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Milestones Day School - Services Offered & Goals |
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Our therapists work in collaboration and conjunction with our teaching staff and home training staff to ensure that their specific therapy lessons are being generalized across all settings. By providing this integrative approach, we are maximizing the effectiveness of our program. At Milestones our therapy and education teams meet multiple times per week to discuss our students. Each of our experts plays a crucial role in understanding each student as a whole person and conceptualizing each student's challenges from a developmental perspective. Through this individualized approach we seek to understand what skills the student is missing; this information drives our interventions. If a student is struggling, we want to understand the "why" behind the struggle, and not only address the struggle itself. Below you will find the therapies we offer and the goals we address. | |||
Integrated Therapies All students receive integrated therapies in a small group setting multiple times per day/week. Our integrated group therapies often include:
Depending upon the student's needs, s/he may also receive the following therapies:
Goals Addressed With the therapies that students receive each day/week, the goals listed below are generally addressed. If students receive additional types of support or therapy, individual goals will be created to address the student's needs. Theory of Mind/Perspective Taking The ability to take another’s perspective and see their point of view. This is achieved by the ability to attribute mental states (such as beliefs, desires, emotions, perceptions, and intentions) to one’s one self and others in order to understand and predict behavior. For more information http://www.iidc.indiana.edu/irca/education/TheoryofMind.html
General Socialization & Communication General Socialization is a person’s ability to interact and communicate with others. This also involves understanding and playing by accepted social rules and norms.
Nonverbal Cues Non-verbal Cues Involve everything about communication, except for the actual verbal communication itself. When we communicate, we use both verbal language and nonverbal cues to get our message across. Nonverbal communication generally clarifies the meaning or intention behind a message. For example, if James asks, “Who can go to the store” and Ellen replies “I’ll do it” we can generally assume that Ellen is willing to go to the store. However, if Ellen replies, “I’ll do it” with her hands on her hips and rolling her eyes back, we can assume that she will do it, but doesn’t really want to. Nonverbal cues refers to: body language, tone of voice (rate, rhythm, and inflection), posture, gestures, eye contact. Nonverbal cues can also involve style of dress, hair cut, slogans warns on clothing, frequency of showering, etc.
Sensory Regulation & Coping Skills Self-regulation is defined as, "the ability to attain, maintain, and change arousal appropriately for a task or situation". Self-regulation also refers to the ability to control one's emotional, mental or physical responses to sensations (Kranowitz, 1998). Individuals experiencing self-regulation difficulties are often unable to keep an even keel, or maintain suitable or appropriate behavior in certain situations, in particular, when a change occurs quickly without forewarning.
Executive Functioning refers to the brain’s ability to create goals and plans and carry them out. Executive Functioning encompasses several tasks including the ability to initiate and stop actions, to monitor one’s self and other’s behavior, to recognize when a task is not going well and change plans, to deal effectively with novelty, filter out stimuli and focus on the task at hand, time management, ability to learn from past mistakes, inhibit impulses, and to delay gratification.
Many students enter Milestones with a deflated self-image. Through games and other activities students gain a sense of belonging and community. For many students, it's the first time they have felt accepted and experience true friendships with peers. Many students come to Milestones in a self-protective mode, which is understandable. Self-esteem is valuable and crucial for taking risks and engaging in therapeutic programming. Our staff work to gain the trust and respect of our students to get them to feel comfortable enough to take the risks necessary to leave behind ineffective strategies that they are familiar with, and exchange them for new and more effective ones. Areas our teaching staff focus on are:
At Milestones we not only prepare students academically and therapeutically but also help students increase independence and prepare them for life. For some students, we help them cross into different stages of development, such as from childhood to adolescence or adolescence to adulthood. Goals vary for each student but may include:
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