ABA Therapy Providers: AI Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Action Behavior Centers continued to lead the ABA Therapy Providers benchmark in September 2026, with valid recommendation coverage of 43.4%, down from 54.0% in July 2026 — a change within normal month-to-month variation. Behavioral Innovations held second position at 24.6%, a gap of 18.8 percentage points behind the leader.

Since the July 2026 baseline, Hopebridge and Trumpet Behavioral Health are the only brands with declines beyond normal variation. Hopebridge fell from 31.1% to 20.5% in valid recommendation coverage, a drop of 10.6 percentage points. Trumpet Behavioral Health fell from 6.2% to 0.8%, a drop of 5.4 percentage points. Helping Hands recorded the largest gain across the same span, moving from 1.2% to 3.3%, within normal variation.

September 2026 was a quiet month on its own: no brand's change from August 2026 to September 2026 exceeded normal variation. The largest single-month movements were Hopebridge's rise from 17.5% in August 2026 to 20.5% in September 2026, and Action Behavior Centers' decline from 54.5% in August 2026 to 43.4% in September 2026, a drop of 11.1 percentage points — both within normal variation.

The benchmark began with 720 prompt-surface observations in September 2026 and produced 122 qualified observations after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the canonical AI surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. The September 2026 series reached all six families, adding Perplexity to the five observed in August 2026. The August 2026 series marked the introduction of ChatGPT; those details belong to the intermediate month and are not part of the baseline-to-current comparison.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending ABA Therapy Providers

Research Scope and Qualification

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design. The funnel below shows how observations were qualified.

Brand-level percentages use the qualified observations as the public denominator, not the raw collection. See the AI Market Discovery Methodology for full details.

Current Brand Standings

This table shows the primary current-month benchmark view for September 2026, with brands sorted by valid recommendation coverage.

How to Read the Standings

Presence rate is the share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned in any form. Valid recommendation coverage is the share of qualified observations where the brand appears in a valid recommendation shortlist. Top-three rate is the share where the brand appears in the top three positions, and rank-one rate is the share where it appears first. Net sentiment is the balance of positive over negative mentions among observations where the brand appears.

For formulas and denominator rules, see AI Market Discovery Metric Definitions.

Recommendation Coverage Movement

This table shows the change in valid recommendation coverage from the baseline month (July 2026) to the current month (September 2026).

Month-over-month, Hopebridge rose from 17.5% in August 2026 to 20.5% in September 2026, while Helping Hands rose from 0.7% to 3.3% over the same period. Action Behavior Centers declined from 54.5% in August 2026 to 43.4% in September 2026, within normal variation.

Largest Decline: Hopebridge

Hopebridge recorded a significant decline across the full series, with valid recommendation coverage down 10.6 percentage points from July 2026 to September 2026. Valid recommendation coverage fell from 31.1% in July 2026 to 20.5% in September 2026, beyond normal month-to-month variation. Presence rate also fell over the same period, from 49.7% in July 2026 to 32.0% in September 2026, a decline of 17.7 percentage points. Top-three rate moved from 18.6% to 16.4%, while rank-one rate rose slightly from 6.2% to 6.6%. The monthly pattern was a steep decline from July to August followed by a partial recovery in September.

Largest Decline: Trumpet Behavioral Health

Trumpet Behavioral Health declined in each of the two months since July 2026, with valid recommendation coverage down 5.4 percentage points from 6.2% to 0.8%. Presence rate also fell over the same period, from 7.4% in July 2026 to 1.6% in September 2026, a drop of 5.8 percentage points. Top-three rate moved from 1.2% to 0.8%, and rank-one rate held at 0.0% across both months. The brand declined in each consecutive month of the series.

Category Leader: Action Behavior Centers

Action Behavior Centers remained the category leader with valid recommendation coverage of 43.4% in September 2026. Its presence rate moved from 78.3% in July 2026 to 63.9% in September 2026, a change of 14.4 percentage points, while top-three rate moved from 42.9% to 41.8% and rank-one rate from 27.3% to 25.4% over the same period. The brand remained the leader in every month of the series.

Among the stable brands, Helping Hands posted the largest gain, moving from 1.2% in July 2026 to 3.3% in September 2026. Behavioral Innovations declined 5.2 percentage points across the series, and BlueSprig Pediatrics declined 3.0 percentage points, both within normal month-to-month variation.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. The table below shows placement rates for the leading brands in September 2026 and how those compare with July 2026.

Close coverage levels can still hide different first-position rates. Hopebridge and Behavioral Innovations both show top-three rates well above their rank-one rates, indicating frequent placement in positions two or three. Acorn Health and Centria Autism each achieved a rank-one rate of 0.8% or 1.6% despite lower overall coverage, showing that coverage and prominence can diverge.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

In both July 2026 and September 2026, all qualified observations fell into the Brand Recommendation class.

The current public series measures brand recommendation discovery and does not yet contain qualified observations in the pricing and value or multi-brand comparison classes.

Historical Measurement Record

This is an evergreen benchmark URL. New measurements are added to the same report.

Evidence and Source Layer

The benchmark is built from prompt-level observations that retain the query, AI/search surface, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and, where exposed, citations or attributable evidence sources. Source presence is evidence about the information environment. It is not automatically proof that the source caused the recommendation.

Scope Boundaries

This public benchmark does not measure market share, attributable sales, every possible AI response, organic-search ranking, social mention volume, private or sponsored channels, or causality from a metric movement alone. It records changes in how AI and search surfaces present brands within prompt-level observations.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Market Discovery Index is an evergreen industry benchmark that tracks how AI and search surfaces present brands in response to natural-language discovery prompts. It is updated monthly to the same report.

• AI Market Discovery Methodology
• AI Market Discovery Metric Definitions
• AI Market Discovery Research Standards
• Modeled AI Authority Value

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