CURRICULUM

ELCA provides programming for children across all areas of need, as appropriate for the child, and in consideration of the child’s other services in place. ELCA consultants will determine the specific target areas appropriate for the child. Once this is determined, the child is assessed to determine a starting place for the program and therapy can begin.

ELCA prides itself in focusing on the areas of development that may not be a primary focus of other services the child receives. In other words, ELCA strives to “fill in the gaps,” particularly with the skill areas that are not normally addressed regularly in other settings, such as problem solving, theory of mind, and executive functioning.

The programming provided in a Home Based ABA Program is completely individualized based on the needs of the client. Included in a child’s program may be any combination of the following treatment areas, depending on their areas of need.

DOMAIN	DESCRIPTION
BEHAVIOR	A behavioral component is a necessary piece of the ABA program, and is often intertwined with the other aspects of the program. A behavioral assessment is conducted and a behavior support plan is designed and written for each child. This plan is implemented during the child’s sessions, and is also carried over to all other environments throughout the day.
PRE-ACADEMICS / DISCRIMINATION	Pre-academics are taught to children whose programs must include basic discrimination skills. This might include teaching matching, receptive labels, prepositions, etc.
INDEPENDENT PLAY SKILLS	Independent play focuses on developing the skills necessary for independent, parallel, and common focus play activities. It emphasizes functional, representational, and symbolic play skills. Examples include age-appropriate manipulative toys (such as puzzles, Mr. Potato Head, etc.) and pretend toy play to improve imagination and flexibility, etc.
PEER PLAY SKILLS	Peer play emphasizes cooperative play, functional/representational and symbolic play skills. Examples include playing board games (such as Candyland or Hi-Ho Cherry-O) to emphasize turn-taking, playing social or physical games (such as peek-a-boo, motorboat, or hide and seek) to improve social referencing, interactive toy play to improve imagination and flexibility, etc.
SOCIAL SKILLS	Social skills training includes anything preparing the child for interaction with adults and peers in a socially appropriate way, whether it be establishing behavioral control in a social setting or utilizing learned skills in a social situation. Later, more advanced play skills such as sportsmanship, compromising, and common goal activities are targeted.
THEORY OF MIND (TOM) & JOINT ATTENTION	JA activities include basic perspective taking tasks such as using a point to communicate and the concept of seeing leads to knowing. TOM activities include more advanced “mind reading” concepts, such as predicting peoples’ feelings and actions.
INDEPENDENT LIVING SKILLS (ILS)	ILS are taught to children who have difficulty spending their down time constructively. It may include activities such as independent work, independent play, independent leisure skills, independent chores, etc.
SELF-HELP	Self-Help skills are taught to children who demonstrate difficulty with basic self care. It may include activities such as dressing, toileting, brushing teeth, washing hands, etc.
CONCEPTUALS SKILLS	Conceptual skills encompass a wide range of concepts, ideas, and skills that focus on a more abstract understanding of the world and everything in it. This may include functions, adjectives, categories, associations, general knowledge, etc.
CONVERSION SKILLS	Conversation skills teaches basic back-and-forth communication, and may include responding to questions, asking questions, making comments, etc.
VERBAL BEHAVIOR	Verbal Behavior programming generally emphasizes the expansion and generalization of language. It may include language expansion, building the child’s mand, tact, and echoic repertoire, etc.
PRAGMATICS	Pragmatics programming focuses on social rules and guidelines, and includes activities such as body positioning/body cues, nonverbal communication, manners, tone of voice, voice volume, etc.
EMOTIONS	Emotions programming includes identifying, demonstrating, and understanding emotions, and may include activities such as basic recognition of emotions in themselves and others, why people feel certain ways, how they can affect other people’s emotions, etc.
PROBLEM SOLVING	Problem solving programming focuses on breaking down abstract problematic situations into small units of information so the child can easily understand and work toward a solution. This includes cause and effect, identifying problems, identifying what caused problems, developing solutions, etc.
SAFETY	Safety skills include basic safety information such as understanding basic safety rules, and also more advanced safety concepts such as understanding “circle of friends” (the difference between friends, family, strangers, and community helpers and what rules apply to each).
FLEXIBILITY	Flexibility programming targets rigidity common in children on the spectrum by using symbolic play, teaching children how to think of one object in different ways, altering/changing how a game is played, etc.
SELF REGULATION	Self regulation programming targets behavioral, attention, and social regulation, teaching children a variety of coping strategies to assist them in maintaining an appropriate, independent level of regulation.