Applied BehaviorAnalysis (ABA) Consults
Caregivers of children with autism now have the opportunity to consult with a certified behavior analyst (BCBA) regarding ABA techniques they can apply at home.
This consultation will help empower the caregiver with the tools and strategies to increase positive behaviors in their child.
Consultant: ACN’s certified behavior analyst (BCBAs), Lisa Jimenez.
Email Lisa Jimenez at lisa@acn-sa.org for more information.
Speech Language Therapy
- Practical and powerful strategies to help your child communicate and interact during everyday routines and activities,
- Your child’s communication level and how to improve communication,
- What motivates your child to communicate,
- How to talk so that your child can understand you,
- How to develop your child’s play skills and help them learn to make friends, and
- Why your child behaves in certain ways and what you can do to change it.
Therapist: Marie A. Wilson, MS, CCC-SLP, Hanen-Certified in More Than Words®
Email Toni Wilson at toni@acn-sa.org.
Occupational Therapy
Occupational therapists can help you and your child work on improving attention, self-regulation, pro-social behavior, and accommodation to sensation to support independence with daily living skills in addition to building fine and gross motor coordination, and super-charging play and social-emotional capacities.
DIRFloortime®
DIRFloortime® is both a developmental paradigm and a therapeutic technique developed by Child Psychiatrist Stanley Greenspan. The DIRFloortime® Model is founded upon the understanding that development occurs within the context of the caregiver-child relationship. It focuses upon the individual ways that children experience the world around them and upon their capacities to self-regulate, to share attention, to be reciprocal and to explore and learn.
The family can expect the learn the following:
- How to take an active role in helping their child relate and communicate with others,
- How to support the development of sensory integration and social-emotional connectedness within the brain,
- To identify the unique challenges and strengths of their child as it relates to the ability to process sensory information and to learn,
- How to fortify their relationship with their child, and
- Facilitate their child’s intention and engagement to build the foundation for maximal emotional, sensory, motor, language and cognitive development.
Therapist: Carrie Alvarado, OTR, Ph.D., DIRFloortime® Expert Provider, PACT Level 2 Accredited Provider
Email Carrie at carrie@acn-sa.org.
Pediatric Autism Communication Therapy (PACT)
PACT intervention occurs through child-led, naturalistic play, which is supported by the child’s caregiver and filmed for retrospective reflective analysis. PACT is the first autism intervention to have shown long-term reduction in autism symptom severity: in a large clinical trial, the group of children receiving PACT pre-school, when compared to usual care, showed improvements in social communication and a reduction in the level of restricted and repetitive behaviors that were sustained into middle childhood, six years after the end of treatment. In other studies, PACT has also been applied successfully in children up to 10 years of age as well as in high-risk infants with prodromal autism symptomatology.
ACN expects to empower identified families and caregivers to:
- Improve immediate shared attention and child's state of arousal,
- Improve nonverbal and verbal communication skills, and
- Decrease restrictive, repetitive behaviors, and
- Reduce stress in caregivers.
Therapist: Carrie Alvarado, OTR, Ph.D., DIRFloortime® Expert Provider, PACT Level 2 Accredited Provider
Email Carrie at carrie@acn-sa.org.
Sensory Integration
Sensory Integration is the process of taking in sensory information from our bodies and the environment and using it in a functional manner. When our sensory systems do not process this information appropriately we may see problems in other aspects of child development. Sensory integration therapy helps caregivers develop better sensory integration for the child.
Enrolled families will be empowered with the tools and strategies to:
- Familiarize themselves with sensory processing disorder,
- Identify strengths and areas of need in their child's sensory system,
- Increase pro-social and adaptive coping skills in both caregiver and child,
- Prepare their child for daily routines, and
- Develop an individualized sensory plan to meet the needs of the child and family.
Therapist: Adrienne Gaither, OTR, C-SIPT, C/NDT
Email Adrienne at adrienne@acn-sa.org.
NOTE: Your child will not be counted absent from school with a valid note provided after each session.