Training Specialities Programs near Sacramento and Rocklin, CA

Autism training

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) – Various training models including Hanen programs for building social language, behavioral management trainings, sensory integration, Alternative Augmented Communication Systems, PECS, and social communication course work.

Childhood Apraxia of Speech

Childhood Apraxia of Speech. We have an Apraxia Team that has specialty training in all areas of motor planning, assessment and treatment. Bright Start Therapies has developed and implemented many new materials to aid in the treatment of CAS and has over 15 years’ experience treating clients with CAS.

Early Intervention

Your child’s brain is developing rapidly the first three years of their life and family is the most important relationship they have! Early intervention aims to provide parents with the tools they need to support their child’s development in their natural home environment. Early Intervention includes in-home services (such as, speech therapy and occupational therapy) that can be provided for your little one through Alta California Regional Center and Bright Start Therapies! Our therapists receive specialty training in a variety of areas that are benefical when working with young children. We have developed an Early Intervention Training Model for teaching parents the necessary skills they need when working with their child.

Handwriting without Tears

Developed by a registered occupational therapist, Handwriting Without Tears is a developmentally-based handwriting program specifically for the development of writing skills.

The Hanen Programs

The Hanen Programs, It Takes Two to Talk and More Than Words, are designed to coach parents in helping their children learn language naturally. The More Than Words program is designed especially for children with autism spectrum disorder. These programs help parents understand their child’s level and style of communication and helps parents build language routines in their everyday activities!

Neuro-Developmental Treatment Certification

Neurodevelopmental treatment (NDT) is a hands-on treatment approach used by occupational therapists to improve function and control of movements as a result of neurotological challenges as in cerebral palsy, stoke or head injury. NDT trained therapists believe that due to the central nervous system impairment, atypical posture and movement patterns are used by the child for function. Unfortunately, it is the use of these patterns that lead to secondary impairments and dysfunction. NDT trained therapists use clinical thinking to evaluate a person’s movement in order to determine the focus of the therapy sessions. Therapeutic handling is used to assist in the facilitation of typical movement.

PECs training

Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) is a system designed to help individuals communicate using pictures and symbols. The pictures and symbols provide children who do not have oral speech another way to communicate their wants and needs.

Phonological Awareness Training including dyslexia and reading comprehension

Phonological Awareness is a group of skills that are the precursor to reading. Examples include being able to identify words that rhyme, counting the number of syllables in a word, segmenting a sentence into words, and identifying the syllables in a word. The last of these skills and the highest level of phonological awareness is phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. Manipulating the sounds in words includes blending, stretching, or otherwise changing words. Our therapists have specialty training in identifying problem areas within these skills and providing appropriate therapies.

Prompt training

PROMPTS for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets (PROMPT), is a multidimensional approach to working on speech sounds. PROMPT is an acronym for Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets. The technique is a tactile-kinesthetic approach that uses touch cues to a patient’s articulators (jaw, tongue, lips) to manually guide them through a targeted word, phrase or sentence. The technique develops motor control and motor planning and the development of proper oral muscular movements, while eliminating unnecessary muscle movements, such as jaw sliding and inadequate lip rounding. PROMPT therapy is appropriate for a wide range of patients with communication disorders. The most common patients have motor speech disorders, articulation problems or are non-verbal children. Many patients with aphasia, apraxia/dyspraxia, dysarthria, pervasive development disorders, cerebral palsy, acquired brain injuries and autism spectrum disorders have benefitted from PROMPT therapy.

SCERTS

The SCERTS model is a child-centered model that focuses on the following critical elements: Social Communication, Emotional Regulation, and Transactional Support and it is designed for children with autism spectrum disorder. This model is used to achieve functional communication, social, and play skills across all settings of your child’s life!

SOCIALIZATION TRAINING by Michelle Geller Winner

Thinking about You Thinking about ME The program focuses on the four steps of communication. These include perspective taking, establishing physical presence, thinking with your eyes, and using language to develop and sustain relationships

Zones of Regulation The Zones of Regulation is a model for teaching self-regulation strategies for managing emotions and sensory needs to children. Based in cognitive behavioral therapy, the program uses four colors to help individuals identify how they are feeling in the moment given their energy, emotions, and level of alertness. By understanding how to read their own bodies, detect triggers, think about the social context in which the emotion occurred, and consider their reactions, individuals learn a system for how to increase their ability to regulate their emotions, manage their sensory needs, and become more self-aware and skillful problem solver.

SOS feeding Certification

The Sequential Oral Sensory (SOS) feeding approach integrates motor, oral, behavioral/learning, medical, sensory and nutritional factors. Developed over 30 years ago by Dr. Kay Toomey, the SOS Approach to Feeding program is an effective way to assess and address problematic feeding behaviors in a variety of settings and populations. This approach provides information and strategies in feeding to improve your skills to help even the most challenging children learn to eat.

Sensory processing (SI) Certification

Sensory integration therapy aims to help kids with sensory processing issues by exposing them to a variety of sensory stimulation based on a child’s individual needs in a structured, repetitive way under the guidance and supervision of and Occupational Therapist who has received specialty training and certification in this area.