A Bridge to Learning
PO Box 2081
Lexington, NC 27293
A Bridge to Learning
PO Box 28446
Edinburgh
EH4 1DU Scotland
Email: ABLearning@aol.com
A Bridge to Learning
Program
The instructional environment is structured to maximize success. Cognitively demanding concepts are interspersed with less cognitively demanding concepts, and one-to-one instruction is interspersed with play activities. An instructional session lasts approximately 3 hours. During a session, the child engages in a specific task for 1-3 minutes and then takes a short break (1-2 minutes). A longer break (10 minutes) is taken each hour of a session. In addition to providing the child with time away from the instructional setting, the break allows for generalization of new skills to the child's everyday environment. If any facet of the program is particularly difficult, it is modified to accommodate the child's needs.
A child needs approximately 35-40 hours per week of one-to-one instruction in the home in order to learn appropriate behaviors and dissipate negative behaviors. Instruction is provided by a team of 3-6 adults. Each team member provides 6-12 hours of one-to-one instruction per week and attends a weekly staff meeting and all follow-up consultations.This is enough time for instructors to establish procedural competence and a positive rapport, while not spending so much time that the child becomes dependent on any one member. Weekly staff meetings (1-2 hours in duration ) are important to maintain consistency amongst all instructors, as well as to review the child's programs and behavior.
Parents are an integral part of the instructional team. A Bridge to Learning recommends that parents provide at least 2-5 hours of one-to-one instruction per week, enabling them to maintain a consistent approach across all of their child's waking hours, and to generalize mastered skills to everyday environments. Parents attend all weekly staff meetings, select goals, offer observations, and evaluate staff. Parents approve all procedures implemented.
As a child progresses in the program, he or she is integrated into an appropriate classroom. The particular setting chosen is based on the child's success in one-to-one instruction in the home and the generalized natural environment. In all cases we want to provide the child with a setting that will maximize success and minimize failure, with the most appropriate models of social behavior and language.
Initially, the child spends as little as 30 minutes a day in class. The number of days per week and the length of time per day that a child spends in class will systematically increase as new skills are acquired in one-to-one instruction. A member of the instructional team accompanies the child to facilitate integration into the classroom routine, promote interactions with same age peers, and assist the child to acquire new behaviors in a group setting. Deficits that exist in the child's behavioral repertoire in school are targeted in one-to-one instruction, and generalized to the school setting. The amount of assistance the instructor provides will systematically decrease as the child is independently successful.
A Bridge to Learning
PO Box 2081
Lexington, NC 27293
A Bridge to Learning
PO Box 28446
Edinburgh
EH4 1DU Scotland
Email: ABLearning@aol.com