our approach TO SERVICES

therapeutic approach

assessment approach

Our clients seek guidance with orchestrating meaningful life changes. We strive to identify, assess, and treat idiosyncratic (or individually unique) goals, which are designed to improve your daily functioning and long-term success. We strive to support you during each step of the way - through skill development, problem behavior reduction, environmental modification, and maintenance of therapeutic gains. Some behavioral goals might be especially challenging and difficult for caregivers to understand.  Our extensive caregiver training and guidance will empower you to feel the confidence necessary to utilize new tools and methods during your daily routine and life's unexpected surprises. 

Whether you seek assistance with social, communication, daily living, academic, vocational, or coping skills, we can help you identify, create, and work toward your personal goals.

If you are encountering maladaptive behaviors that interfere with skill development, success, or daily functioning, we can help you understand the functions of these behaviors, and then decrease them while strengthening healthy alternative behaviors.

 

We tailor our level of therapeutic support based on your needs.

  • We can provide you with a consultation model (e.g., weekly planning and review meetings, "homework assignments", and on-call guidance and support) in which we empower you with the tools necessary to create changes in your daily functioning.
  • If you need a more guided approach, we can join you during parts of your daily routine in order to assist you with evoking behavioral changes that might be more challenging to identify and alter without direct social reinforcement from a therapeutic team.
  • For those who require intensive and directed assessment and care (e.g., families with loved ones who engage in severe problem behavior), we can provide high intensity (half or full days of) assessment and treatment to help you jump-start your road to treatment and stability.

In order to best understand your needs, our assessments include:

  • Intake interview 
  • Record and background review
  • Consultation with other treating professionals 
  • Indirect assessments and interviews
  • Direct assessments
    • Observations of family, peer, and community-  or school-based Interactions
    • Preference assessments
    • Skill assessments
      • Social and communication skills 
      • Daily living needs
      • Vocational skills 
    • Functional analyses of maladaptive and problematic behaviors

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Our treatment methods are based on an understanding of behavioral principles.

  • Using assessment results, we prescribe a function-based approach to increasing specific skills and adaptive behaviors, while decreasing ineffective or maladaptive behaviors. 
  • We help arrange the environment to increase and promote skill development for our clients.
  • We guide caregivers in understanding the conditions under which maladaptive behaviors are likely to occur so that you can prepare for and manage behavior during those challenging conditions, rather than "walking on eggshells".
  • We utilize reinforcement to help motivate you and your loved ones to strengthen desirable behaviors and refrain from maladaptive behaviors. 
  • We can help break contingencies that previously maintained, or reinforced, maladaptive behaviors. 
  • When necessary, and in a careful and ethical manner, we can help caregivers to evaluate methods for response reduction, which can be used in combination with reinforcement for appropriate behaviors and skills. 

We provide services in a variety of settings. We provide services in our office, homes, schools, day centers, hospitals, assisted care facilities, and community settings. Often times, our services will begin in the office, and then move into the settings where you need the most support.


For example:

  • Does your loved one struggle with morning, bedtime, or meal routines?
    • We will assist you at home with creating an efficient task analysis, pairing it with reinforcement, and mastering that routine.
  • Are you or a loved one struggling with fear or avoidance of an upcoming medical procedure, surgery, or hospital admission?
    •  We can help with behavioral preparation and support during this stressful process.
    • In this case, our support is especially helpful for children and individuals with intellectual, social, and communication difficulties because many medical personnel do not have specialized training in how to comfort individuals with special needs, anxiety, and phobias.
  • Do you receive reports that your child’s behavior is very different at school than home?
    • We can help figure out why and what can be done to improve behavior across all settings.
  • Are you helping a loved one prepare for a new vocational, residential, or academic placement?
    • We can help plan for this transition and build necessary skills for their new environmental demands.