In-service Trainings
Skill Curriculum Development
Behavior Plan Development
Peer Sensitivity Training

In-service Trainings
We offer full day (6 hour) inservice trainings covering three basic areas: (a) An overview of difficulties associated with Social-Communication Disorders, (b) Behavior management strategies, and (c) social skills training. Inservices involve a Powerpoint presentation, extensive handouts, with live modeling and video presentations of skill lessons. The following depicts the typical content of an inservice training:

• Understanding Challenging Behaviors in children with autistic spectrum disorders, ADHD, bipolar disorder, and multiple learning disabilities
• Hierarchy of Behavior Management Strategies:
  1. Relationship building and collaborative problem solving
  2. Avoiding power struggles
  3. How to deal with meltdowns
  4. Creating a behavior plan for repeat problems
     1. Modifications
     2. Replacement skills
     3. Reward/loss programs
• Social Skills Training
  1. Components of skills training:
     1. Formal skill lessons
     2. Generalization strategies
     3. Peer sensitivity training
     4. Peer-related programs: lunch buddy, lunch bunch, classroom milieu
  2. Strategies to teach skills
  3. Prerequisite attending skills
  4. Conversation skills, cooperative play skills, emotion management, understanding others' feelings, dealing with teasing.

Skill Curriculum Development
We can come to a school to evaluate the social skill needs of an individual student or group of students and design an appropriate social skills program. This requires the availability of school staff to run the program, as we can design and supervise it, but not provide the ongoing direct service. Typically this involves at least 2-3 visits to the school and follow up visits or phone consultation.

Behavior Plan development
We can provide an assessment of problem behaviors to help understand why the behaviors occur. This is also known as a "Functional Assessment." The assessment may involve observation, interview, review of behavior diaries, and filling out questionnaires. Based on the information we will put together a behavior plan that may involve: Modifications to the demands placed on the student, skills training to provide alternatives to inappropriate behaviors, and incentive systems.

Peer Sensitivity Training
When a particular student is perceived negatively by his or her peers, those peers may begin to tease or harass that student. In addition to helping the student to handle the teasing, it is equally or more important to address his or her peers in an effort to alter their negative perceptions of the student.

Peer sensitivity training involves a presentation to the student's peer group about the student's strengths, difficulties, and ways he or she can be helped. We typically ask peers to help in three ways: (a) invite the student to join in when the student has been left out, (b) stand up for the student if others are teasing him or her, and (c) offer help to the student if he or she is upset.