Coordinating Your Child’s Care pt.2
What does it mean?
Many children on the Autism spectrum or with developmental delays receive various services. In ABA, our goal is to generalize skills to multiple settings. This requires coordinating with other providers and creating a cohesive treatment plan. A coherent treatment plan will include educational objectives and goals from other services that your child receives.
IEP’s
An IEP is an Individual Education Program that ensures your child meets their goals. An IEP hold’s your child’s educators accountable and ensures they are working towards attainable milestones. We make it a priority at SOAR to create a comprehensive treatment plan that supports the goals that are in your child’s IEP. Supervisors are expected to attend IEP’s to ensure everyone is on the same page, and goals are cohesive. Keeping the lines of communication open between teachers, parents, and therapists is extremely important for your child’s success. It can feel overwhelming juggling so many services, so keeping everyone on the same page is vital.
Occupational Therapy
Occupational Therapy (OT) is another excellent therapeutic tool that helps your child attain their goals. OT focuses on improving fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination while also building on social skills. These are skills that are targeted in ABA as well, making the two very complementary. If your child is working on fine motor skills, we can complement those goals in ABA by working on things such as holding a pencil correctly or play skills that require fine motor movements. Consistency is crucial for making progress that has longevity. Another essential thing to know is that RBTs can attend OT sessions to keep expectations and procedures consistent.
Speech Therapy
Another standard tool that is used to improve verbal behavior is Speech Therapy. If you did not know, SOAR is extremely lucky to have a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) at our clinic locations. Upon approval, your child can receive one-on-one sessions with our in-house SLP that will implement goals directly to your child’s learning tree. If your child already receives services outside SOAR, our commitment is to coordinate care. Whether your supervisor attends meetings or your child’s RBT attends speech sessions directly, progress is made when everyone works together. As they say, teamwork makes the dream work!
Of course, there are many other excellent services out there! Regardless of the therapeutic method, care coordination should be a priority for parents, therapists, and educators. Overall satisfaction with life is easier to achieve when your child can use their skills in any environment and through any stage of life. To learn more about the variety of services your child can receive, follow this link.
For more blog posts by SOAR Behavior Services, visit soarbehaviorwa.com/family-resources.
