Who Says Therapy Can’t Be Fun? Welcome to Stonebridge ABA

EIBI focuses on teaching essential skills during early childhood (1-5 years), leveraging the period of heightened neuroplasticity. These skills, acquired rapidly, form a sturdy foundation for lifelong learning. Implemented within the ABA framework, EIBI targets cognitive, communicative, social, emotional, and adaptive domains in a structured environment, aiming to minimize challenging behaviors. It employs one-to-one therapy sessions and group practice, often in clinics, with parent training integral to both clinic and home settings.

Parent training provides parents with a working knowledge of ABA strategies they can use with their child and uses ABA methodology to teach and enhance parent and client-specific program goals based on assessments conducted by our board-certified behavior analysts. Parent training can occur one-on-one with the BCBA and child in the home setting and clinic and in small parent groups.

Home-based ABA therapy directly addresses needs most prevalent in the home, including morning and evening routines, transitions to and from the home, social relationships with peers visiting the home and engaging in typical home social activities, school readiness and maintaining daily living skills. This is typically a setting in which focused ABA is implemented to intervene in a few goal areas for children from 2 to young adults for 10 to 15 hours per week and clients who have completed comprehensive ABA programs in a clinic and require home based training to insure skill transfer to the home.

Difficulty in peer relationships and social skill deficits are frequently cited as major difficulties for people with an ASD. To facilitate positive social behaviors, Stonebridge Behavioral Services offers social skills programs developed to provide an engaging curriculum for each child’ or young adult’s individual needs delivered in a group or individual setting. Individual therapy uses language games, pretend and imaginary role play, problem solving, and video modelling to improvise and practice social skills scenarios in a safe, fun environment. 

Community skills focuses on learning the skills necessary to function successfully in the community. For example, therapy sessions may involve learning the social and life skill involved in making a small purchase at a convenience store or supermarket, ordering a meal at a restaurant, or participating and interacting socially at a skate board or trampoline park.

The incidence rate of feeding disorders in children with autism varies, with one study identifying atypical eating behaviors and feeding problems in 70.4% of children with autism vs. 4.8% of typical children. The most common feeding disorder in children with an ASD is “selective eating” in which only foods of a certain texture (e.g., crunchy), flavor (e.g., sweet), color (e.g., white), temperature (cold foods) or smell(waffles) are consumed. This can lead to serious nutritional problems in children who limit their food intake to only one or two foods (potato chips, macaroni without sauce, etc.) or that eat a variety of foods but only consume limited amounts.

At Stonebridge, we tackle challenging skill areas for children with autism using virtual reality (VR) headsets like Floreo™. These VR scenarios cover risky situations, social behaviors, and tasks hard to recreate in real life. With over 100 scenarios, we provide flexible and location-independent training, ensuring mastery before transitioning to real-life settings. This approach ensures smoother skill acquisition and enhances performance assurance.

Telehealth offers families an effective alternative to in-person services by providing ABA therapy via computer, tablet or smartphone. Through a secure and easy virtual meeting, your BCBA and Behavior Technician can provide direct therapy and parent consultation remotely – helping the child learn new skills, avoid regression, and continue to make great strides in their progress. Our BCBA and Behavior Technician staff receive comprehensive training in conducting telehealth sessions. This is an ideal treatment format on a temporary basis when a member of the family is sick and visitors to the home is not recommended, or the family leaves the area for a part of the year or on an extended basis if living remotely.

Weekly 1-hour discussion meetings with caregivers will be organized. These meeting are not limited to families working through Stonebridge but can include anyone interested in discussing issues they may be having with developmentally disabled individuals they live with or care for. This is a free service and not intended as treatment but an opportunity to discuss problems in caring for family members and sharing solutions to everyday issues that others have found to be helpful in similar situations.