BUILDING BLOCKS-INTENSIVE EARLY INTERVENTION

• BUILDING BLOCKS Intensive Early Intervention is a program that supplements early intervention services. Through this program, the North Shore Arc has been certified by the Department of Public Health (DPH) as a Specialty Service Provider to provide intensive intervention services to children under the age of three who have a diagnosis on the autism spectrum.
  Our educators specialize in working intensively with young children who have a diagnosis on the autism spectrum. The educators provide home-based services starting with five hours per week and increasing to 30 hours or more per week, depending on the needs of the child and the family.
  
  
• WHAT IS THE PHILOSOPHY OF BUILDING BLOCKS? The philosophy of Building Blocks is that very young children with PDD spectrum disorders learn best with intensive 1:1 intervention that is highly interactive. At this time there are two approaches that have the best outcome data and are most valid. They are Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA; Lovaas) and Floor Time (Greenspan). We believe that the ABA approach can be most helpful in initially gaining a child’s attention and in working with maladaptive behaviors. The Floor Time approach is most effective in building social interaction, communication and play skills. Building Blocks uses a combination of these approaches, depending on the child’s learning style. Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) is based upon the principles of behavioral psychology. It is an intensive structured teaching program in which the child’s goals are broken down into their simplest form and then are taught through repetition and reinforcement. The Building Blocks staff utilize a “modified” ABA approach when working with children. This “modified” approach is tailored such that the child will have many successes, with new material only gradually added to familiar, well-learned skills. The child is rewarded immediately for each step that is followed successfully. Data is collected and analyzed in order to track a child’s progress within a program. Floor Time is a highly interactive play-based approach that capitalizes on the use of heightened emotion and the child’s favorite activities to foster and sustain interaction and communication. The educator works initially to gain the child’s social attention through playful interactive experiences (e.g., tickling, bubbles, wind-up toys, or whatever is highly motivating to the child). The educator then works to expand these into longer and more complex interactions and communication. Once the child is capable of engaging in interactions, the goal is to teach the child to interact in more sustained and complex ways.
  
  

Area Served:	Communities throughout Northeastern Massachusetts and Greater Boston
Referrals:	Open (see “eligibility” above)
Cost:	Call for fees. Discount for North Shore ARC members.