Meet Heather Traeden: The Heart Behind Balance in Behavior
We're a group of therapists and educators who work alongside families of neurodivergent children every day. Today, we want to pull back the curtain a little and introduce you to the heart behind Balance in Behavior.
A Childhood Where Neurodivergence Felt Like Home
Heather Traeden, MEd, MS, BCBA, is the founder and Clinical Director of Balance in Behavior. She grew up as one of the oldest of nine, in a family with two siblings with disabilities — one older, one younger. She'll tell you that being surrounded by neurodivergence from her earliest years meant it never felt foreign or alien to her. It felt like home.
That instinct followed her everywhere:
Through a master's degree in human development.
Through years as a child life specialist at Primary Children's Hospital, where she helped kids navigate cancer, surgery, and chronic illness by finding ways to make hard things livable.
Through founding a charter school designed specifically around the learning needs of neurodivergent kids — a school that now serves 1,400 students a year.
Through the progression from RBT to BCaBA to BCBA.
And through raising her own neurodivergent children, which she'll be the first to tell you taught her things no credential ever could.
Why She Started Balance in Behavior
Heather started Balance in Behavior because she saw a gap in services:
Families leaving diagnostic appointments with a piece of paper that said autism — and no idea what to do next.
Children whose behaviors were being treated without anyone asking what those behaviors were actually communicating.
Parents who opened their doors to intensive in-home therapy and were met with clinicians who walked in assuming they already knew everything.
A Different Approach
Heather's approach is the opposite of that. She enters homes looking for what's working first. She builds programs around what families can actually sustain. She creates space for parents to push back, to question, to say "this doesn't feel right for my child" — and she considers that one of the most important parts of the work.
Because here's what she knows after decades in this field: behavior is communication. And the job of a good clinician isn't to manage that communication — it's to help families understand it.
That philosophy is the foundation of everything we're building at Balance in Behavior.
Hear From Heather
Here's a short interview illuminating Heather's heart for this work. We hope you enjoy it!
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