Perfect Fit Foundation was founded by Trista Fergerson and Holly Legg as a way to create acceptance for our own boys living with the struggle of Autism. With Autism there are so many factors as to what can make it a good year or a tough year. One thing people don't know about Autism is that poor behavior is often associated with it. Children with Autism have a difficult time controlling their emotions. They feel so strongly and don’t understand the social norms or have the capacity to control what is happening in their mind and body. For all of us, that control is a learned behavior. For children on the spectrum, it takes much longer to learn it and it’s much more difficult to teach.

Each of our boys had their own personal struggles but both of them could have benefited so much from services such as ABA, Speech, Occupational, and Physical therapy services. While Dodge City has many things to offer its community members, it lacks in offering services for special needs individuals.

Trista’s son Dax began exhibiting maladaptive behaviors and with research it was apparent to Trista what Dax would benefit most from was Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA Therapy) from a licensed and trained Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) that knew exactly how to change his challenging behaviors and increase his skills for learning. The nearest BCBA to apply that therapy was in Wichita, 150 miles from Dodge City. Trista called clinics in Wichita to ask about enrollment. How would it work? Would we qualify? Could we make a weekly visit if we had to? What was learned was the intensity of this service calls for more than one visit per week. Most children enrolled in an ABA program average 20 hours per week. Traveling to the service was not feasible.

Dodge City is a community and home to both Trista and Holly’s families. It was not a place they wanted to move from. However, they needed the service for their boys. After countless phone calls, questions and prayers, Trista decided to pursue the development of Perfect Fit Therapy Clinic to bring services to the children of Southwest Kansas. Upon bringing the idea to Holly, the ladies were in agreeance that they would be doing their sons a disservice if she didn’t bring the therapy and help they so desperately needed and deserved, in turn helping many other children along the way that also needed the service.