Specialties and Advanced Trainings

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DIR/Floortime is an evidenced-based approach used to support emotional and social development in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and other developmental challenges. It uses a play and relationship based model considering your child’s skills and interests instead of a compliance-based approach.

Handwriting Without Tears teaches pre-writing, printing, and cursive through a developmental model. It categorizes and teaches letters based on the strokes used to form them. This approach helps children with memory and sequencing while reducing reversals. 

Keyboarding Without Tears also uses a developmental model. It categorizes keys based on their location on the keyboard and teaches appropriate finger usage through engaging visuals and activities.

The Alert Program aims to improve self-regulation through a child-friendly analogy of “How does your engine run?” It begins with developing awareness of their engines running “too low, too high, or just right” and progresses to using sensory strategies to self-regulate. 

Fine motor skills refers to how one uses his/her hands to interact with and manipulate small items and tools. This includes: coloring and drawing, cutting with scissors, writing and typing, folding paper, fastening buttons and zippers, and manipulating keys and locks.  

Self-care skills for children include dressing, eating, grooming, bathing, and toileting. 

Self-regulation incorporates strategies to sustain an appropriate or "just right" arousal level in response to changes. Maladaptive behavior often results from underlying areas in need of skill-building such as problem solving, cognitive flexibility, sensory processing, motor skills, social awareness, and communication skills.