Children's Learning Connection - Orange County, CA

How CLC’s program differs from other early intervention programs

CLC is different from most traditional speech and occupational therapy comprehensive programs in that we use the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and have behavioral specialists/analysts as part of our interdisciplinary team.

Many speech and occupational therapy service providers utilize a developmental teaching philosophy where the child is presented with tasks  one step above his or her current level of development, and engages in those more difficult tasks at their own speed or pace. In other words, the child “takes the next step” on his or her own terms.

CLC utilizes a behavioral teaching philosophy where the child is presented with tasks one step above his or her current level of development, and the adult provides the necessary prompting and contingencies to help the child take the next step. In other words, the therapists set the pace.

CLC also differs from traditional ABA programs in that we have licensed speech and occupational therapists on staff to provide consultation and direct treatment as needed. A parent is not forced to go to multiple service providers to obtain needed services. This also ensures consistency in the treatment methodology as our Speech Therapy and Occupational Therapy departments are well trained in the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis. ST and OT staff can easily collaborate with the ABA team because they are a part of the team!

Curriculum is developmentally sequenced, and based on the current body of research in behavioral intervention for children with autism as well as research on normal development and research on disorders in cognition, speech, language and motor planning. There is also a large emphasis placed on teaching key cognitive strategies that underlie the development of language.