Program Overview

The STAR Initiative is a specialized intensive support program, designed for children with ASD. The program will meet the needs of each child by addressing their individual challenges and helping families, schools and support workers generalize emerging skills.

The goals for families in this 10 week program are to train, support and increase the following:

·         Educational performance

·         School readiness

·         Strategies to support behaviours

·         Increase independence and design

·         structure to increase independence

·         Introduce Communication

·         Communication supports

·         Effective communication

·         Increase proficiency with transitions

·         Pro –Social skills

·         Specialized training for parent which is situational and child specific

·         Collaboration with school, support

·         workers etc.

·         Functional play skills

Parents will learn child specific strategies to support behaviour and communication needs. The training that parents receive will give them the knowledge, to better understand their child’s disability, and the skills to train other persons that will be involved in the future success of their child.

Philosophy in Detail

The philosophy of the 10 week program centers on the need to build student skills in the areas of:

communication, socialization and behaviour. There will be opportunities for facilitating skills and strategies that will be transferable for the school environment. Receptive and expressive communication will be supported with structures and routines. We have found this to be a vital component in reducing student anxiety. Transition facilitation structures will be used to help increase student interdependence.

 Socialization skills will be fostered in order to increase student interdependence and meaningful participation in education settings.

 Behaviour issues will be addressed with collaborative efforts that include the staff and parental involvement in order to build family capacity in the decision making process. An emphasis will be placed on teaching pro-social behaviours rather than merely stopping anti-social behaviours.

 We believe that effective supports and skill building that addresses these three critical areas of autism are essential components needed to increase student success in educational environments.  We will facilitate a safe environment for educators and support workers to come in and observe all the techniques that the child will be using and develop a transition plan.

Next session Start up-information coming soon….

If interested, Please contact Cheryl Dart at 519-332-0333.