
Social Skills Training
Students at Imagine Academy participate in social skills training with peers in dyads, triads, and small group environments. We utilize a variety of techniques and curriculums to facilitate age-appropriate peer interactions between students while playing with toys, games, during mealtime, cooking, morning meeting and extracurricular activities. For example, therapists and staff trained in Michelle Garcia Winner’s Social Thinking curriculum run weekly social thinking groups with students in various classrooms. Also, students participate in weekly AAC groups practicing various vocabulary and communication functions in a motivating environment. Our goal is for to students to feel successful, motivated, and engaged during interactions with their classmates and other peers.
All staff who work with a given student are trained to model appropriate language and stimulate language growth throughout the school day. AAC is also integrated into the student’s academic curriculum and programming. We have an expert AAC consultant who observes the students using AAC in their classroom and consults with teachers and classroom staff weekly. She also runs an AAC committee committed to reviewing and implementing AAC goals in the classroom. Students are taught to use their mode of augmentative and alternative communication in all academic environments, at home and in the community.
We provide families with comprehensive AAC training and discuss strategies to promote the use of AAC. Staff also visit the students’ homes to help integrate the use of AAC into the students’ home routines.
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