Program Philosophy
Brook Valley School embraces several different philosophical approaches while serving children with severe special needs. The main element is Verbal Behavior Programming which includes: ABLLS (Assessment of Basic Language & Learning Skills), AFLS (Assessment of Functional Language Skills), Zones of Regulation, BIST (Behavior Intervention Support Team), and TCI (Therapeutic Crisis Intervention).
ABLLS and AFLS
Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills (ABLLS)And Assessment of Functional Living Skills (AFLS)Developed by Dr. Partington, the ABLLS-R system is an assessment tool, curriculum guide, and skills-tracking system used to help guide the instruction of language and critical learner skills for children with autism or other developmental disabilities. This practical tool can be used to facilitate the identification of skills needed by your child to effectively communicate and learn from everyday experiences.
The ABLLS-R provides a comprehensive review of 544 skills from 25 skill areas including language, social interaction, self-help, academic and motor skills that most typically developing children acquire prior to entering kindergarten. The task items within each skill area are arranged from simpler to more complex tasks. Expressive language skills are assessed based upon the behavioral analysis of language as presented by Dr. B.F. Skinner in his book, Verbal Behavior (1957).
The assessment results allow parents and professionals to pinpoint obstacles that have been preventing a child from acquiring new skills and to develop a comprehensive, highly personalized, language-based curriculum.
The Assessment of Functional Living Skills (AFLS) has the ease, look, and familiarity of the ABLLS-R extended to necessary skills of independence in Home, School, and Community Settings. The AFLS is comprised of assessment protocols that assess functional, practical, and essential skills of everyday life.
Each module is different yet each is connected by unifying themes and overarching goals for maximizing a learner’s freedom, independence, and opportunities in the areas of:
BIST - Behavior Intervention Support Team
The BIST model is based on grace and accountability.
It is helping students look at the problem their behavior is creating for them with support from an adult.
If a student has a problem there are standard questions or statements asked such as:
TCI - Therapeutic Crisis Intervention
The main objective of TCI is to provide positive, therapeutic, practical and proven methods for managing students in crisis.
Therapeutic Crisis Intervention focuses on preventing and de-escalating crisis.
Intervention approaches include: self-awareness of the child and the environment; behavior management; active listening and life space interviewing.
Zones of Regulation
The Zones is a systematic, cognitive behavior approach used to teach self-regulation by categorizing all the different ways we feel and states of alertness we experience into four concrete zones.
The Zones curriculum provides strategies to teach students to become more aware of, and independent in controlling their emotions and impulses, managing their sensory needs, and improving their ability to problem solve conflicts.
The goal of the curriculum is to teach children about self-regulation and how to strengthen their self-regulation skills.
Self-regulation can go by many names, such as self-control, self-management, and impulse control. Self-regulation is an essential skill in life, and in all learning environments.
Children who can regulate their own emotion and attention are better ready to learn and thrive.
By addressing underlying deficits in emotional and sensory regulation, executive functions, and social cognition, the curriculum is designed to help move students toward independent regulation.
The Zones of Regulation incorporates Social Thinking® (www.socialthinking.com) concepts and numerous visuals to teach students to identify their feelings/level of alertness, understand how their behavior impacts those around them, and learn what tools they can use to manage their feelings and states.
