Description

Our Approach

Our therapy is grounded in the science of Applied Behavior Analysis.

At Think, we have one purpose: to improve the life outcomes of the children who come through our door.

Our principle therapeutic and teaching service for children with social, developmental or behavior difficulties is supported by over 40 years of scientific research and has been shown to be the most effective treatment for individuals with autism.

This methodology is called Applied Behavior Analysis or ABA.

ABA, which comes from evidenced-based practices, has been shown time again to provide real results.

A 360-degree approach to improving the lives of the children we work with 

A 360-degree approach means that we use complementary therapies to achieve results and support the treatment of the individual. Complementary therapies as well as family and school involvement are key for success.

Multidisciplinary therapy

Our ABA team is trained in the principles of ABA and uses our rigorous data-tracking system inorder to continuously assess and evolve the program for each child. We also offer additional therapies because our research and experience show that in many cases, the way to achieve the best results is to have a comprehensive and integrated program.

To this end, we also count as part of our team speech, physical and occupational therapists.

Inclusion of family and school

Parents and schools play a very important role in the rate of progress the children we work with make. In fact, the whole community around the child plays a role.

We believe in including the child’s community as much as possible. We include parents in therapy sessions and  provide training for parents, care-givers and educators.

Our Children

Each child we work with is unique and receives individualized programming to meet his or her specific needs.

Think provides therapeutic services to children with behavioral and developmental difficulties. We cater to children from the early years through the teens.

Children come to us through recommendations from their pediatrician, school or because their parents recognize development delays or behavioral difficulties at an early age.

Our therapists work with children with:

• Autism
• Autism Spectrum Disorders
• Cerebral Palsy
• Down Syndrome
• Pervasive Developmental Disorder
• Behavioral Difficulties
• Learning Disabilities
• Speech Delay
• Motor Difficulties
• Intellectual Impairment

We are driven by our goal to see progress in each child we work with.

How It Works

The following is an outline of how it works for Think newcomers and returning families:

1. Initial interview conducted by Clinic Director which consists of:

• A Parent Interview,
• Child Observation,
• Review of any previous assessment reports or plans.

2. Placement on Think’s waiting list, if the Initial Interview demonstrates need for our services.

3. Assessment conducted by Supervisor and support staff (Behavior Technicians) when a place becomes available. During the assessment sessions we study the following skills:

• Requesting,
• Labeling,
• Listener responding/receptive,
• Pre-conversational and conversational,
• Imitation including gross/fine/vocal imitation,
• Play,
• Visual perceptual, and
• Any barriers to learning.

4. Program created by two BCBAs (Director and Supervisor) according to the Assessment. The program is both, a guideline for thetherapist(s) who will work with your child and a means of measuring your child’s progress.

5. Daily therapy implemented by Behavior Technician, according to your child’s program and schedule. We have a term system in place; all terms are approximately eight weeks in duration, depending on public holidays when we are closed.

6. Daily data input by Behavior Technician.getting started 2

7. Lead Therapist regularly adapts program targets according to progress, all changes being first approved by the Supervisor.

8. A scheduled supervision session Supervisor occurs at least twice per term.

9. Behavior Technician, Lead Therapist, Supervisor, and Clinical Director conduct weekly team meetings discussing your child’s program.

10. Weekly summary reports are created by the Supervisor.

11. Mid term meeting between the Director (BCBA), the Supervisor (BCBA) and the parents to discuss progress and next steps.

12. End of Term Report written by Supervisor.

Other Therapies and Services 

If Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) and/or Occupational Therapy (OT) are recommended for your child, a free interview and case study will be scheduled with our SLT  and/or OT. Should you then decide to go forward with either therapy, a full assessment will follow.

Teaching goals are also regularly provided to the family to ensure

Parent Involvement

Parents are involved in their child’s therapy in several ways:

Parents are welcome and encouraged to participate in as many of their child’s sessions as possible. This is an opportunity to learn new skills to help manage their child’s behavior and progress in the home.

Parents will have a regular consultation for in-depth program review and to talk over progress areas-for-development as per our term system.

Comprehensive Assessment

The comprehensive assessment is a very important process that takes place when we first start working with your child. We do not rush this process. Instead, we like to take the time to truly understand your child.

The First Step: Initial Assessment

The initial assessment comprises of two to six hours (over several sessions), with a BCBA, our most experienced and qualified therapists. The goal of these sessions is to establish your child’s skills and abilities in more detail,  forming the basis for the program we will design for your child. It is also the established base by which we (and you) can observe your child’s progress and adapt the program.

More specifically, the initial assessment establishes your child’s level of functioning in the following areas:

• Communication Skills,
• Motor Skills,
• Adaptive Skills,
• Visual Perception,
• Academic Ability,
• Social Skills, and
• Behavior Tendencies.

In essence, this is an intricate process that delves deep into your child’s abilities in order to be able to create an ideal therapy program specific to your child.

The Second Step: Program Creation

Towards the end of the initial assessment we are able to begin designing a program specific to your child. Key to our programs is the inclusion of milestones and targets that once reached, will lead to the evolution of the program and your child’s continued progress.

The program will include recommendations for frequency of sessions and for any appropriate complimentary therapies to ABA.Once your child has achieved a given set of targets, we adapt the program.

In this way, the program is both a guideline for the therapist(s) who will work with your child and a means of measuring your child’s progress.

Functional Analysis

Sometimes children demonstrate what are known as “maladaptive behaviors” that, in themselves, are a barrier to successful integration into many social and learning environments. In these cases, we conduct a Functional Analysis.

This is a vital part of an ABA program and we are meticulous about it. When not done properly, the resulting behavior plan is usually ineffective.

A Functional Analysis isolates the possible causes and functions of the child’s maladaptive behavior, identifying the best plan to decrease or eliminate the behavior in question by teaching the child appropriate behaviors that will replace the maladaptive ones.

In general, any child exhibiting the following behaviors would benefit from a Functional Analysis:

• Self-Injury,
• Aggression,
• Self-Stimulatory Behaviors, 
• Non-Compliance.

At Think our two most important values are: teaching with compassion and expertise with competence. These values are the inspiration behind the experience we intend for your child’s comprehensive assessment.

ABA Therapy And Program Management

ABA therapy is at the heart of what we do at Think Behavior and Development Center for Children.

Not sure what ABA therapy is? Click here for more information, including a video that gets to the heart of why we believe so strongly in this treatment for children with behavioral-related challenges.

ABA therapy is the method by which we identify your child’s developmental priorities, create a program that teaches your child skills and behaviors that are lacking, and manage the evolution of your child’s progression.

Teaching

Once a child’s program goals have been chosen, a behavior therapist implements the teaching and behavior protocols defined by the program.

Programs have two elements:

• Intensive Table Work where compliance, attention to task, language, and academic goals including reading, math and spelling are targeted.
• Natural Environment Teaching (NET), which aims to generalize what has been taught at the table and also targets requesting, play, socialization and self-help skills.

We aim to conduct our teaching sessions in the environment (home, school, shopping center, community) as much as possible to give your child a chance to use these skills.

Evolving Program

Data regarding the child’s responses is collected and recorded into our database.

This allows us to monitor the acquisition of goals, the timing of this acquisition, and to introduce new goals as soon as your child is ready.

Regular data collection and graphing is a necessary component of any effective program to measure the effectiveness of the chosen teaching and behavioral interventions and to determine if the interventions have been successful.

Supervision

A supervisor, senior and more experienced than our behavior technician, has the responsibility of keeping your child’s program up to date and on track. The supervisor meets with your child’s therapist at regular intervals to discuss his/her program. Likewise, the supervisor will meet with you at regularly scheduled times to provide you with a progress reports.

Your child is the most valuable component of all processes at Think. Our priority is to create a program that will work specifically for your child. When elements in that program don’t work, we adapt it to ensure they do.

Outreach

Our Outreach services are for families who have someone at home or school who works consistently with their child and would like an ABA consultant (BCBA) to set up and monitor a high-quality ABA therapy program.

Our Outreach services mean you can have constant training and supervision for a custom-made program with specific targets for your child’s progress.

You will benefit from Outreach if you:

• Have a caretaker for your child who is capable enough to learn and implement a custom-made ABA program.
• Have a school shadow who can learn and implement a custom-made ABA program.
• You yourself, or another family member, would like to learn how to implement and maintain a custom-made ABA program.

Our Outreach BCBA consultant observes the child in the relevant settings and creates an individualized program that is appropriate to the setting it will be applied in, whether it is home or school.

During outreach sessions, Think’s BCBA consultant will assess if previously set targets have been met and determine if follow up targets are warranted. We encourage intensive work in between consultation sessions to ensure you are getting most out of your outreach consultation.

Outreach services can apply to anyone demonstrating behavioral or developmental challenges in the home and or school environment.

Parent/Caregiver Training

Parents are our partners. At Think we believe working closely with parents is a strong determinant of success for our children as we are able to ensure greater consistency across environments.

Parent training

We aim to provide parents with the knowledge and hands on training to ensure competency in applying the skills their child has acquired with us at home. We do this by offering both, one-on-one and group training.

Education and inclusion

We encourage families to educate themselves in the best practices for their circumstances, so that they may better advocate for and teach their child.

We help by including the families in their child’s therapy as much as possible. Additionally, we offer home training and educational and training sessions for parents.

You, our therapists and supervisors, caregivers at home, and your child’s teachers – together we are a team with the power to help your child have the best life outcome possible.

School Shadow Training

We encourage collaboration across a child’s different learning environments: at Think, in the home and at school.

School shadows

A trained school shadow can often provide the essential link for children who are able to go into the mainstream school environment but need additional academic or behavioral support to help them get the most out of the school setting.

A school shadow is someone who understands and can apply your child’s ABA program in a mainstream school setting. This person must be trained and experienced if the school shadow approach is to be successful. The aim of any school shadow program is to make the child as independent as possible in the school environment.

At Think we have the same ultimate goal with regards to training school shadows that we have for everything we do: helping our children achieve their highest potential.

Social Skills Group

The Social Skills Group is all about bringing our children who are ready for it to the next level: managing social settings.

We are working on developing this service. 

Speech And Language Therapy

Speech and Language Therapists play an essential role in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental disabilities.

Autism is an umbrella term that is used to describe children with varying developmental delays and disorders.

Current research suggests that despite the many behavioral and social characteristics of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), ASD is a disorder primarily of communication.

What does Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) do?

At Think, individualized SLT programs aims to help your child to develop:

• Functional communication skills (i.e. the ability to express basic wants and needs),
• Understanding and use of language, and
• Ability to follow conversational rules (such as topic maintenance and turn taking).

We are also able to provide the assessment and management of Feeding, Eating, Drinking, and Swallowing (FEDS) Disorders. Children with ASD often present with specific food preferences and aversions, these may also be addressed throughout sessions or during special ‘messy food play’ groups throughout the year.

Keeping in mind the Total Communication approach, we equally value all methods of communication (including PECS, Sign Language, gesture, eye gaze), and utilize the most appropriate method for each child.

What to expect from your first Speech and Language Therapy Session

1) Informal Observations: Whenever possible, the therapist will observe your child during his/her ABA sessions.

2) Initial Free Interview: This interview covers your child’s case history to help us better understand your child’s developmental milestones, medical history, etc.

3) Assessment: Using a variety of formal and informal Speech and Language assessments, the therapists will determine the level and type of intervention best suited to your child. While we aim to complete all assessments in a single session, some children need more than one session to show us what they can do.

4) Identification of Therapy Targets: After the assessment, our SLT will review the findings to identify appropriate therapy targets, which will be implemented throughout the SLT sessions. These can also be provided to you in the form of a home programme.

Inclusion of Family and Care Givers

Parents and care givers play a very important role in the rate of progress the children we work with make. In fact, the whole community around the child plays a role. Thus, we believe in including the child’s community as much as possible; We encourage parents to attend therapy sessions and provide training for parents, care-givers and educators.

Other Populations

Although Think is tailored to working with children with developmental disabilities and ASD, we open our doors to anyone who requires Speech and Language assessment and intervention. This includes developing children with speech and language delays/disorders, individuals with voice disorders, individuals who stutter, and those who have suffered a stroke and subsequently have limited language (aphasia).

Occupational Therapy

Occupational Therapy (OT) is an important part of our integrative approach to helping the children we serve reach their highest potential.

OT aims to help individuals develop and/or regain skills important for independent functioning, health and well-being. To this end, we work with children to improve or maintain their ability to perform activities of daily living that are meaningful to that individual at home, school and in the community.

A child’s main job is playing and learning. Our goal  is to create an individualized OT program that will improve your child’s gross and fine motor skills, sensory processing (which affect their independent skills), play skills, and school performance.

What to expect from OT at Think:

Free Screening Interview: This will cover your child’s case history to help us better understand your child’s developmental milestones, medical history etc. Prior to this, you will be asked to fill our Initial Interview Form.

Initial Assessment: If we determine that your child would benefit from occupational therapy, the Occupational Therapist will conduct an assessment using a variety of formal and informal observations / tests to determine the level and type of intervention that will best suit your child. While the aim is to complete all the assessments in one session; some children do need more than one session to show us what they can do.

OT Plan: Upon completion of the assessment, the Occupational Therapist will design an OT plan specifically for your child. At this point you will be contacted by our offices for further information.

Parent inclusion

We strongly encourage parent involvement in all of our services, including OT. The OT plan for your child will include goals and milestones, which can be worked toward in the home and school setting. We arrange for regular meetings with parents and also provide parent training.

How do I know if my child needs OT?

Your child may need OT if she/he has:

• Difficulty in learning new gross motor skills.
• A weak grasp.
• Difficulty with coordinating the hand muscles with vision.
• Decreased reactions to movements, sounds, or touch.