We know that you are at a place in your life where you need some direction and help to get to a better place. The work we will do together is done in confidence and fully respectful of your privacy.

Deciding goals

When goals or priorities change, changes are made together. Sometimes the goals are readily apparent and we can proceed to dealing with the issues at hand. Other times, and most commonly, it takes one or two sessions to figure out what the goals should be before we proceed with the therapy, counselling or coaching plan.

Services in or out of the office

We do assessments either at your home or in the office. If the assessment is more focused on school needs, because of learning difficulties, then the assessments are usually done in office. We ask that a parent stays in the building during the assessment to help the child or teen feel comfortable.

For therapy, counselling or coaching, appointments can happen either in the office or community. The difficulties you or your child are having are not in our office they are out in the real world and that is where we sometimes need to be to help you.

Some of the areas we typically address:

• toileting
• play and leisure skills (eg. swimming, riding a tricycle, interactive games)
• reduction of aggressive behaviours to self, others, or property
• communication skills (this is a more complicated target)
• teaching parents how to keep new skills going

We do comprehensive assessments to determine if the person has an autism spectrum disorder. These assessments typically consist of:

• Gathering a history of the person,
• Administration of valid autism-specific standardized measures and;
• Completion of other questionnaires about behavioral or emotional difficulties, as necessary;
• Reviewing other reports from other healthcare professionals, such as Speech/Language Pathologists, Audiologists, other Psychologists, Pediatricians and Psychiatrists;
• School report cards are also helpful;

Once the assessment is complete, we sit down with the person (generally if the person is 11 years old or older) and the parent(s) to provide copies of the report and explain the results. The report also includes recommendations for intervention.

Our ASD Screening assessments are:

• Shorter and less expensive than a full diagnostic assessment.
• As the name implies, we screen for autism. This is not a diagnostic assessment.
• This screening assessment is to see what the likelihood would be if your child received a full diagnostic assessment.
• The conclusions we come to are either the child has some likelihood (low, moderate, or high) or no likelihood of receiving a diagnosis if they had a full diagnostic assessment.

Who is this for and what is involved?

• For ages 17 months to 18 years old
• Up to 3 hours long
• The family sees a clinician for most of the assessment, with Dr. LaRose joining for a time in the assessment
• Parent(s) and child attend
• Parent(s) bring any reports from other health care professionals and report cards
• The parent(s) are interviewed. Depending on the age of the child, the child is also interviewed or we observe their play
• Sometimes, questionnaires are given to complete at the time of the assessment

Outcome of the appointment:

• The clinician and Dr. LaRose discuss what the likelihood would be if the child had a full diagnostic assessment in Dr. LaRose’s office and a report is written while the family has a break for about 45- 60 minutes
• We give the parents our conclusions and a report at the end of the appointment
• If there is some likelihood of having a diagnosis of ASD, then the parents have the option of having the diagnostic assessment with us or we suggest other options

Payment options:

• e-transfer , at least 3 business days ahead of the appointment
• certified cheque
• cash

To make an appointment:

Please book an intake call with us. If you do not see any availability in our schedule, please leave us a message at (519) 639-6145 or email us at lppc@rogers.com . Please note that our intake coordinator also works on our autism teams and will respond to voice messages and emails throughout the week.

Assessment, therapy and intervention for children aged 18 months and older

Those of us on the staff who perform assessments have over 50 combined years of experience. Most of us specialize with early childhood and preschool assessment. On occasion, our staff will collaborate on an assessment to capitalize on their various strengths. Some of the staff were either trained specifically to do assessments for learning disabilities or they gained experience by working for local school boards.

We often have parents participate in our sessions, particularly with children, as research shows that change can happen faster and is longer lasting if a parent learns how to support and encourage the change in their child.

Adolescents might prefer to have sessions alone. To make progress this needs to be respected. We do encourage feedback to parents, particularly if the parent can do something differently to support their teen's personal growth into a mature, responsible and happy adult.

We can also address how parents and children interact

In this case, we often have all the family members involved in the sessions. We do not encourage open anger or aggression to one another. Instead we encourage effective communication of negative feelings so that everyone's needs can be met while still fulfilling responsibilities and encouraging everyone to get along.

Sometimes this is difficult to achieve at first so at times parents and teens are met separately. The goal is still to move towards closer family relationships.

Play-based approach

We provide Intensive Behaviour Intervention (IBI). We take a play-based approach, where we teach the child through play, whether it is increasing the number of words the child understands or uses, learning the names of colours, or rules of social interactions.

Work in the home and community

We do not offer a centre-based approach, where the children come to us every day. We do bring the children together when there are special days to celebrate, like Valentine's Day, Christmas, or Halloween. We encourage participation in community-based activities.

Planning sessions every week

These sessions involve the Senior Behaviour Therapist, the Primary Therapist, the two Instructor Therapists, and the child. This is when next teaching targets are introduced, ensuring that all team members run the teaching programs in a similar way, and discuss if there are any problem behaviours that get in the way of the child's learning.

Monthly family team meetings

This is where the parents, the Psychologist, the Senior Behaviour Therapist and the Primary Instructor Therapist meet for about an hour to review how things have been going over the last month and to give the parents a chance to ask questions about all sorts of issues.

There are 5 members on your team: the Psychologist, the Senior Behaviour Therapist, a Primary Instructor Therapist, and two Instructor Therapists. Every two years, we get Police Checks on all IBI staff members.

Our comprehensive learning assessments allow us to look at different learning disabilities and giftedness. We can assess for:

• Intellectual disabilities
• Slower learner profiles
• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
• Giftedness
• Learning disabilities in:
  
  • Math
  • Reading
  • Spelling/Writing

Testing

The testing part of a learning assessment typically takes between 4 to 6 hours, depending on the age of the person. For younger children in grades 1 or 2 testing takes about 4 hours; the older the person is, the longer the testing typically takes. We can do testing in one day or across two days, depending on the age of the person and scheduling.

We give intellectual tests (or IQ tests), achievement tests, other tests for memory, executive functioning, language skills, or phonological awareness. The type of test we give depends on what the reported difficulties are at the time of referral as well as the pattern of results that emerge in the testing.

Depending on what we are assessing for, we can also ask the person, the parents, or teachers to complete questionnaires about concerns like attention difficulties, disruptive behaviors, anxiety or depression. An interview with the child or teen's parent is sometimes necessary, depending on what we are assessing for.

Clients being tested find some parts interesting or fun and other parts harder. The tests are designed so that with any subtest, when it appears we have tested that skill enough, we stop and move on to another skill. It can also be helpful to have reports from other health care professionals like Speech/Language Pathologists, Audiologists, other Psychologists, Pediatricians or Psychiatrists. Report cards are also important to review as well.

Process is typically shorter for giftedness assessments

We give intellectual tests and achievement tests, review report cards and reports from other health care professionals. If it appears that the person might have some learning difficulties, like a learning disability or other behavior or emotional concerns, then appropriate measures may be administered.

Once we review all relevant reports, test the person, score the testing measures, and write the report, we are ready to sit down with the person (generally if the person is 11 years old or older) and the parent(s) to provide copies of the report and explain the results. If the person assessed is a young adult, the meeting may be with just that person and not include the parents. Recommendations for helping the person to be successful wherever they are experiencing challenges will be provided as well. If a learning assessment has happened within the last 12 months, we cannot use the same measures again, as there may be a 'practice' effect and results may not be a true representation of the person's learning potential.

Adolescence is a time of transition between the end of childhood and the start of moving to independence as an adult. This makes it a particularly interesting time for both the teen and parent(s)! Sometimes help is needed to navigate those waters. On top of that, there can be extra challenges for a teen and the family, depending on specific issues experienced by the teen and/or family. We would like to help you with all of this.