot of parents,” Mapy says. But the responsibility brings a form of relief—a path forward and an advocate to walk alongside you.