Within Stepping Stones Center’s treatment program, emphasis is placed on acquiring new and appropriate behaviors. When children have a repertoire of constructive and adaptive behaviors, problem behaviors often occur less frequently. Therapists are trained to ignore undesired or disruptive behavior while promoting compliance and other positive behaviors through the use of reinforcers. Reinforcers are chosen to be individualized toward the child’s interests that is appropriate for use in such contexts, such as modified DTT.

The purpose of this program is to teach children how to learn through acquiring academic, language, social, and appropriate behavioral skills. Behavioral methods enhance learning not only by teaching the child but also by replacing challenging behaviors with more functional and appropriate ones. The child’s success is closely monitored through detailed data collection.

Stepping Stones Center’s treatment program involves a range of different skills that are taught to each child while using a range of locations in which to conduct the treatment sessions, allowing for generalization and contrived situations that support acquisition of skills learned. This is done in conjunction with using particular strategies to cope with challenging behaviors, where necessary. As the child masters these skills, it becomes important to deliberately increase variability (e.g., incidental teaching opportunities) to facilitate generalization of acquired skills with other individuals and settings in the child’s natural environment. Changes in instruction are made if the collected performance data indicates that modification is needed for the child to achieve successful mastery of the skills.

A positive and systematic approach to teaching functional skills and reducing problem behavior as well as creativity and flexibility, capitalizing on the resources available for each individual child, is strongly emphasized in each child’s individualized program. The emphasis of the child’s program is guided by his/her treatment goals and objectives and may shift during the course of treatment, dependent on treatment progress and behavior, although the treatment’s general structure remains the same.

We believe that it is important to build upon a child’s successes and expand utilization of existing skills as well as encourage the development of new ones. Therefore, utilizing the child’s areas of strength and building upon them as rapidly as possible, while simultaneously attempting to offset their areas of weakness, is of great importance in our program. These teaching methods are based upon the application of a learning theory where the approach is very pragmatic. Therefore, thoughtful planning results in greater consistency across team members and leads to more successful outcomes for the child.

Our program emphasizes direct measurement of the child’s performance. Direct evaluation is crucial because it allows the treatment team to determine the child’s progress as it guides objective and clinical decision-making. The assessment and documentation of a child’s pre-intervention or baseline behavioral performance is essential for treatment planning, decision-making, and evaluating the effectiveness of the intervention. In turn, this information assists in the development of realistic objectives, establishing performance criteria, and developing task and step analyses. In addition, baseline data provides the “before” picture with which to compare treatment results (the “after” picture). Therefore, an ongoing assessment of progress toward outcomes, as measured by individualized data collection systems, continues to be a significant part of the program in order to guide the intervention process.

Data collected per treatment session reflects information that is specific to both teaching target skills and observations of behavior. In addition, regular client team meetings take place for each individual child, monthly. They serve as forums for discussions concerning the child’s treatment program and provide input for program effectiveness and needs for change. Therefore, collaboration between the family members and service providers as well as flexibility in adjusting strategies in a timely manner is key in this evaluation process. All aspects of such communication and planning are facilitated by clear and consistent treatment documentation.