Glossary
ABA stands for applied behavior analysis. It is a type of therapy that helps improve behaviors and teach new skills. ABA focuses on understanding why behaviors happen and works to increase beneficial behaviors (like communication and social skills) through positive reinforcement while decreasing challenging or interfering behaviors.
An audiologist is a healthcare professional who specializes in diagnosing, treating, and managing hearing, balance, and ear problems.
AAC means all the ways someone communicates besides talking. Augment means to add to someone’s speech; alternative means to be used instead of speech.
Autism spectrum disorder is a neurological diagnosis that requires deficits in social communication and social interaction. Additionally, the person displays restricted/repetitive behaviors. This diagnosis is formally given by a medical professional, including pediatricians, psychologists, and other specialists.
In ABA therapy, a master’s level clinician is required to oversee your child’s program. This person is known as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA). They have been trained in the science of behavior and have passed a board exam to ensure competence within the science.
Developmental special instruction is a therapy offered to young children aged 0-2 (and their families) who present with global delays, especially in the areas of social skills development, emotional skills development, motor skills development, and/or cognitive development.
For children presenting with delayed gross motor skills and impairments, DMI is a cutting-edge treatment that takes advantage of neuroplasticity. A certified DMI therapist helps a child perform guided movement patterns that train the child’s brain and help improve mobility. The therapist assists the child in performing many of these dynamic movements against gravity. The goal is to help the child’s movement response become more automatic and efficient.
Early intervention refers to therapy services for children from birth to 3 years of age (and their families) who present with any type of developmental delay. Early intervention is available in every state under federal law.
Our specialist starts with an assessment of the oral and pharyngeal phases of feeding and swallowing to determine if a problem exists. Our specialist will compare your child’s development to typical feeding milestones of children in the same age category as your child.
Language therapy focuses on helping children develop and improve their language skills. This type of therapy addresses both receptive (understanding what others say) and expressive language (communicating thoughts, needs, and ideas). Speech-language pathologists work with children to develop vocabulary skills, improve sentence structure, understand/use grammar appropriately, follow multi-step directions, and build social language skills (i.e., turn-taking, waiting, and topic maintenance).
Myofunctional therapy retrains the muscles of the mouth, face, and throat to function correctly. Improper muscle function may cause problems with breathing, speech, chewing, swallowing, and sleeping. It is useful for all ages, from children to adults.
Neurodivergence is a non-medical term that describes people who experience and interact with the world around them in different ways.
Pediatric occupational therapy focuses on helping your child develop the skills they need to perform daily activities for their age (i.e., handwriting, dressing, and using scissors). A pediatric occupational therapist can also support your child in developing their fine motor skills, gross motor skills, sensory processing and integration, visual-perceptual skills, hand-eye coordination, and emotional regulation.
A psychological evaluation is a structured series of interviews, standardized tests, and questionnaires designed to evaluate your child’s strengths and weaknesses in several areas
QST is a touch-based program or type of massage that certified pediatric therapists teach parents to administer in their home. QST reduces the child’s symptoms. It is a unique therapy for autism because it focuses on sensory engagement as a precursor of social-emotional-behavioral needs.
In ABA therapy, your child will be seen by a treatment team. The direct care staff who will work with your child daily include Registered Behavior Technicians (RBT). These RBTs are trained by a behavior analyst and supervised by the BCBA while working with your child. An additional therapist will monitor goal progression, ensuring your child is working with multiple people.
Social skills or pragmatic language encompass how we use language in social settings, including social interaction, social cognition, and language processing.
An SLP is a highly trained professional with a post-graduate degree who works to prevent, diagnose, and treat speech, language, social communication, cognitive communication, and swallowing disorders.