OUR MODEL

The challenge of making friends, being successful academically, and interacting with others is a daunting one for any child. Imagine being a child living with Autism.
ASD is a collection of several different complex developmental disorders; associated with the well known symptoms of social and communication difficulties, self- stimulatory and repetitive behaviors, and narrow or overly focused interests. Severity can range from low to high functioning, and each child’s needs are unique.

At Imagine Academy, we offer:ABA and DIR/Floortime                          
“When my son tells
me ‘I love you’…
I know he means it!”

Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) is a proven data driven therapy. It is especially useful in teaching a variety of skills to autistic children when they are not acquired naturally. Positive reinforcement and prompting are the main ingredients of ABA therapy. More on ABA

According to the renowned psychologists Dr. Stanley Greenspan and Dr. Serena Weider, “The goal of this treatment is to help the child master the healthy emotional milestones that were missing in early development and that we now know are critical to learning. Building these foundations help children overcome their symptoms more effectively than simply trying to change the symptoms alone. Dr. Serena Weider is on our Advisory Council and consult with our teachers and parents on a regular basis.

What is Occupational Therapy?
In addition to strengthening fine motor skills, Imagine utilizes a full range of sensory integration therapies. These address the individual needs of each student. A few examples of the techniques and equipment used to help each child regulate himself and help him feel more comfortable within his body include: swimming, calarobics, snoozeleum/sensory rooms, zip line, rock climbing, trampoline and the ball pit. A strong emphasis is placed on each child’s visual and spatial development as well. Every student at Imagine is evaluated and a daily OT program is written for each child and monitored closely by our Occupational Therapy Director as well as each child’s classroom teacher

“The day he went from a wheelchair to crutches is a day my wife and I will never forget.”

What is Speech Language Therapy?
Speech Language Therapy focuses on speech, communication language, pragmatics and feeding. At Imagine, our certified Speech Language Pathologists strive to create an opportunity for each child to communicate his or her needs, no matter what level of ability. A variety of communication techniques are used, including augmentative communication such assistive technology devices (ATD’s), PECS, and even sign language. All aspects of SLP are infused into each child’s individual curriculum. The result is a child that can express his or her needs and desires throughout the day, thereby becoming more socially and emotionally related to their environment.

“His silence was deafening. Now his beautiful voice fills our home and hearts with love!”

What is Music Therapy?
Imagine uses the dynamics of Music Therapy to strengthen communication skills as well as well as physical coordination skills. We are proud of our official affiliation with the New York University Department of Music, and we are constantly adding new techniques of learning through music into our curriculum.

“Imagine took all of our worst fears and turned them into our brightest hope.”

What else?
Many other programs exist at Imagine, including after school and Sunday Respite Programs include off-site trips to museums, parks and gymnasiums. Even our parents receive attention at Imagine-bi-monthly support groups and information as well as counseling .

In other words…
Imagine has left no stone unturned when it comes to our autistic students and their families.

ABA: "Applied" means practice, rather than research or philosophy. "Behavior Analysis" may be read as "learning theory," that is, understanding what leads to (or doesn't lead to) new skills. (This is a simplification: ABA is just as much about maintaining and using skills as about learning.) It may seem odd to use the word "behavior" when talking about learning to talk, play, and live as a complex social animal, but to a behaviorist all these can be taught, as long as there is intact brain functions to learn and practice the skills. (That is the essence of the recovery hypothesis--that for many children, the excesses and deficits of autism result largely from a learning 'blockage,' which can be overcome by intensive teaching.)

Typically developing children learn without our intervention--that is, the 'typical' environment they are born into provides the right conditions to learn language, play, and social skills. (After a few years, however, this breaks down, and we no longer learn everything 'naturally'--it takes a very structured environment, for example, for most of us to learn to read, write, and do arithmetic.)

Children with autism learn much, much less from the environment. They are often capable of learning, but it takes a very structured environment, one where conditions are optimized for acquiring the same skills that typical children learn 'naturally.' ABA is all about the rules for setting up the environment to enable our kids to learn.

Behavioral learning is not the only type of learning. Most learning in schools is from an explanation or from a model, what people call 'natural' learning. The whole point of ABA is to teach the prerequisites to make it possible for a child to learn 'naturally.' If our kids could learn from a model in the first place they wouldn't have autism!  The most common and distinguishing type of intervention based on applied behavior analysis is discrete trial teaching. It is what people most often think of when you say "ABA" or "Lovaas method." This is partly because there are so many hundreds of hours of DT teaching, and partly because it looks so odd. But it is what it is because that's what works--every aspect has been refined (and is still being refined) to result in maximum learning efficiency.

DIR/Floortime is the centerpiece of the Developmental, Individual-Difference, Relationship - Based (DIR) Model. The DIR/ Floortime approach involves meeting your child at his current developmental level and building upon his particular set of strengths to help him develop. The approach suggests following the child’s lead: tuning into his interests and desires in interactions and play to harness the power of his motivation and help him climb the developmental ladder. It also involves tailoring these interactions to the child’s individual differences in sensory reactivity, processing and motor planning.

An important part of this program is engaging in developmentally appropriate interactions at every opportunity, which is termed “Floortime”. Floortime literally involves getting down on the floor and playing with your child.

By following your child’s interests, joining what he is doing and wooing him with warm but persistent attempts to engage his attention; you can lead him to climb the developmental ladder. Through playful, engaging interactions, you can help him want to learn to pay attention, want to engage in some sort of dialogue and want to take initiative, even before he speaks in any meaningful conversation.

By entering into your child’s world, you can help your child learn to relate in a meaningful, spontaneous, flexible and warm way. This does not happen overnight. Adopting this approach involves making a commitment to spending a considerable period of time on the floor, playing with your child and becoming a part of his world, even if his activities are limited. It involves responding to his every utterance and gesture, in an effort to spark a response- the beginning of two-way communication with your child.

Why is DIR/ Floortime needed?

• Parents and guardians must play an active and vital role in their child’s process of development and discovery.

• Parents and families, childcare providers, clinicians and educators must all be involved in a multi-faceted treatment approach.

Studies have demonstrated that the DIR/ Floortime methodology has the capacity to have a dramatic impact in the lives of children with severe communication and developmental disorders. In one recent chart review of 200 children with some of the most complex and challenging developmental disorders, over 50% of children originally diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorders and treated intensively with DIR/ Floortime approaches for 4-6 years have become warm, engaging and loving. These children have become active learners with highly developed verbal skills, creative imaginations, logical and abstract thinking and pleasurable peer relationships. Many of them attend regular education schools and often their teachers are unaware of the child’s original diagnosis. Other children, because of greater neurological challenges, make slow and steady progress. Nevertheless, even these children can become warm, loving, more connected and make more progress in their language, cognitive and social skills than previously thought possible. TOP