A Verbal Approach, LLC
Services (0-6yrs)
Communication Training
Teaching functional communication so our kids can tell us what they need is our focus and priority. This can include improving spoken language, as well as teaching alternative communication such as PECS and AAC devices.
Social Skills
We want to provide our kids with the opportunity to learn from and engage with similarly aged peers and take those skills into the school setting as they get older. We achieve this through social groups, play dates, and monthly community outings, all with the support of your child's ABA therapist.
Daily Living Skills
We want to teach our kids to be independent, even at a young age. Training on daily living skills can include dressing, brushing teeth, tolerating dental or doctor appointments, and even age-appropriate household tasks like cleaning up their toys.
Feeding Therapy
If your child is a picky eater, we can help. ABA uses an evidence-based approach to desensitize your child to trying new foods and adding healthy foods from all the food groups to their regular diet. We also work on mealtime skills like sitting for meals and using utensils.
Play Skills
Learning appropriate play skills is important for young learners' development and growth. We will teach individual and group play skills including independent play, sharing, cooperative play, and more. Siblings are welcome!
Toilet Training
Toilet training can be difficult for all kids... and their parents. We can utilize several methods of varying intensity to work towards getting your child potty trained before going into school.
Our preschool services focus on building a strong foundation for our kids to have the best future possible. Using a comprehensive treatment approach we will increase communication, functional skills, social skills, and decrease challenging behavior. We will also get them ready to enter school with the least restrictive environment possible. All or some of these methods will be included in your child's therapy based on their individual need and the intensity of services requested. Comprehensive services typically occur at an intensity of 30-40 hours per week.
Other Services
Challenging Behavior
Challenging behaviors are any behaviors that interfere with learning, social opportunities, and participation in the community. We will assess challenging behaviors by conducting a functional analysis to determine why the behaviors are occurring, then create a behavior intervention plan to reduce and replace those behaviors.
Parent Training
We don't just want our kids to show their skills in our therapy sessions, we want everything to generalize to the home environment when we're not there. Parent Training is a vital part of this. We will educate you on the principles and concepts of ABA, how these concepts apply to your child, and how to continue teaching these skills when we're no there.
Collaboration
If your child receives any other services, such as speech, OT, PT, or others we will collaborate with them, including observing some of their sessions, to ensure everyone is on the same page and we are working together to achieve the best results.
Is your child getting ready for school? We can attend your IEP/ARD meetings and help you ensure a smooth transition.
Sample Schedule (0-6yrs)
While we keep things flexible to best fit the needs of your family, we typically use a structured preschool-like schedule with rotating themes and activities to keep your child engaged and learning throughout our session time. We have set shifts with trained therapists that rotate each shift (with a total of 2-4 therapists per case) to ensure your child is learning from multiple individuals, just like they would in the natural environment.
Below is a sample schedule, our actual structure may change based on your child's individual needs or the inclusion of community sessions such as to the doctor, grocery store, library, etc.
Activities may be broken up into smaller times as we work on extending the amount of attention and focus our kids can give to one activity.
Morning Schedule (8:00-12:00)
8:00-8:15 Therapist Arrives: Sets up therapy space
8:15-8:45 Breakfast: Targeting mealtime skills and utensil use
8:45-9:30 Morning Daily Living Skills: dressing, brushing teeth, washing face
9:30-10:00 Morning Meeting: 1:1 circle-time like meeting to teach today's weather, songs for imitative skills, story, and introduce the day's theme
10:00-10:30 Thematic Activity #1: Targeting fine motor skills, matching, communication, etc. based on week's theme.
10:30-11:00 Outside/Active Time: Targeting gross motor skills, communication, play skills, etc.
11:00-11:30 Table Work: Targeting any tasks that need more specific teaching using DTT (discrete trial training) before we transition the skill to the natural environment.
11:30-12:00 Session Ending: Clean up area, get child ready for lunch, then therapist writes session note and reviews the session with parents.
Afternoon Schedule (1:00-5:00)
1:00-1:15 Therapist Arrives: Sets up therapy space
1:15-1:45 Evening Meeting: 1:1 circle-time like meeting to include songs for imitative skills, story, and expand on the day's theme (different from morning meeting)
1:45-2:15 Table Work: Targeting any tasks that need more specific teaching using DTT (discrete trial training) before we transition the skill to the natural environment.
2:15-2:45 Outside/Active Time: Targeting gross motor skills, communication, play skills, etc.
2:45-3:00 Snack: Snack and story, incorporating communication skills training.
3:00-3:30 Thematic Activity #2: Targeting fine motor skills, matching, communication, etc. based on week's theme.
3:30-4:15 Evening Daily Living Skills: dressing, brushing teeth, washing face, household tasks, and any other skills to target.
4:15-4:45 Table Work: Targeting any tasks that need more specific teaching using DTT (discrete trial training) before we transition the skill to the natural environment.
4:45-5:00 Session Ending: Clean up area, therapist writes session note and reviews the session with parents.
In addition to the schedule above, we offer monthly group outings to all families to the Dallas Arboretum, Dallas Zoo, nearby parks, splash pads, and other locations to allow your family to enjoy community outings with the assistance of a 1:1 therapist and meet other parents in the area. We also encourage weekly shorter outings to the park, library, or even McDonalds to work on generalizing skills to the community and teaching appropriate behaviors in these new settings.
*At least one parent or guardian must be present for all outings. Parents cover any costs for themselves and their child/family while A Verbal Approach covers any costs for the therapists. Therapists are NOT to transport clients, but they may ride with you if both agree.