The Importance of Our Childcare Component

The Importance Of  The Little Souls Taking Big Steps Childcare Component As An Integral Part Of The Overall Early Intevention Treatment

Research indicates that placement in a regular childcare setting alone does not ensure success – successful interactions depend on carefully planned instruction designed to teach the child with autism, as well as typical children, how to interact with one another. Our day-care centre will be equipped to provide this specialised support.

Objectives to be accomplished through supported inclusion in the Day-Care setting:

• To generalise social skills already learnt in the structured, one-on-one teaching situation to a setting with typically developing age-matched peers
• To learn new social skills
• To generalise academic skills learned in a structured one-on-one environment to a group instruction setting with typically developing peers
• To learn new academic skills
• To gradually and systematically increase the students time in the regular day-care setting in preparation for a full transition.  The time should be increased contingent on the child’s achievement of targeted objectives and support personnel are faded until the child is included for the full day.

The child care componentof Little Souls: Taking Big Steps is an integral part of the overall treatment programme of children with autism:

• Teaching children with autism to interact appropriately with their peers is an important component of a comprehensive behavioural program
• Initial behavioural programming is typically conducted in a one-on-one format between an adult and child, but as the child’s skill repertoire increases he or she will greatly benefit from instruction addressing peer interaction skills in the day-care setting.
• Some children with high functioning Autism or Aspergers Syndrome would receive the majority of their therapy in the classroom environment rather than one-on-one therapy, with the emphasis being on peer interaction and social skills training.
• Children with autism have pronounced impairments in social and communication development that hinder their interactions with peers and family members.
• When a child with autism does not have access to adaptive role models their progress toward improving social and communication skills is often hampered.  The childcare component can offer valuable opportunities for social interactions with peers.