Services

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 02:35:44 +0100

Registration:
Register with Children First and become a member. As a member you will get a free Autism Booklet, 1 free evaluation, free referrals, welcome package and will have a free admission to all of our seminars.

Consultation:
Consultation is a formal meeting with a psychologist for discussion or the seeking of advice. We provide a free 1 hour consultation with our Behaviour Consultant, to learn more about our services and getting to know your child in order to come up with the best treatment plan for your child.

Evaluation:
Evaluation is systematic determination of merit, worth, and significance of something or someone using criteria against a set of standards. We provide evaluations that are done by our psychologist, in order to diagnose the severity of your child's autism and better understand your child's behavior.

Assessment:
Assessment or mental examination is an examination into a person's mental and physical health by a mental health professional such as a psychologist. Assessment may result in a diagnosis of a mental illness. It is the mental equivalent of a physical examination.

Pivotal Response Therapy:
Pivotal response therapy (PRT), also referred to as pivotal response treatment or pivotal response training, is a behavioural intervention therapy for autism. Pivotal response therapy advocates contend that behavior hinges on 'pivotal' behavioral skills—motivation and the ability to respond to multiple cues—and that development of these skills will result in collateral behavioral improvements.

Relationship Development Intervention:
RDI is a trademarked proprietary treatment program for autism spectrum disorders (ASD), based on the belief that the development of dynamic intelligence is the key to improving the quality of life for individuals with autism. The program's core philosophy is that individuals with autism can participate in authentic emotional relationships if they are exposed to them in a gradual, systematic way. The goal of treatment is to systematically build up the motivation and tools for successfully interacting in social relationships, to correct deficits in this area that are thought to be common to all people with autism. RDI focuses on cultivating the building blocks of social connection -- such as referencing, emotion sharing, co-regulation, and experience sharing -- that normally develop in infancy and early childhood.

ABA Therapy:
Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) is the oldest and most fully researched treatment specifically developed for autism. ABA is a very intensive system of reward-based training which focuses on teaching particular skills. You may or may not need a full ABA treatment program for your child, however at a minimum you should be familiar with the basic techniques used in ABA which are often used to teach specific skills even with higher functioning children.

Communications Interventions:
Communications interventions help children to learn to communicate in various ways, such as verbaly, using PECS or sign language. Almost all people with autism have issues with speech and language. Sometimes these issues are obvious, many people with autism are non-verbal or use speech very poorly. Sometimes the issues relate not to articulation or grammar but to "speech pragmatics" (the use of speech to build social relationships). Across the board, though, speech, language and communications interventions are likely to be helpful. We provide assessments for pragmatic speech and communications deficits and will help develop a method to include these issues in your overall intervention program.

Augmentative/Alternative Communications Intervention:
Augmentative and alternative communication is any method that supplements or replaces speech and writing when these are temporarily or permanently impaired and inadequate to meet all or some of a person's communication needs. Use of AAC involves selecting messages or codes from a set of possibilities. The user can use these elements alone or in combination in order to communicate a variety of messages. AAC may be unaided, or aided, involving high and low technology.

LOVAAS Teqnique:
LOVAAS technique, a form of treatment guided by applied behavior analysis, is a therapy for children diagnosed with autismor related disorders. The technique consists of an intensive behavioral intervention which is carried out early in the development of autistic children. It involves discrete trial teaching, breaking skills down into their most basic components and rewarding positive performance. It is also known for its previous use of aversives to punish unwanted behaviors.

Descrete-trial training:
DTT is used to reduce stereotypical autistic behaviours through extinction and the provision of socially acceptable alternatives to self-stimulatory behaviors. Intervention can start when a child is as young as three and can last from two to six years. The first year seeks to reduce self-stimulatory behavior, teaches imitation, establishes playing with toys in their intended manner, and integration of the family into the treatment protocol. The second year teaches early expressive and abstract linguistic skills, peer interaction, basic socializing skills, and strives to include the individual's community in the treatment to optimize mainstreaming while eliminating any possible sources of stigmatization. The third year focuses on emotional expression and variation in addition to observational learning, and pre-academic skills such as reading writing, and arithmetic. Rarely is the technique implemented for the first time with adults.

Picture Exchange Communication System:
Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) is a form of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). It is typically used as an aid in communication for children with autism and other special needs. The system has been used with a variety of ages including preschoolers, adolescents and adults who have a wide array of communicative, cognitive and physical difficulties. Preliminary evidence shows that its primary benefit is providing a means of communication; there is only very limited or unclear data on whether it is effective for improving social-communicative skills, challenging behaviors, or speech development.

Play Therapy:
Play Therapy is the systematic use of a theoretical model to establish an interpersonal process wherein play therapists use the therapeutic powers of play to help clients prevent or resolve psychosocial challenges and achieve optimal growth and development. A working definition might be a form of counseling or psychotherapy that therapeutically engages the power of play to communicate with and help people, especially children, to engender optimal integration and individuation.
Strange as it may sound, children with autism often need help learning to play. And play can also serve as a tool for building speech, communication, and social skills. We will provide consultation and training in using play therapy techniques in your home, including therapeutic techniques such as Floor-time or The Play Project. In areas such as play therapy having an understanding of ABA techniques is often not only useful, but necessary. Many therapy programs use a one size fits all approach and rule out the use of techniques from other intervention programs. We attempt to use the most effective techniques that meet both you and your child’s needs.

Behaviour Intervention:
Behaviour therapy is based upon the principles of classical conditioning developed by Ivan Pavlov and operant conditioning developed by B.F. Skinner. Children with autism are often frustrated. They are misunderstood, have a tough time communicating their needs, suffer from hyper-sensitivities to sound, light and touch. Using Functional Behaviour Analysis we will help you to figure out just what lies behind negative behaviors, and to recommend both changes to the environment and routines to improve behavior as well as what specific new skills are needed to address the function of the behaviour (called a Functionally Equivalent Replacement Behaviour or FERB).

Visually Based Therapies:
Many people with autism are better visual thinkers. Some do very well with picture-based communication systems such as PECS (Picture Exchange Communication). Video modeling, video games and electronic communication systems also tap into these children’s visual strength to build skills and communication. We have found visual therapies to be a strong focus point in developing a rounded home based intervention. Often we use the PECS system as part of an initial assessment, and then implement visual supports to make sure that our interventions are used successfully in a variety of settings such as the home, school and community. Visual supports gives us the ability to externalize learning, often making new skills easier to grasp, and avoids the problem of children becoming “prompt dependent” upon one or more individuals and being unable to fully function in a variety of settings.

Speech Therapy:
Speech Therapy works on communication, language, reading, writing, facial expressions, posture and gesture. Communication includes speech (articulation, intonation, rate, intensity, voice, resonance, fluency), language (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics), both receptive and expressive language (including reading and writing), and non-verbal communication such as facial expression, posture and gesture. Swallowing problems managed under speech therapy are problems in the oral and pharyngeal stages and sometimes esophageal stages of swallowing.
Speech therapy focuses on receptive language, or the ability to understand words spoken to you, and expressive language, or the ability to use words to express yourself. It also deals with the mechanics of producing words, such as articulation, pitch, fluency, and volume. For language, this might involve games to stimulate word retrieval, comprehension or conversation. Some children only need help with language, others have the most problems with the mechanics of speech, and some need every kind of speech help there is.

Occupational Therapy:
Occupational Therapy is about helping people do the day-to-day tasks that “occupy” their time, sustain themselves, and enable them to contribute to the wider community. Its these opportunities to “do” that occupational therapy provides that prove important and meaningful to the health of people. The role of an occupational therapist is to work with a client to help them achieve a fulfilled and satisfied state in life through the use of "purposeful activity or interventions designed to achieve functional outcomes which promote health, prevent injury or disability and which develop, improve, sustain or restore the highest possible level of independence.

Music Therapy:
Music therapy is both an allied health profession and a field of scientific research which studies correlations between the process of clinical therapy and biomusicology, musical acoustics, music theory, psychoacoustics and comparative musicology. It is an interpersonal process in which a trained music therapist uses music and all of its facets—physical, emotional, mental, social, aesthetic, and spiritual—to help clients to improve or maintain their health. Music therapists primarily help clients improve their observable level of functioning and self-reported quality of life in various domains (e.g., cognitive functioning, motor skills, emotional and affective development, behavior and social skills) by using music experiences (e.g., singing, songwriting, listening to and discussing music, moving to music) to achieve measurable treatment goals and objectives.

Sensory Interventions:
A sensory system is a part of the nervous system responsible for processing sensory information. A sensory system consists of sensory receptors, neural pathways, and parts of the brain involved in sensory perception. Commonly recognized sensory systems are those for vision, hearing, somatic sensation (touch), taste and olfaction (smell). In short, senses are transducers from the physical world to the realm of the mind. Sensory therapy focuses on building daily living skills. Since many people with autism have delays in fine motor skills, sensory or neuropsychological based interventions can be very important. Sensory integration therapy - a technique which may help autistic people manage hypersensitivity to sound, light, and touch is often part of an overall intervention plan.

Social / Relational Interventions:
One of autism's "core deficits" is a lack of social and communication skills. Many children with autism need help in building the skills they need to hold a conversation, connect with a new friend, or even navigate the playground. Social skills therapy can help out setting up and facilitating peer-based social interactions. We often use books and programs developed by Michelle Garcia Winner such as her “Social Behaviour Mapping” to address these issues.

Other Developmental Therapies:
Floortime or Son-rise are all considered to be "developmental treatments." This means that they build from a child's own interests, strengths and developmental level to increase emotional, social and intellectual abilities. Developmental therapies are often contrasted to behavioral therapies, which are best used to teach specific skills such as shoe tying, tooth brushing, etc. However, a successful program will use each when and where they are appropriate.

Workshops:
Workshops are provided for parents of autistic children or children with disabilities. In the workshops you will learn everything about autism, treatment, behaviour management, how to educate and discipline your child at home etc.

Seminars:
In seminars you will learn various topics on autism and other mental disabilities. You will get advice from autism exports on how you can help your child to succeed and improve their behaviour. You will get to meet other parents with autistic children. You will also be able to ask questions and get them answered by our autism exports and specialist.

Social and Community events:
In social and community events you will find educational field trips, volunteer work, camping, picnics, barbeques, games and many others activities for children and their families.