This set of programs is designed to assist a child in “learning how to learn.” It heavily emphasizes skills that provide the very foundation for learning the more advanced skills that people associate with development throughout the early years of life. These programs specifically target skills relating to imitation, matching, early receptive language, basic attending skills, and fine/gross motor skills.

What does this mean and what does it look like? In a nutshell, on Day 1 of your child’s therapy, our therapy team will be targeting some very basic skill sets and important therapeutic goals:

Increasing tolerance to demands.
Sitting in a chair for an extended period of time.
Properly handling materials (i.e., cards, toys).
Building rapport with teams members.
Identifying important motivators.

This program is designed to use the skills learned in the early curriculum to begin learning the skills that are more closely associated with developing social skills, pre-academic skills and increasing quality of life. It is in these programs that the child begins to use vocalizations to identify objects. In other words, this is where a child typically begins to speak for the first time.

More advanced skills include:

Basic math.
Handwriting.
Early reading.
Early conversation skills (i.e., answering questions, responding to social greetings).
Learning to spend downtime on appropriate play activities (puzzles, games, books, etc.).

By this point in the program, the child has mastered the ability to imitate the sounds required to make words and has moved onto phrases, as well as sentences. In many cases, the child is now learning to speak based on what is being said (by parents, brothers, and sisters) in their natural environment. The focus of the program shifts toward having more appropriate social interactions through conversation, reading gestures, social queues, and nonverbal communication. Another major focus of this portion of the program is on advancing play skills and using free time to engage in appropriate activities. The goal of the final stage of the program is to enhance independence and quality of life.

Some common activities and skills targeted in this area would include:

Highly structured play and social groups that require independent and spontaneous use of the social skills already acquired.
Listening and compliance in group instruction settings.
Inclusion into social and play activities in the community (i.e., swimming, gymnastics).
Pre-academic and academic skills (reading comprehension, math story problems, writing sentences).