Educational Assessments, Consultations and Tutoring
Coastal Autism Therapy Center, Inc. utilizes best practices from the field of applied behavior analysis (ABA) for individuals with autism and other related developmental disabilities. Our therapy team consists of caring and highly trained professionals. Our BCBA provides consultation to school staff to enable them in providing effective classroom management in one-on-one, small groups, large groups and all other school environments. Classroom activities emphasize all areas of an individual’s development, including communication, language, social skills, school-readiness, academics, self-care, and play skills.
School Consultations
In order to successfully provide services to students with autism, planning and organization is critical. Coastal Autism Therapy Center, Inc.’s BCBA is available to provide assistance to individual classrooms or school wide training to assist in constructing model educational programs. While classroom consultations are often an intensive process initially requiring many hours of training and consulting; the investment is in the school staff rather than relying continuously on outside services. As a result, consultations are individualized to each classrooms’ needs.
School consultations often include:
- Classroom design and organization
- Curriculum development
- Lesson planning
- Schedule development
- Individualization of Programming
- Teaching strategies/techniques
- Social Skills Training
- Behavior plan design and development
- Data collection
- Program evaluation
Individual Student Consultations
If assistance is needed for individual students, our BCBA is available to complete functional assessments to develop behavior intervention plans and individualized academic programs. Our behavior analyst utilizes evidence based procedures to provide a different or insightful view as to possible options for intervention. We are contracted by parents and school systems both public and private. Within these systems we are often part of a team which often consists of parents, teachers, speech pathologists, occupational therapists, aides/shadows, and administrative staff. After a program plan is developed for the student, our consultants are also available to provide ongoing support, training, and supervision to ensure the program is carried out effectively.
Education Assessment & Tutoring Services
Comprehensive assessments are performed to obtain a profile of an individual’s development; including behavioral, cognitive, academic, visual skills, language, communication, motor, social and daily living skills. The assessments provide important information and guides treatment. It is highly recommended that assessments are completed prior to the start of a treatment program.
The educational assessment is conducted by our BCBA while the direct tutoring is provided by our therapists who are specifically trained and highly experienced in the application of behavioral principles in teaching. Close and on-going communication with the individual’s school is an integral and necessary component of our tutoring service.
Traditional tutoring services often fail to meet the learning needs of individuals with autism as they typically employ the same materials and strategies used in the classroom, only in a one-to-one setting. By contrast, Coastal Autism Therapy Center, Inc. uses the proven principles of applied behavior analysis which involves breaking skills down into manageable teaching units, matching the language of instruction to the individual’s language comprehension skills and employing high levels of individually determined reinforcement, employing teaching materials developed for the individual that match his/her auditory and visual processing strengths and needs.
Academic Consultation Services
Brigance Comprehensive Inventory of Basic Skills II [CIBS II, 2010] is a criterion-referenced test that includes both a Reading/ELA Inventory and a Mathematics Inventory. The Brigance CIB II provides parents with an understanding of where their individual’s academic abilities are in relation to their typical developing peers and identify specific skill deficits that require remediation.
The Brigance CIB II report will outline the individual’s strengths and needs in each subject area and is provided to the family to share with the individual’s school so that an appropriate curriculum can be developed. Specific teaching strategies are also offered so that appropriate accommodations and modifications can be included in the individual’s Individual Education Plan (IEP). The assessment helps the IEP team develop meaningful goals, curriculum, and implement strategies to help the individual reach his/her fullest academic potential. Some of the skills our clients are developing in their tutoring programs, include, but are not limited to:
Reading
- The development of sight word vocabulary, graded worded lists, basal vocabulary
- Word recognition in context – Word analysis/decoding skills
- Reading and Listening Comprehension – Content Reading
- Penmanship/Printing/Cursive Writing/Keyboarding Skills
Mathematics
- The development of visual spatial skills
- Number recognition – Symbol-quantity equivalence
- Basic Computational Skills – Multiplication and Division
- Word Problems
- Time and Money Concepts
- Calculator skills
- Fractions and Percentages