The Children’s Day Program
operates 12 months a year at DDI's campuses in Smithtown and
Huntington. Each class is staffed by a certified special
education teacher and two full time certified teaching
assistants.
The primary goal of the Children’s Day Program is to teach
all of our students the communicative, learning, social and
vocational skills necessary for successful participation at
home, school, and in various community settings. Treatment
objectives and learning strategies promote the mastery of
I.E.P. goals and are implemented to teach each student the
adaptive skills and behaviors necessary to maximize
opportunities for independence and productive living within
a variety of settings. The objective is for our students to
make progress across IEP goals and promote learning as
outlined by the learning standards set forth by the New York
State Department of Education in the least restrictive
environment possible. Our program is an active participant
of the New York State Alternate Assessment.
At Children’s Day Program, a variety of educational
approaches are used to provide effective instruction for our
students to meet their IEP goals and objectives. All of our
teaching practices stem from the replication of documented
research and principles of Applied Behavior Analysis.
Aligning our program with these principles requires that
data are collected as evidence and support of curriculum and
procedures used.The
majority of our teaching occurs during intensive
individualized teaching sessions. When teaching our
students to discriminate stimuli, we employ errorless
strategies within the discrete trial learning paradigm.
Shaping, task analysis, prompt fading, and chaining are the
methodologies most often utilized to teach self-care skills,
independent living skills and vocational skills. We help to
ensure generalization by utilizing incidental teaching
methods and training skills across staff and settings. Group
lessons (2-5 students) are included as one of our teaching
models. In these group sessions, the main focus of the
lesson is to address IEP goals while encouraging and
teaching our students appropriate communication and social
skills with peers.
An additional significant
piece of our educational programming is addressing the
behavioral needs of our students. Each student’s
transdisciplinary team works together to develop a
functional behavioral assessment and a positive behavior
support plan to be addressed across environments (the
Children’s Residential Program is involved, if applicable,
to establish 24-hour behavior support plans as well). The
team uses staff/family interviews, historical data analysis,
ongoing data analysis (A B C’s), direct observation sessions
and functional analysis to determine an effective behavior
support plan.
Our behavior support plans
include proactive and reactive strategies to reduce
maladaptive target behaviors and increase appropriate social
behavior. Development of appropriate leisure skills,
relaxation strategies, language development, FCT (functional
communication training), social skills, independent activity
schedules and differential reinforcement systems are some
examples of the proactive strategies used within our
program. Some reactive strategies implemented are behavior
interruption, non-verbal and verbal calming strategies,
redirection to an alternate activity or area, altering the
environment, and planned ignoring strategies. In general,
we uphold a positive behavioral support approach to
treatment.
The Individual Education Plan
(IEP) is developed at the annual CSE meeting by the teacher,
therapists, the student’s parents/guardians and school
district personnel. For students age 14 and older the
Transition Plan further determines goals toward attaining
vocational success and transition to adult services. All
participants prior to its implementation agree upon the IEP.
IEP progress is reviewed regularly and at quarterly
meetings, which include parents, teaching staff, and
therapists. Service Coordinators, staff from Adult Program
and Children’s Residential Program are invited, as it
relates to the particular student.
After School Services provide
students with additional opportunities to learn appropriate
social, communication, leisure/recreation skills and
activities of daily living.
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