For 36 years, OTI has accompanied autistic people and their families across every stage of life — from early diagnosis through adulthood and integration into the community.
OTI’s work is not built around a single method, but around the individual. Its multidisciplinary teams draw on a range of evidence-based approaches, including DIR, ESDM, and ABA, to design each program around the person’s own pace, strengths, and needs.
OTI accompanies autistic children, teens, and adults in kindergarten, at school, at home, and, increasingly, in the workplace.
Beyond direct care, OTI shapes the field itself: publishing peer-reviewed research, presenting at international forums, and helping set national policy and professional standards.
This work is carried out in close partnership with Israel’s healthcare, education, and welfare systems, and with local authorities across the country, in the understanding that genuine inclusion requires shared responsibility.
OTI’s staff and leadership bring this same commitment to every autistic child, teen, and adult they accompany — and to their families — working every day toward one goal: a life built around who they are.
Att. Tzipi Nagel-Edelstein, CEO
Prof. Nathaniel Laor, Chair – Scientific Clinical and Research Committees
Dr. Irit Mor-Snir – Medical Director
Eti Amiel
Dana Costa
Tali Edelstein
Adi Koren
Roi Pilpel
Dr. Vered Reiter
Keren Segal
Att. Gili Shilat
Liel Swisa
Shlomit Weisblum
Shir Zentner
Chair: Tzili Charney
Professional Advisor to the Board: Prof. Nathaniel Laor
Alona Bar On
Prof. Yosef Frost
Prof. Benad Goldwasser
Dr. Shlomo Segev
Dr. Rivi Sherman
Prof. Nathaniel Laor, Chair
Dana Costa
Dr. Irit Mor-Snir
Att. Tzipi Nagel-Edelstein
Dr. Vered Reiter
Keren Segal
Shir Zentner
Prof. Nathaniel Laor, Chair
Dana Costa
Dr. Tali Gev
Prof. Ofer Golan
Dr. Irit Mor-Snir
Att. Tzipi Nagel-Edelstein
Dr. Vered Reiter
Shir Zentner
Our daycare teams accompany families from the very beginning — often shortly after their child’s autism diagnosis, when everything about parenting suddenly feels new. Each program combines treatment, education, and encouragement, tailored to the child’s own skills, strengths, and pace.
Early, intensive support has a lasting impact. Because young children’s brains are especially responsive at this stage, early intervention can meaningfully shape a child’s development. Our teams work with autistic children and their families with sensitivity, professionalism, and care.
For many children, this is their first experience of structured learning. Our programs build a steady daily routine and foundational skills, while staying closely attuned to each child’s individual developmental needs. Alongside the child’s care, we support parents directly — through individual guidance and parent-group sessions — as they navigate this new chapter together.
Communication Preschools are specialized educational frameworks, run in partnership with local authorities and the Ministry of Education, designed for autistic children. OTI staffs each preschool with a multidisciplinary team of professionals — psychologists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, art therapists, music therapists, drama therapists, physiotherapists, integration coordinators, cognitive therapists, psychiatrists, and neurologists.
Each child’s team builds an individualized therapeutic plan around them, with families and their surrounding environment part of that process from the start. By bringing education and therapeutic care together in one framework, treatment becomes part of the child’s daily life — at preschool and at home alike.
OTI’s In-School Treatment Service accompanies autistic students throughout their school years, with personalized programs that build essential life, emotional, cognitive, movement, and body-awareness skills. Psychologists, social workers, speech therapists, physiotherapists, and occupational therapists work as one team, woven directly into each student’s school day.
Bringing treatment into a familiar, supportive environment makes it part of daily life rather than a disruption to it — giving students access to the care they need without stepping outside their routine.
OTI’s Adult Programs support autistic adults as they build meaningful careers and take part fully in their communities. More than 70% of autistic adults in Israel remain unemployed — not for lack of ability, but because the labor market has yet to learn how to include them. OTI works to close that gap directly.
Through “From Calculation to Integration,” OTI now offers two training tracks: one in financial management and bookkeeping, developed with the BDO College of Finance, and a new track in international trade — import, export, and logistics — developed with FedEx and the Chamber of Commerce. Both combine structured professional training with close, personal support into competitive employment; more than 90% of program graduates go on to find work in the open market.
OTI also offers extracurricular programs and support for university students on the spectrum.
OTI operates four treatment centers across Israel, offering diagnosis, consultation, and individual and group therapies for autistic toddlers, children, teens, and adults — and their families.
Our teams bring together theoretical knowledge, clinical experience, and current research to inform every diagnosis and treatment plan, and we regularly assess our own work to keep it effective. We also train professionals across the field, extending this expertise well beyond our own centers.
OTI is committed to advancing autism research in Israel. A dedicated Research Committee supports OTI’s own researchers with the resources and infrastructure needed to pursue this work, and helps translate findings into practice across the organization.
That commitment shows up internationally. OTI researchers recently presented three studies at INSAR 2026, the world’s largest international conference in the field of autism, and a qualitative study from OTI’s Cohen-Harris Resilience Center was published in the peer-reviewed journal Research in Autism. Work like this deepens our understanding of autistic individuals and their families, and points toward better support and treatment for years to come.