The Institute's private, special education school The Durham Center for Education supports students with Autism Spectrum Disorders, developmental disabilities and and social skills deficits. Our primary goal is to teach functional and pro-social skills that can be easily generalized to the student's community and home.

Services are based on a consultative model that allows the child to remain or to transition into the environment of choice while an individual behavioral plan is developed and implemented by trained professionals in the identified setting for him or her. These settings include one’s home, school, and community.

Our service mode emphasizes:

• Evidence-based interventions that rest on best practice standards, ongoing data collection, and evaluation of outcomes;
• Assessment of a child’s communicative, cognitive and behavioral strengths and needs permitting individualization of a plan that is accessible and developmentally appropriate;
• Family integration into service planning and implementation;
• The child’s development of emotional regulation skills to ensure that s/he is able to benefit from behavioral and educational opportunities;
• Generalization of skills to natural settings (e.g., the classroom, home, recreational resources, community);
• Coordination with other service providers
• Ensuring a high level of competence among The Institute’s staff through ongoing professional development and supervision;
• The capacity to develop a continuum of care for individuals who may be transitioning from Children’s Services to adult care.
   

Public and private schools often need the assistance of well-qualified professionals with expertise in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), educational systems, and clinical-developmental psychology. The Institute’s Children’s Services offers School Consultation and support to schools at three levels.  

Parents are often the first to acknowledge that their child with special needs also presents special behavioral challenges, especially when communication does not emerge smoothly at the expected times or rate of development. Family and Home Consultation can help parents identify problem behaviors as well as behaviors to improve, and then systematically respond to those behaviors in ways that assist the child in making positive change.

We firmly believe that the best outcomes for children are achieved when consistency and effective communication systems between home-based and school-based services exist. The Institute is well-equipped to provide Coordination between Home and School bridging these two settings.

In addition, the Institute offers a variety of Other Consultation and Psychological Services including assessments, trainings and clinical supervision.

For more information please contact:
 Susan Sczerzenie, Ph.D., BCBA-D
Director of Children’s Services
(978) 353-3489 x1311 Email ssczerzenie@ippi.org