The Autism Services Program at the Center for Cognitive Behavior Therapy provides a range of services for children, adolescents, and young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and related challenges. We work with a comprehensive team of treatment providers in order to ensure collaborative, creative, and effective treatment.

Identifying the Needs of Individuals with Autism

If you are a parent or caregiver of a child with autism, or you suspect that your child may have autism, you recognize that behaviors can vary greatly. Our team will work with your family to understand your child’s strengths and support needs in order to individualize care. Younger children may be limited in their use of communicative speech, whether that be with verbal language, gestures (e.g., pointing), and facial expressions. Children who are school-age may struggle with making and keeping friends, conversation skills, and/or collaborative game play. Additional common experiences include tantrums, aggressive or destructive behavior, difficulty handling changes in routine, sensory sensitivities, and/or not following through when given instructions. Further, many children experience concerns that commonly co-occur with ASD, including anxiety, self-injury, difficulty with activities of daily living (e.g., toileting difficulties, hygiene), feeding, and sleep difficulties.

Diagnostic Evaluations for Individuals with Autism

The Autism Services Program provides diagnostic evaluations for children who have not yet been formally diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. A formal diagnosis is important for a number of reasons. First, a formal diagnosis is often required in order to secure services through your child’s school system or insurance company. Additionally, the evaluation process will outline your child’s specific support needs, which  enables your child to receive more individualized and effective treatment. Our diagnostic evaluations involve meeting parents, an observation and meeting with the child, and often information gathering from teacher or other professionals involved in the child’s life. We use several assessment tools to ensure that your child is receiving an accurate diagnosis, including the Autism Diagnosis Observation Schedule (ADOS), which is currently the gold standard in autism assessment.

Autism Treatment Services We Provide

All of our strategies are research supported interventions. Typically, treatment strategies are behavioral in nature and based on the principles of applied behavior analysis (ABA) or cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).Treatment is designed to be efficient, with the goal of providing individuals and families with the tools they need to continue to manage independently once therapy has concluded.

As a team of psychologists, we provide a range of direct services:

• Education – Understanding your child and their behaviors is the foundation for effectively helping them. You may also find this to be a validating experience.
• Practical parenting strategies – We provide concrete strategies to help you improve your child’s behavior and deal with the stresses associated with having a child displaying challenging behavior and poor social skills. Key areas of focus often include providing positive attention, setting effective limits, managing misbehavior, and setting up the home structure for success.
• Child therapy – We help your child develop the range of social skills, such as empathy, conversation skills, frustration tolerance, and/or game play. We teach skills to overcome anxiety or other co-occurring conditions and improve self-care foster (e.g., appropriate personal hygiene).
• School consultation – We will collaborate with your school-based team of teachers and counselors however it is needed. Possible ways we can help include conducting a function-based assessment (FBA) and creating a behavior intervention plan (BIP); attending an IEP meeting to assist in the planning process; ensuring a consistent language for teaching skills at school, at home, and in our office; ensuring appropriate targets of intervention are in place; optimizing the effectiveness of your child’s school program; problem solving ways to address challenging behaviors; and/or training school staff to implement specific strategies.

Home and School Based Services

A core component of effective treatment is ensuring that the skills we teach parents and children are able to be successfully utilized within the everyday environment, a process referred to as generalization. Our AutismServices Program is designed with this in mind. As such, we are willing to go to your home and school for sessions, or conduct remote sessions from your primary environment, to try and enable more “real world” coaching. Additionally, we have established collaborations with Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs), or behavior specialists, who will provide regular, intensive services at home or at school. Our partnership ensures you have a team of specialists who communicate on a regular basis to maximize the effectiveness of your treatment and best enable your child to meet their goals.