Autism Services

At Lear we provide Neurodiversity Affirming services for Autistic clients of all ages, in all areas of communication development.

This means our Autism Services are:

• Individualized: Supporting the unique needs of each autistic client and their families. We prioritize rapport and connection with our clients and their families to best understand how we can support them as unique individuals who are valuable participants in family, school, and cultural communities.
• Strengths-based: Building from what an individual can do as opposed to focusing solely on what they can’t do. We presume competence and potential of each client, giving them appropriate supports to stretch their strengths.
• Meaningful, Relevant, and Intrinsically Motivated: Ensuring engagement and regulation and purposeful goals that support the client in skills development for their interests and priority needs and promoting communication opportunities based on relationships and connection instead of complying to communication partner demands.
• Honouring Authentic Play: All play is okay in our therapy sessions as long as it is safe for everyone. We join clients in their authentic play and support them in building communication there first, expanding as their interests expand.
• Supporting and accommodating sensory experiences: Prioritizing a sense of felt safety by prioritizing trust, connection, regulation and engagement within a supportive sensory environment to ensure a child is within their optimal learning zone while promoting self-advocacy for sensory needs to meet clients where they are each individual session.
• Building Autonomy: Supporting clients in being able to say what they want to say, when they want to say it, to whoever they want to say it to, in the modality that works best for them in that moment. Building the skills to be able to say “no” and explain their choices about their daily lives.
• Using Total Communication Approach: Building and honouring a toolbox of communication modalities and methods for clients to use as feels appropriate to them including use of: pictures, low-tech language boards, gestures, sign language, facial expressions, scripts, single-word utterances, creative self-generated speech, AAC, and more.
• Honouring Echolalia as Communication: Supporting children who use echolalia and gestalt language processing styles, as all or part of their communication strategies, by supporting the use and expansion of their scripts, helping caregivers understand their possible meanings, and supporting the client in clarifying their meaning as needed.
• Building Social Communication Education: Supporting clients in identifying both their own and others’ communication style preferences, and how different responses and interactions may be interpreted by others in order to maximize being understood by, and understanding others, as they intend.
• Collaborative: Supporting and learning alongside client’s school teams, Occupational Therapists, ABA therapists and more!

Common Goals: 

We’re here to help! Contact us for more information or to schedule an assessment and treatment.