Learning to Learn Program

JumpStart Learning to Learn is a unique first intervention designed to teach autism specific parenting life skills

JumpStart Learning to Learn is a unique first intervention designed to teach autism specific parenting life skills

JumpStart life skills for families include:

  • Learning to understand and evaluate the child’s individual learning style
  • Being able to use and evaluate other’s use of best practice teaching strategies
  • Learning to cope with the major life stressor of a child with special needs
  • Leaning to work collaboratively with community based service providers to develop effective educational plans for the child.

Children and their families attend the JumpStart Learning to Learn Program for approximately 6 hours per day over 5 consecutive days (Monday through Friday). Parents accompanied by a therapy coach will initially observe therapists engaged in teaching. Then, with guidance, parents learn to implement these techniques themselves. Following this intensive intervention, parents return to JumpStart for 2 follow up sessions. Additionally, JumpStart staff are available to families to provide guidance as they choose an ongoing treatment program and attend IFSPs and IEPs.

The Learning to Learn curriculum has the following five educational components:

Direct Child Teaching

The direct child teaching portion of the program uses developmentally appropriate applied behavior analysis (ABA) methods to:

  • Demonstrate appropriate best practice techniques so that parents can identify and evaluate the elements of good intervention
  • Teach parents to evaluate their child's development and choose interventions which are appropriate to meet the child's individual needs
  • Teach parents to implement best practice techniques with their child during non-therapy hours.
  • Prepare the child for ongoing instruction
  • Introduce visual interaction augmentation (VIA) a visually-based augmentative communication approach

Teaching-In-Context

The best natural teaching opportunities for children with autism are in the context of daily routines. During the JumpStart program parents learn how the techniques taught in direct child teaching can be used during naturally occurring daily routines and activities (e.g., eating a meal, choosing activities at the park, or taking a bath).

Play Sessions and Play Teaching

In play sessions parents learn the importance of building meaningful play experience into their child's daily activities. These play experiences promote generalization and expansion of concepts initially learned in the more structured therapy and direct teaching portions of a child's day. During the JumpStart program parents learn to identify openings in the child's activity that can be leveraged into increasingly sustained social interaction, reinforcement for emerging communication skills, as well as building on and expanding the child's natural interests as intrinsic reinforcers.

Direct Parent Didactics and Parent Support

In these parent education sessions, parents learn about autism as a syndrome, including our best understanding about causes and treatments. We will teach parents how to:

  • Access appropriate services through public education and developmental disabilities services
  • Negotiate with service providers in order to have a productive low-stress relationship
  • Observe in a classroom and interview potential teachers or therapists to determine whether there is a match between therapeutic approach and a child's needs
  • Cope with the diagnosis of autism. We feel that an essential part of the Learning to Learn intervention is to give parents emotional support and a ‘vocabulary' so they can talk about autism with each other, siblings and extended family; and to see they are not alone with this stressor.

Transition to On-Going Treatment

At the end of the JumpStart program families and funding agencies are provided with a short exit summary detailing the child's strengths, areas of need, and recommendations for ongoing services in order to facilitate a smooth transition from JumpStart to ongoing services.

In addition, JumpStart personnel will be available to parents and IFSP/ IEP teams to consult on appropriate intervention and services. We are available to accompany parents on visits to potential ongoing educational services.