SERVICES
At Carolina Cognitive, we offer a range of services to support individuals with autism spectrum disorder and other developmental disabilities.
Pairing
Your child's safety and happiness are our priority. We spend substantial time taking note of our client's interests, play-styles, and social preferences. By doing so, we can connect (or "pair") ourselves with reinforcing items/activities. When pairing, no demands are placed, it is purely a play time based on client preferences. We understand that building a relationship with each client is vital to the therapeutic process. We begin, incorporate throughout, and finish each session with pairing.
Skills Based Treatment
Skills-based treatment (SBT) is a widely used technique in the field of ABA. Greg Hanley composed this technique to be all-encompassing in teaching toleration, improving quick transitions, increasing skill sets, and reducing maladaptive behaviors. SBT works together with a Parent Training program that Carolina Cognitive utilizes called Balance. This partner program allows for the skills we are teaching in session to generalize to the home with the child’s family. SBT is conducted in a manner that interrupts the child’s play and provides opportunities for practicing the skills embedded in SBT.
Assessments
At Carolina Cognitive, we use a variety of formal and informal assessment tools to help guide us in identifying individualized and socially significant goals for our clients. Our BCBAs review client progress weekly and make modifications to protocols and targets as needed. In addition to data review, our team meets together to collaborate on each client’s programming to determine effectiveness to remediate any delays in progress.
Functional Communication Training
Functional Communication Training (FCT) involves teaching appropriate, alternative responses to replace frequently occurring problem behavior. This may look like teaching the child to vocalize, select on their speech device, or use a Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) to ask for "Help", "Open", or a specific item or activity by name. Allowing the child to verbalize their wants/needs reduces the likelihood of problem behavior and encourages future functional communication!
Discrete Trial Teaching
Discrete Trial Training (DTT) is an ABA technique that focuses on breaking complex goals down into smaller ones. With this technique, the smaller goals can eventually be strung together so the child can achieve the complex goal. Reinforcement is used heavily in DTT as it allows the therapist to maintain the client’s motivation and give them something to work for. Often, DTT is taught using a secondary method of teaching known as errorless learning. Errorless learning involves the therapist providing immediate prompts to allow the client to immediately recognize and repeat the correct answer. DTT is typically a “table time” activity as it allows the therapist to control the environment and distracting variables that could interfere with learning.
Balance Family Training
Carolina Cognitive strongly believes in active family involvement in our client’s therapy. We are passionate about generalization, and having strong family involvement allows this to happen! Balance is a program that focuses on an at-home, parent-implemented, skill-based approach to behavior change. In the video linked below, Greg Hanley, creator of Balance, describes the process and rationale.