The Central California Autism Center Turns to Skills to Help Treat Children on the Autism Spectrum

FRESNO, CA, October 10, 2012 (Press-News.org) Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD), the world's largest provider of state-of-the-art, early intensive behavioral intervention for individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), announces The Central California Autism Center (CCAC) at California State University, Fresno, has recently completed the Introduction to Skills Training and has now begun using the Skills curriculum, an online autism solution, to help maximize their treatment services for 40 children.

CCAC is a center-based program that provides behavioral treatment for children 2 to 4 years of age. "We are excited to begin using Skills," says Amanda Adams, PhD, BCBA-D, Founding Clinical Director of CCAC. "The ability to employ such a comprehensive, online curriculum allows us to create individual treatment programs for children more easily than ever before while knowing that what we create is evidence-based and state of the art. Skills provides much more than a simple curriculum tool."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1 in every 88 children in the U.S. is diagnosed with an ASD, making it more prevalent than juvenile diabetes, pediatric cancer and childhood AIDS combined. CARD develops and utilizes technology to increase access to training for professionals who work with individuals who have been diagnosed with ASD.

Skills offers the first and only ABA-based comprehensive social skills, social cognition, and executive functions curricula available. It's also one of the only online programs available that provides the ability to write behavior intervention plans for challenging behavior. When creating Skills, the goal was to make it as comprehensive and self-explanatory as possible with the mission of achieving positive results with every child.

"Unlike other curriculum design tools for the treatment of autism, Skills has an assessment with a corresponding curriculum that addresses every skill a child learns in typical development from infancy to adolescence across every area of human development," says Skills co-creator Adel Najdowski, PhD, BCBA-D. "It is designed to give the educators of children with ASD access to the most comprehensive assessment of a child's development available. The results of the assessment are linked directly to a set of eight curricula that provide individualized lesson plans with step-by-step instructions for teaching children with ASD the skills they need."

Skills is based on empirically supported treatment. While the system will automate a program for users, it allows users the flexibility to tailor the program to the child's unique needs. Each of nearly 4,000 lesson activities also includes IEP goals, worksheets, visual aids, tracking forms and lesson videos.

Teachers, parents and practitioners can also use Skills as an effective management tool. The online program can evaluate treatment progress one child at a time. Skills provides charts and graphs that track treatment progress and the impact of various events (including other treatments and life events) on the child's progress. Plus, by allowing the user to look at progress across a number of children, the user can evaluate treatment integrity down to the individual teacher.

Skills features:
1. An approach based on over 40 years of research on the use of ABA-based treatment for ASD
2. 24/7 access from any computer anywhere in the world
3. An individualized assessment linked to a comprehensive set of curricula across eight developmental areas:
(1) Social, (2) Motor, (3) Language, (4) Adaptive, (5) Play, (6) Executive Functions, (7) Cognition and (8) Academic Skills
4. Age of typical development for skills assessed and within lesson plans
5. Almost 4,000 lesson activities
6. Easily accessible lesson activities, teaching guides, and tracking forms
7. Lesson activities that are customizable to meet the child's needs
8. Printable, fun, and creative worksheets, tracking forms and visual aids
9. Clear, brief and visually appealing demonstration videos
10. Detailed treatment progress and clinical timeline chart
11. Ability to track and view the effect of challenging behaviors and alternative treatments on learning progress
12. Access to assessment, treatment and progress tracking all in one place
13. Lesson plans tailored to individualized educational plan (IEP) goals and benchmarks
14. Ability to write behavior intervention plans (BIP) for challenging behavior
15. Ability for teachers, professionals and parents to work together as a team in one online location
16. Multiple student viewing at one time (view all of a teacher's students in one account)
17. Ability to share access to students' accounts with other teachers and/or members of the treatment team
18. Ability to compare the effectiveness of teachers
19. Unlimited live assistance via web chats

For more information about Skills, visit http://www.skillsforautism.com or call (818) 345-2345 extension 907.

About The Central California Autism Center:
The Central California Autism Center (CCAC) at California State University, Fresno, was developed by the Department of Psychology, in July 2007. The Central California Autism Center is a treatment and research center that provides principle-based behavior therapy for children 18 months to 6 years of age with a diagnosis of autism or a related disability. Most children receiving behavior therapy services improve their skills and abilities across many domains including language, motor skills, self-help skills, social skills, pre-academic skills and general learning skills. For more information about CCAC, visit http://www.ccac-fresnostate.org.

About Center for Autism and Related Disorders, Inc. (CARD):
CARD treats individuals of all ages who are diagnosed with ASD, with 23 treatment centers around the globe and a staff of nearly 1,000. CARD was founded in 1990 by leading autism expert and clinical psychologist Doreen Granpeesheh, PhD, BCBA-D. CARD treats individuals with ASD using the principles and procedures of ABA, which has been empirically proven to be the most effective method for treating individuals with ASD and is recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the US Surgeon General. For more information about the Center for Autism and Related Disorders, visit: http://www.centerforautism.com or call (855) 345-2273.