What is different about VBI is that we are experienced educators ourselves. School psychologists, special education teachers, school principals, comprise our staff.
What do we do – that is DIFFERENT?
- We work with families and districts to see if we can place the child, in the public school setting, with the peers they will grow up with in community.
- If an alternate approved private school placement is required – we work with both the private school and the district to create a path that can bring the child back into their home school program.
- If the public school program can not provide an equivalent program to the approved private school program, we don’t recommend a return to the public school setting; staying focused on the needs of the child.
- We work in homes, with families at the request of either the family or the district and coordinate the generalization of skills back to the learning environment.
- If needed, we complete FBAs (functional behavioral assessments) that go far beyond developing the typical behavior plan. We include recommendations for continually modifying plans based on performance, and on discontinuing the plan when criteria are met.
- We develop systems of tracking progress in school and the home that are reasonable within the context of that particular setting and that particular family or classroom.
- Not compromising program integrity, we understand the school districts needs for compliance. e.g., core curriculum standards, alternate assessment models, etc. and work within those requirements.
- Finally, we work with integrated teams of professionals and parents – assisting the CSTs and school instructional staff, to carry over learning into the home, and outside the class. Find out more, call (732) -254-0300
Some behavior analyst firms are operated clinical psychologists, or corporate entities that know little about how schools and the educational process for special needs children work. There is an important distinction. As a trained “clinician” the science that backs ABA and Verbal Behavior Methodology is the same as the science that we rely on. What is significantly different is how that science is implemented through the eyes of a clinician, versus as example a school psychologist or school administrator. Working with parents, we make that important distinction – because there are systems and processes in place @ schools that do not support the recommendations often made by a behavior analyst who comes from the “laboratory” or pure clinical background.
An excellent example of this fact came up this year. A local BCBA, came in to do an evaluation of a school program for a child who was in a public school Kindergarten program. The recommendations used a lot of education jargon such as “the right to LRE” (least restrictive environment), etc. When we looked at the evaluation, it was apparent that in this persons desire to write a report that would place the child out of their public school; she was focused on a “clinical model” that did not take things into account such as socialization training with the children during snack and lunch break, or toileting a class of 5 year olds (which is an effortful task). Though the report was very good from a clinical perspective – it lacked an understanding of the environment in which those recommendations needed to be implemented.
If your program or your child is in need of a different way of looking @ the challenges of education; please give us as call @ (732) 254-0300.