TREATMENT OPTIONS
The Center's treatment options address the core deficit areas of each child, as identified through assessment. These include communication, interaction, sensory issues and behaviors that interfere with learning.
The Center views the child's relationships and interactions with parents, therapists and peers as the primary building blocks for achieving developmental progress. The child's emotional responses are activated through interactions with staff who join the child in his or her interests and activities. Additional developmental objectives are addressed through structured play activities that are based on the principles of both child development and applied behavior analysis. The individual assessment profile of the child determines the combination of treatment options.
Each treatment program provided by the Center is determined on a case-by-case basis. The following treatments may be incorporated into an individual's program:
Development, Individual Difference, Relationship-based (DIR)
DIR/Floortime principles are practiced at the Center. DIR promotes the child's social and emotional development. This approach emphasizes the establishment of emotional engagement, expression of feelings, ideas and communication by following the child's lead.
Relationship Development Intervention (RDI)
Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) principles are practiced at the Center. RDI principles emphasize experience, sharing, social coordination, declarative language, flexible thinking, relational information processing, foresight and hindsight. Activity frameworks are created to promote meaningful engagement.
Visual Supports
The Center uses visual supports to enhance the child's ability to gain meaning from the environment through sight. We then to use this understanding to improve their learning and communication skills. Many autistic children demonstrate strength in understanding visual information.
Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS)
The PECS system uses picture symbols to promote initiation of communication through the exchange of picture symbols with a partner. PECS training consists of six phases they include: exchange, distance and persistence, discrimination, building sentences, responding and commenting.
Applied Behavior Analysis
The Center uses Applied Behavior Analysis on the theory that behavior is learned and is shaped by events that happen before and after the behavior. In order to shape more productive behaviors, specific tasks are analyzed organized and preplanned consequences are identified, which include meaningful reinforcement.
T.E.A.C.C.H
Treatment and Education of Autistic and related Communication-handicapped CHildren is a program designed to enable children with special needs to function independently and meaningfully in their surroundings. The Center employs T.E.A.C.C.H which is based on a philosophy that emphasizes highly structured program rooms with predictable routines. A variety of techniques and methods are used depending on the individual child's needs interests and abilities.
Sensory Integration Therapy
The Center uses Sensory Integration Therapy, which involves stimulating the sensory systems in order to help encourage adaptive responses that are based on the individual's neurological profile. The focus of this therapy is to help the child organize sensory input, so that the child's adaptive responses to learning, behavior and relationships are improved.
Creative Art Therapies
The Center uses Creative Art Therapies to engage the children in a therapeutic relationship in order to focus on social interaction, self-esteem and reciprocity. These therapies are often used to provide additional support to children who are non-verbal and include dance therapy, art therapy and music therapy.
Verbal Behavior Therapy
The Center uses Verbal Behavior Therapy, based on B.F. Skinner's theory, which identifies speaking as verbal behavior. Verbal behavior includes spoken words, written words, signed words and picture words. Applied Behavior Analysis principles are used in teaching verbal behavior. In order to shape verbal behavior, specific tasks are analyzed and organized; preplanned consequences are identified and often include meaningful reinforcement.