Services

Our staff of qual­i­fied ABA imple­menters, Board Cer­ti­fied Behav­ior Ana­lysts (BCBAs), and Assis­tant Board Cer­ti­fied Behav­ior Ana­lysts (BCaBAs) works one-​on-​one with chil­dren with autism, Asperger syn­drome, PDD-​NOS, and other behav­ioral dis­abil­i­ties. Our imple­menters can help chil­dren from birth to 18 years old to develop skills such as:

• main­tain­ing per­sonal hygiene
• man­ag­ing phys­i­cal and ver­bal aggression
• study­ing and learn­ing strategies

Our in-​home and center-​based inter­ven­tions may also pro­vide life skills coun­sel­ing for young adults with Asperger syn­drome, address­ing behav­ioral man­age­ment strate­gies, job skills, and edu­ca­tional goals.

Rates for one-​on-​one ther­a­pies depend on the expe­ri­ence and edu­ca­tion of the imple­menter. Please con­tact us for more information.

Play­Date offers a range of group ther­apy oppor­tu­ni­ties to pro­vide chil­dren of all ages, from tod­dlers through high school, with oppor­tu­ni­ties to inter­act with other chil­dren, learn crit­i­cal social skills, and just have fun. Play­Date social skills groups provide:

• Intense prac­tice with one-​to-​one socialization;
• Oppor­tu­ni­ties for obser­va­tional learn­ing and gen­er­al­iza­tion; and
• Oppor­tu­ni­ties for new infor­ma­tion learn­ing in a small group.

Most impor­tantly of all, a social skills group gives chil­dren the oppor­tu­nity to make friends!

In all groups, chil­dren are matched by age and devel­op­men­tal level, and adult imple­menters work to gen­tly guide chil­dren toward appro­pri­ate social behav­iors. When­ever pos­si­ble, imple­menters remain observers, allow­ing par­tic­i­pants to learn by doing, to build rela­tion­ships independently.

A child with autism or any other behav­ioral dis­abil­ity makes demands on the entire fam­ily. Besides our Play­Mates parent/​child pro­gram, Play­Date pro­vides a range of ser­vices designed to help fam­i­lies meet those demands, includ­ing both in-​home and on-​site respite care and oppor­tu­ni­ties for par­ents to learn how to help their chil­dren acquire key skills and man­age their behavior.

All Play­Date loca­tions are fully acces­si­ble, and groups can accom­mo­date ver­bal, sign, and picture-​based com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems. All activ­i­ties can accom­mo­date indi­vid­u­als with:

• food aller­gies and spe­cial diets, includ­ing GFCF
• G-​tubes or feed­ing aversions
• aggres­sive behaviors
• seizures
• med­ica­tion needs

Ser­vices may be pro­vided directly by a Board Cer­ti­fied Behav­ior Ana­lyst (BCBA), Board Cer­ti­fied Assis­tant Behav­ior Ana­lyst (BCaBA), or imple­menters who are trained and super­vised by a BCBA.

The imple­menters we employ are trained at sev­eral dif­fer­ent lev­els of prac­tice, includ­ing respite and imple­men­ta­tion. Our imple­menters have com­pleted at least 40 hours of class­room train­ing in ABA/​autism and receive on-​going supervision/​training. All staff mem­bers com­plete a train­ing pro­gram with expe­ri­enced ther­a­pists prior to pro­vid­ing any ser­vices either at the Cen­ter or in the home. When imple­menters pro­vide direct ser­vices to a client, a BCBA acts as the con­sul­tant by devel­op­ing pro­grams, mon­i­tor­ing progress, and mak­ing nec­es­sary changes to the pro­gram. All staff mem­bers, includ­ing BCaBAs, are super­vised by a BCBA. This super­vi­sion includes meet­ing weekly with the staff to review the client’s pro­gram. Imple­menters may be rotated in or out of a sched­ule for var­i­ous rea­sons, includ­ing attempts to increase gen­er­al­iza­tions. Since every imple­menter may not be a “match” for every fam­ily, the BCBA work­ing with your child will strive to achieve the best match between each child, fam­ily, and staff

Pro­gram Devel­op­ment is used to effec­tively build an appro­pri­ate client spe­cific inter­ven­tion plan and skill-​building pro­gram. This pro­gram ensures con­sis­tency of ser­vice pro­vi­sion among staff and par­ents. This time is also used to eval­u­ate the effec­tive­ness of the daily inter­ven­tion, iden­tify any needed mod­i­fi­ca­tions for future ses­sions, and meet with staff about the client.

Respite care is the pro­vi­sion of short-?term, tem­po­rary relief to those car­ing for chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties who can­not be prop­erly super­vised by a neigh­bor or in a tra­di­tional day­care setting.

Our pro­gram pro­vides breaks for fam­i­lies and other care­givers of chil­dren with a dis­abil­ity in order to sup­port and main­tain the pri­mary care giv­ing rela­tion­ship. Respite care also pro­vides a social expe­ri­ence for the child receiv­ing care through pos­i­tive inter­ac­tions with trained staff. Though no spe­cific skills are taught dur­ing respite, trained staff ensure cur­rent skills are main­tained and devel­op­ing skills are sup­ported. Staff mem­bers also pro­vide an enriched envi­ron­ment to min­i­mize aggres­sive and self-?stimulatory behaviors.

Respite care can be pro­vided in the home, at our cen­ter, or in the com­mu­nity. This is a great oppor­tu­nity to expand and intro­duce leisure skills such as going to the movies, eat­ing at a restau­rant, or par­tic­i­pat­ing in phys­i­cal activities.

Even though many fam­i­lies take great joy in pro­vid­ing care to their loved ones so that they can remain at home instead of being insti­tu­tion­al­ized, the phys­i­cal, emo­tional and finan­cial costs for the fam­ily care­giver can be over­whelm­ing with­out some sup­port, such as respite. Respite pro­vides the much needed tem­po­rary break from the often exhaust­ing chal­lenges faced by the fam­ily care­giver. It also pro­vides pri­mary care­givers with the oppor­tu­nity to com­plete rou­tine tasks nec­es­sary to main­tain the fam­ily and to spend time with other chil­dren in the family.

With­out respite, not only can fam­i­lies suf­fer eco­nom­i­cally and emo­tion­ally, but care­givers them­selves may face seri­ous health and social risks as a result of stress asso­ci­ated with con­tin­u­ous caregiving.

Respite has been shown to help sus­tain fam­ily care­giver health and well­be­ing, avoid or delay out-?of-?home place­ments, and reduce the like­li­hood of abuse and neglect. Recent stud­ies also show that respite may also reduce the like­li­hood of divorce and help sus­tain marriages.

This pro­gram pro­vides 20 hours of inter­ven­tion per week for 8 weeks dur­ing the sum­mer for stu­dents need­ing struc­tured teach­ing when school is out. The inten­sive ther­apy is pro­vided in both 1:1 and group set­tings. Indi­vid­ual goals are devel­oped for each stu­dent in order to address needs across all devel­op­men­tal domains, includ­ing lan­guage, behav­ior, and social skills. Cur­rent IEP goals can also be used. Ther­apy is pro­vided by trained staff using research-​based meth­ods proven to be most effec­tive for chil­dren with autism. Teach­ing meth­ods used to deliver ser­vices are based on the prin­ci­ples of applied behav­ior analy­sis, proven effec­tive in sci­en­tific eval­u­a­tion. Ser­vices are data-​based to achieve the great­est effec­tive­ness. Data are eval­u­ated reg­u­larly to make any instruc­tional changes nec­es­sary to ensure each learner is mak­ing progress. In addi­tion to receiv­ing ther­apy at the Cen­ter and in-​home, par­ents and stu­dents par­tic­i­pate in com­mu­nity out­ings to ensure gen­er­al­iza­tion of skills.