A place of belonging

Social skills are vital for building relationships, making friends, self-esteem and long-term success with a sense of belonging. Sadly, this is not something that comes easily to many individuals on the autism spectrum. This is why a significant part of our efforts is dedicated to social skills development.

We’ve designed our social skills programs within the framework of Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA). This helps us to provide targeted supports that are meaningful for the changing needs of various age groups.

Within that framework, we nurture an inclusive and welcoming environment where youth can improve their social and emotional skills with their same-age peers.  While this environment is thoughtfully programmed to improve social awareness and peer relationships, the youth we work with are engaged in fun and meaningful activity.

Our social skills programming framework is purposefully designed based on research and best practices and is led by trained ABA interventionists.

Building relationships

Most importantly, this program can help to empower young people to initiate and maintain positive relationships with others.  We work to help our groups capitalize on the strengths and interests of the participants.  By working together with same-age peers, we can tackle issues related to that peer group, such as age-appropriate play, hygiene awareness and appropriate social norms.  The teaching of appropriate social norms changes as children age, and our groups reflect the importance of that.

At home and in the community

While we work with youth, we partner with families, empowering them with information and support to continue developing these valuable social skills in their children in the home environment. Our goal is also to strengthen skills used at home in the community and their independent lives when they’re ready.