Eating, Mealtime & Feeding Intervention

Eating and mealtime behaviours can be a significant challenge for many parents and children with exceptionalities. Inadequate nutrition or intake can impact both the family’s experiences and opportunity, as well as your child’s learning, behavioural, cognitive, emotional and physical development - in both the short and long term.

Intervening early using strategies that work (ABA) and a team specialized in paediatric feeding issues, is critical to your child’s future success; their overall enjoyment in mealtime as well as their happiness and experience of ‘adventures’ in eating a healthy and nutritious diet.

Sleep & Night Routines

Does your child have difficulty falling asleep and/or staying asleep at night?  Do you have challenges completing bedtime routines with your child or having them fall asleep on their own and stay in their own bed throughout the night?

Many children have difficulties and challenges related to sleep and nighttime routines.  Sleep is critical for children in relation to their overall development and well-being.  With the help of a sleep specialist, sleep is a skill that can be taught using individualized assessment and treatment plans.

Learning to Listen & Cooperation

With the abundance of choice and opportunity in the world, many children struggle to know where the ‘limits’ are - when they ‘should’ or ‘should not’ do something they may be asked to do, or to understand when the can or cannot have something they want. Add to this, the desire for things to be ‘just the way they want them to be’ - this can significantly impact family and peer relations.

Learning to listen and learning to tolerate (cope) when things don’t go ‘their way’ is critical for getting along with others and developing meaningful relationships with important people in their lives. We help children learn to listen, to choose more desirable ways of interacting, and to tolerate when things don’t go “their way” using individualized and systematic skill based teaching and reinforcement procedures.

Learning to tolerate sensory experiences such as; for example, brushing teeth, going to the dentist, wearing shoes/clothing items, wearing a mask, drinking water or food textures are important skills for overall health and wellness. We approach these sensitivities gradually and systematically to help your child achieve the skills in a safe, reinforcing and comfortable manner.

Challenging Behaviour: Assessment & Intervention

Practical Functional Assessment (PFA) & Skill Based Treatment (SBT)

Challenging behaviour can come in many forms, but the overriding similarity is the impact that it has on a child and family’s day-to-day living. Do you notice yourself ‘tip-toeing’ around your child to prevent upset or meltdowns? Do you avoid certain places in the community out of concern that your child will escalate? Does your child struggle to communicate vocally and challenging behaviour is happening more frequently?

Our PFA and SBT services are the foundation for effective and lasting behaviour change. Services are designed to better understand ‘why’ your child may be exhibiting challenging behaviour and to subsequently teach the skills necessary - skills that override the need for your child to engage in challenging behaviour. Intervention or ‘skill based treatment’, is communication based, reinforcement focused and emphasizes ‘creating joy’ while teaching new communication skills, toleration skills/disappointment, as well as handling unexpected challenges, in a planned and systematic manner.

Adult Services & Independent Living

Learning and development is lifelong - it continues throughout the lifespan for all of us. The use of ABA strategies are helpful in teaching individuals with autism or developmental delays, a variety of life skills, activities of daily living, safety skills, community participation and vocational skills. We provide support and teaching to help individuals be actively involved in their home and community environments leading to a more fulfilling and independent life. Services and supports are provided in family homes, staffed homes or supported living environments through individualized training and coaching of care staff.  

Emotions & Flexibility

Does your child struggle with managing their emotions? Do they have difficulty being ‘flexible’ with people or situations or seem to get “stuck’ in negative thought patterns?

Using Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) our clinicians help your child to learn how to embrace and accept the full range of their emotions, both what they feel or label as 'good and bad’, stay in control of their actions, identify what is important to them in their life, and commit to ‘ACTing’/making choices to live a meaningful life.

We offer both 1:1 sessions for parent and/or child as well as annual ACT Groups.

Fall 2022-2023 Take ACTion Group Details - Click Here

Registration Open! Click HERE

Parent Support

Using Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) our clinicians can support you in working through the challenges you may be facing given the day-to-day demands that may come both in life and with raising a child with exceptionalities. ACT provides a therapeutic process and framework for understanding your emotional experience and developing greater awareness for learning how to create your vision for being the kind of parent that is most important to you.

Group & Social Clubs

Fall 2024-2025 Social Clubs Details - Details COMING SOON!

Registration - COMING SOON!

Skills for School, Skills for Life

Does your child have difficulty interacting with other children? Do they play on their own and avoid interaction with other children unless it’s on their terms? Or do they show delayed or immature communication or social-emotional skills?

Our ‘Smart Start - Skills for School"‘ program is a specialized program targeting critical social, communication and basic academic skills for young children to prepare them for learning in a larger group or classroom setting.

Programming is individualized - designed to increase desirable skills (e.g., listening, communicating, playing with others, turn taking, asking for help) associated with successful friendships and participation in group settings…skills that are critical for success in both school and in life.

Note: This is an annual program with registration that occurs for September program starts.