POTTY TRAINING

This workshop offers a proven effective method to potty training children with special needs. This is an individualized program that has a 95% rate of success. Many parents have tried this potty training program and are very happy with the results. This method will shorten the potty training time, as well as teach participants other techniques to use in order to make this a wonderful experience for both you and your child.

Potty training is one of the most significant milestones for your child. For years the issue of potty training children with special needs has been a difficult one to undertake. Parents and teachers are invited to participate in this workshop, which focuses on helping children with special needs become independent in the area of potty training. This is a very popular workshop with a high degree of success. Parents and teachers who have attended this workshop in the past describe it as highly successful and easy to implement.

Some areas of focus for this workshop are:
• Parents will learn to develop and individualized and successful potty training program.
• Learn to target specific skills
• Help you child understand with ease what the expectation is
• Facilitate potty training through the use of specific skills targeted at helping the child to listen to his/her own body.
• Develop and implement a potty training program that is free of anxiety for parents, teachers, and their children.
• Helping your child acquire the necessary skills to become fully independent in the area of potty training.

The Journey Learning to Laugh Out Loud!

This is one of the most uplifting and inspiring presentations! This presentation will take parents, and teachers through the wonderful journey of Autism, and will radically change their lives, and their perceptions of Autism. As the owner of Focus on the Future Training Center, a private school for students with moderate to severe Autism, I am of the firm belief that every child can learn when given the opportunity and the right tools to learn. As a parent of a teen with Autism, I am of the strong believe that the challenges of having a child with Autism, can only be conquered through a positive outlook regarding the disability, as well as learning to laugh out loud, about our experiences, which makes us grow to be the type of proactive, effective providers that we are. The involvement of this presentation will take participants through tears and laughter, and will leave participants energized, and with the notion and certainty that who they are, and what they give, does make a difference!

Some areas of focus for this workshop:
• Participants will gain the necessary strength needed to make an impact on their children/students
• Participants will discover a journey that is paved with hope for their children/students with Autism.
• Participants will gain a clear understanding of what students/children with Autism need to be successful.
• Participants will gain a positive attitude about their children/students with Autism
• Participants will recognize their enormous contribution to the world of Autism.

BEHAVIOR AND DISCIPLINE

This workshop is designed to teach parents and teachers how to help children with special needs adapt to their school and community environments with greater ease. If your child's behavior problems include limited self-help skills, aggression, throwing self on floor, screaming, biting, difficulty going to a restaurant, doctor's office, and other necessary places, this workshop is for you! This can also be a make and take workshop. Some specific areas of focus for this workshop will include:

• Identifying and addressing environmental stimuli that may be offensive your child, and techniques to alleviate the problem behavior.
• Assessing your child's level of behavior difficulty and establishing developmentally appropriate goals and objectives designed to address the problem behaviors.
• Develop Behavior Supports or SPECS to help understand and improve your child's behavior.
• Learn how to develop and implement techniques to reduce your child's anxiety and improve their basic self help skills.
• Learn how to teach your child functional life skills to help him/her on the Road to Independence.
• Develop schedules, social stories, behavior supports and work systems items. (Only for make and take workshops.

We've all been through it. We’ve experienced the embarrassment of our children running and screaming in public places. And them refusing to go to certain necessary places like the dentist, department stores, or the mall. There are effective methods for dealing with these challenges. The solution is often times more simple than we think. Come and learn about common techniques that have been proven on hundreds of children with special needs that you can implement to help that special child in your life.

ARD: BUILDING BRIDGES BETWEEN THE HOME AND SCHOOL ENVIRONMENTS

This workshop is designed for teach parents and teachers to learn to help children with special needs transition with greater ease from the home environment to the next grade level and school year, as well as helping with generalization skills. Some additional areas of focus for this workshop will include:

• Developing and implementing specific transition techniques to help reduce anxiety and increase your child's learning potential during the upcoming school year.
• Establishing a positive communication plan between teachers and parents that is designed to enrich your child’s school experience.
• Optimizing and structuring the home and the school environments to better serve your child's unique needs.
• Developing a circle of friends for your child to help them grow and develop in a more accepting and nurturing school environment.
• What to expect and how to prepare to ensure a successful ARD meeting, and much more.

The beginning of a new school year can be frustrating and anxiety ridden for children as well as for parents and teachers. This workshop will answer many of your questions about what to do to help your child become more independent and successful at school. The responsibility of educating our children lies with parents and teachers. This cooperation is imperative to a good and healthy school experience for all.

LIVING WITH AUTISM

This workshop is geared toward parents and teachers who work with individuals who are in the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This workshop will focus on learning different strategies to help our children understand and be able to accommodate to our world. Information is power, and as we learn as much about our children with Autism, we will be able to help them become independent and productive members of society. We are privilege to have Randy Miller as a guess speaker. Randy is an individual with Autism, who will be speaking about his experiences and the techniques that helped him become an independent and successful person, despite of his Autism. A question and answer session will take place after the presentation and participants will have the opportunity to ask Randy specific questions.

Some additional areas of focus for this workshop are:

• Participants will gain invaluable insight information on how an individual with Autism/PDD feels and the different aspects of their development.
• Learning and differentiating Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)
• Discussing the characteristics and the impact of the diagnosis
• Learning to turn deficits into strengths for our children
• Develop a child centered approach to training children with Autism
• The impact that Autism/PDD has on the family as a whole
• Opportunity to listen and interact with an individual with Autism.

The diagnosis of Autism/PDD is a devastating one, primarily because of the impact it has on the individual being diagnosed, and the impact that the disability has on the family as a whole. The key to helping a child with Autism is a unified approach toward the syndrome; an approach that focuses on the family as a whole unit. The ultimate goal should be to help our children live an independent and productive life.

COMMUNITY SKILLS: DEALING WITH CHALLENGING BEHAVIORS

The primary focus of this workshop is to equip parents and teachers with the critical skills needed in helping children with special needs incorporate into the community. This is probably an area in which parents and teachers of children with special needs experience a high degree of anxiety. This workshop focuses on teaching parents and teachers with skills that enable them to avoid behavior problems when taking their children to public places such as the supermarket, the movies, or the doctor’s office. Our children need and deserve the opportunity to participate fully in their community.

Some additional areas of focus for this workshop are:

• Learning what issues affect our children’s behavior in the community.
• Developing proven techniques to help your child learn and derive the most out of his/her environment
• Confronting challenging behaviors at: Restaurants, church, travel, grocery store, movies, doctor’s office and the dentist.
• Learn powerful problems solving strategies for challenging behavior

The presence of a diagnosis should not mark the absence of having a full social life. Our children are a part of this world, and as part of this world, they deserve to derive the most from it.

COMMUNICATION SKILLS/BUILDING A STRONG BASIS FOR COMMUNICATION:

This workshop is for parents, teachers, and anybody working with children who have a communication disorder. This workshop will address important areas of needs with regards to communication. Parents will learn how to enhance their child’s communication skills by learning valuable tools that will facilitate and increase their children day to day interactions with others.

Some additional areas of focus for this workshop are:

• Participants will gain valuable insight information on the basis for communication
• Learn how about the different styles of communication used by our children
• Learn to develop a system of communication tools that will best help their child increase his/her overall communication.
• Learn to facilitate communication skills for their child

Communication IS power, and we as parents and educators must facilitate the road to independence for our children by empowering them to communicate effectively with others.

MAKING SENSE OF SENSORY ISSUES

This workshop focuses on helping parents, teachers, and therapist learn to individualize information for children with sensory issues. Knowing what sensory issues our children experience will help us to develop and implement programs that will impact their level of independence and involvement in their environment.

Some areas of focus for this workshop:

• Learn the important role that the senses play in our development
• Learn to recognize your child’s unique sensory issues, and to help him/her acquire skills to participate in his/her environment.
• Learn what tools you need to develop a sensory diet for your child
• Participants will be able to see and experience different tools and gadgets to help our children learn to accommodate to their sensory issues.
• Learn to set up individual sensory areas.

Our senses affect the way we see and interact with the world. Through our senses we learn to participate and become one with our environment. This skill is a difficult skill for children who have been diagnosed with Sensory Integration Disorder, Autism, PDD, and related developmental disorders. Learning how to deal with what our senses receive every minute of the day gives us the freedom to participate more fully in our environment and opens up windows of learning in a comfortable and non-threatening way.

FUNCTIONAL LIFE SKILLS

This workshop focuses on empowering teachers and parents to educate and prepare their children for an independent life. Independence begins from the time we are born and continues as we develop. Neuro typical children learn independence with ease by using their environment to increase their knowledge and skills. Children with special needs must have their environments prepared for them so that the learning of functional skills and acquisition of increased independence can be facilitated. This workshop will help us to develop and implement programs that will impact our children’s level of independence, future, and involvement in their environment.

Some areas of focus for this workshop:

• Learn how to evaluate and determine the functionality of your child’s skills
• Evaluate the criteria for selecting skills that will be functional to your child.
• Bridge the gap between home and school environments
• Generalize your child’s functional skills
• Learn techniques on how to increase your child’s functional skills
• Lean innovative Ideas and implementation skills
• Learn to set up your home and your classroom for success
• Learn to prepare you child for self-help, prevocational, and vocational skills.

The road to independence is paved with learning functional skills that will prepare our children to live a life that offers them opportunities for growth through community involvement, helping them become functional/contributing members of society.

OTHER SERVICES

IN-HOME, PARENT, AND SCHOOL CONSULTATIONS


We offer one-on-one in-home and classroom consultations that involve conducting a thorough observation of the child's natural environment to attempt to diagnose the source of the child’s difficulty in home and/or school. After the observation is completed, we offer specific recommendations in the form of an individualized program designed to facilitate and improve areas of observed difficulty. This highly regarded service has been very effective in helping identify the sources of difficulty for countless numbers of our special children’s environment. In some cases, it’s as simple as environmental stimulation issues like unusual noises and in some cases very busily decorated classrooms or annoying color schemes. In some cases, the high flicker rates of florescent lights have been determined to be the culprit. Often times the teaching techniques used a particular environment do not sit well with our children. Please contact us for more information on this individualized consultation service.

TRANSITIONAL CONSULTATIONS

One of the biggest challenges for our children is their difficulty in making transitions within the home, community, and school environments. Our approach to facilitating transitions will help your child be more successful in school, as well as in the community. We offer consultation for ARD preparations and transitions between grade school as well as from the home to community settings.

This one-on-one consultation is based on our very popular “Building Bridges” workshop. It is designed to teach parents and teachers how to help children with special needs Transition with greater ease from the home environment to the next grade level and school year.

Some additional areas of focus for this workshop will include:

• Developing and implementing specific transition techniques to help reduce anxiety and increase your child's learning potential during the upcoming school year.
• Establishing a positive communication plan between teachers and parents.
• Optimizing and structuring the home and the school environments to better serve your child's unique needs.
• Developing a circle of friends for your child to help them grow and develop in a more accepting and nurturing school environment.
• What to expect and how to prepare to ensure a successful ARD meeting, and much more...

PLEASE LET US KNOW HOW WE CAN BEST SERVE YOUR WORKSHOP NEEDS