{"id":9649,"date":"2022-07-29T14:54:46","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T18:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/?p=9649"},"modified":"2023-02-15T10:58:06","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T15:58:06","slug":"through-wide-open-doors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/2022\/07\/29\/through-wide-open-doors\/","title":{"rendered":"Through Wide Open Doors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ava Bullard, Namesake of Ava\u2019s Law, Navigates New Experiences in Dual Enrollment at Georgia Southern<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When she was just a toddler, Georgia Southern University dual enrollment student Ava Bullard couldn\u2019t stand to go through a doorway \u2014 any doorway. She would writhe and scream as if she were being tortured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ava was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder when she was just over 2 years old. Her parents, Noah and Anna, knew that interventions such as Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) could help Ava the way it\u2019d helped thousands of autistic children, but it was not covered by insurance or Medicaid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe coverage didn\u2019t even cover the diagnosis,\u201d said Anna. \u201cWe paid cash for that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Noah and Anna maxed out credit cards, borrowed and saved where they could to get treatment for Ava and their efforts quickly paid off. Working with an ABA therapist from the Early Autism Project, Ava made significant improvements within a few weeks. She sat at a table, a simple task she\u2019d never done before and she followed one-step directions, which Anna says blew her away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within months, Ava spoke her first word, \u201cCheeto.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how or why,\u201d said Ava, laughing. \u201cI guess I just liked Cheetos.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Ava progressed, her mother lamented the fact that families like hers had to shoulder the burden for life-changing medical care. So she asked her uncle, Tommie Williams, a Georgia state senator at the time, how she could get autism covered by insurance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll need to pass a law,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never even been to the Capitol,\u201d said Anna. \u201cHow am I going to pass a law?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Ava was just 4 years old, she and her mother made their first trip from their home in Lyons, Georgia, to the Capitol, walking through its large, golden doorways into the Rotunda, where legislators, assistants, lobbyists and reporters hustled up and down the large stairway and through its echoing chambers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m super naive because I was thinking I\u2019m going to just go to the Capitol and bring Ava and just make everybody aware of something they don\u2019t know, like kids with autism in Georgia can\u2019t access life-changing treatment,\u201d said Anna. \u201cI just thought everybody would say, \u2018Oh, my gosh! Thank you for bringing this to mind!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Ava and her mother it took seven years of lobbying, testifying before legislative committees and getting kicked out of legislative offices before House Bill 429, known as \u201cAva\u2019s Law,\u201d brought insurance coverage for autism to Georgia in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt makes me feel good knowing that families don\u2019t have to struggle as much as we did just to get basic therapy,\u201d said Ava.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Ava is an honor graduate of Toombs County High School, where she was engaged in cheerleading, sports and student clubs. She says high school was difficult at first, and her social anxiety got the best of her until she got involved. Her first course at Georgia Southern was no different. She entered the doors of a lecture course to find some 300 people in her class. But as with every challenge she\u2019s faced, she kept moving forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was definitely a little bit different, but I\u2019m glad I did it because it just kind of eased me into college,\u201d Ava said. \u201cAnd I feel like when I go off to college, I\u2019ll have a little bit more knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ava plans to start college in the fall to study astronomy. There, she\u2019ll continue to charge through doorways of opportunity, and she\u2019ll continue to be reminded of the doors she opened for so many others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are people I don\u2019t even know who come up to me and tell me, \u2018Thank you for what you\u2019ve done,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cAnd there are people that come up to me that have named their children after me, and it\u2019s just something that\u2019s mind-blowing. It makes me feel good knowing that me and my mom could just help so many people, but it\u2019s something I guess I\u2019ll never get used to\u00a0\u2014\u00a0having a law in my name.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014\u00a0Doy Cave<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ava Bullard, Namesake of Ava\u2019s Law, Navigates New Experiences in Dual Enrollment at Georgia Southern When she was just a toddler, Georgia Southern University dual enrollment student Ava Bullard couldn\u2019t stand to go through a doorway \u2014 any doorway. She would writhe and scream as if she were being tortured. Ava was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":9651,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[70],"class_list":["post-9649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-fall-2022"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}