Our team uses evidence-based treatment approaches to build functional skills and decrease challenging behaviours. Our team is trained to:
Ages 1-3
Ages 4-18
The primary goal of ABA therapy is to teach and increase helpful behaviours while reducing challenging behaviours. There are a number of models of service delivery (Comprehensive, Focused, Behaviour Consultation and/or Parent Coaching) depending on the intensity of the services required as well as the goals of service. ABA is recommended for children who require less than 20 hours a week.
IBI is based on ABA principles but is more intensive. The primary goal of IBI is to help children with autism catch up developmentally with their peers. IBI aims to increase the rate of learning, bring their skills closer to those of typically developing children, and prepare them for a school setting. IBI is recommended for children who require more than 20 hours a week.
Respite Services provide parents with a much needed and deserved break from their responsibilities of caring for their special needs child. A respite worker will engage your child in a fun, non-therapeutic activities your child enjoys to allow you to get things done or just relax. Respite care will also give you the opportunity to spend more 1:1 time with all your children and family members.
Occupational Therapy helps children independently participate in daily physical, social, and life skills. Occupational Therapists focus on helping children develop their fine and gross motor skills, sensory processing skills, self-care, social skills, cognitive skills & hand-eye coordination. They use a combination of everyday activities, exercise and therapy to establish routines and techniques custom to each child.
Speech-Language Pathology helps children with language and social communication disorders. Speech-Language Pathologists focus on helping children expand on their foundational receptive and expressive language skills to better understand language and daily communication. They complete exercises to practice and establish social, speech and language skills essential for everyday living and social development.
Our BCBAs are Board Certified Behaviour Analysts, are on the OAP Approved Provider List, and are approved within the College of Psychologists and Behaviour Analysts of Ontario (CPBAO)
Our OT & SLP Services are supervised by a Registered Therapist
Intensive teaching is the use of a positive reinforcer for responses that are completely unrelated to that reinforcer. For example, if a child likes trains, the trains could be given to the child contingent upon the child performing a few tasks such as clapping, pointing.
When teaching intensively we like to use positive reinforcement and not negative reinforcement. This means that we want our children working to “get” something from us. In order to do this we use a variety of proven and effective procedures such as Errorless Teaching, Variable Ratio, Mixing & Varying Instructional Demands, Interspersing Easy & Hard Demands, Fluency and Most-to-Least Prompting.
Natural Environment Teaching (NET) is a method of teaching for when skills are taught or generalized within the natural environment. For example, during DTT you might teach a student to receptively and expressively label colours of items at the table. Then, during NET the student would get to practice the skill by labelling colours of crayons that you’re colouring with or asking for colours of Playdoh that you’re playing with. NET is also very useful in teaching play skills and social skills to a learner while prompting generalization of newly acquired skills.
Discrete Trial Training (DTT) is a method of teaching in simplified and structured steps. Instead of teaching an entire skill at once, the skill is broken down and then “built-up” using discrete trials that teach each step one at a time. It includes presenting an antecedent, the child’s response, and the therapist providing reinforcement for a correct answer or a correction for an error. Trials may be presented in blocks of ten or twenty consecutively, allowing for learners to have more opportunities to practice the skill.
These assessments include ABLLS-R (Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills Revised), The Assessment of Functional Living Skills (AFLS), The Early Start Denver Model (ESDM 0-3 years old) and VB-MAPP (Verbal Behaviour Milestones Assessment and Placement Program).
A functional behaviour assessment (FBA) identifies where, when and the likely reasons why a behaviour of concern happens. The information is then used to inform a behaviour support plan that includes strategies to address the reasons why the behaviour is occurring.
A progress report is a document created annually that explains your child's progress within their programs and individual objectives. Each domain and program are given a rating: new skill, good progress, working on skill, mastered or future program.
A Quality Check Assessment is completed by the Clinical Director remotely (via webcam) during a scheduled session on a monthly basis. This summary includes a description of goals and a detailed report of current program and individual target progression.