Whether your loved one is an infant, child or adult, Portia Learning Centre offers a variety of Services to suit their unique needs. Our team of Behaviour Analysts, Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Speech and Language Pathologists and Physiotherapists are here to help you and your family.
The Portia Learning Centre’s individualized treatment programs follow a developmental approach for children of all ages, starting at 6-months of age. Skills are assessed using a variety of developmentally appropriate curricula, including the Portia Curriculum, developed in-house by our leading team of Behaviour Analysts!
The individualized treatment plan for your child will focus on learning through motivation. Treatment goals will include areas of need such as communication (conversation, joint attention, requesting, receptive and expressive language), daily living skills, reducing challenging behaviour, social and play skills, fine and gross motor, and group learning skills in conjunction with parent/family training, generalization and collaboration with outside professionals.
We focus goals based on the need of the whole family. Parent/caregiver and family involvement is essential. Our team will work with you and your family to make sure treatment gains are realized across all environments.
Our team includes Behavior Analysts (Senior Therapists); Therapists; Speech and Language Pathologists; Occupational Therapists; and Psychologists. Our continuous improvement model allows us to make incremental changes to a program on a daily basis, as required. These changes are led by evidence-based practices and leading research principles
Families stay with The Portia Learning Centre because of our dedication and commitment to never giving up on your child’s learning. On average families have trusted us with their child for 1.5 to 2 years prior to transitioning to school.
The experience of our team can’t be replicated!
Our comprehensive ABA program is typically, 15-40 hours per week with program goals across multiple developmental domains (communication, play, adaptive, social, academic etc.). Oftentimes behaviour reduction programs are also part of the program (non-compliance, stereorypy, agression). These programs are initially delivered in a 1:1 environment and can eventually move to small-group settings.
Our focused ABA program is typically, less hours than a comprehensive program that focuses on treatment for a limited number of functional skills or acute problem behaviour. A focused ABA program will usually target one to two developmental domains such as reducing challenging behaviour and increasing functional skills, increasing social skills, increasing communication skills. These programs can be delivered in a 1:1 or small group setting.
We offer a wide variety of consultative services. We provide skill and function based assessment and recommendations, hands on training to caregivers and outside professionals, workshops and ongoing supervision of outside professionals or caregivers.
The screening will provide information about the child’s language and social skills and identify if there are any red flags for autism. Parents will be provided with a brief report and recommendations for next steps.
Did you know?
In addition to developmental screenings, Portia is also conducting a research study to evaluate a new parent training intervention that aims to reduce developmental and behavioral issues in infants at-risk for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).
We are hoping to find infants to participate in this study. In particular, the following criteria are of great interest:
This study may identify a viable early developmental assessment package to use for identification of cognitive, social/emotional, and communication delays in premature infants and intervention procedures that may be therapeutically beneficial.
Our small group ABA and transition programs, integration and support programs are unique to your child. We believe learning should be fun and teaching through motivation is the foundation of all our programs. Our goal is to help your child achieve success in all environments and reach their full potential.
We offer academic tutoring, Small Group ABA programs, transition classrooms, and individualized integration support into a variety of community settings.
Our Small group ABA programs are full time and part time programs for children with focus on social, communication and play skills. The program offers more intensive support than available in a typical pre-school childcare or school aged program.
Our transition classrooms focus on group interactive teaching, school readiness and pre-academic skills, independence and many opportunities for social and play that coincide with our weekly themes. When your child is ready to transition to school, we offer consultative and customized school integration support.
Our therapists will also be available to teach and support your child in many other community programs including daycare, pre-school, camps, social groups, sports and extra-curricular activities.
If your child requires focused support in a select academic subjects, we offer tutoring services.
Parents and caregivers are provided with hands-on training in the home, opportunities to observe live sessions, participate in workshops and attend regular progress meetings. We help parents navigate the funding system and community supports. We encourage sibling involvement as well, and strive to create an interactive approach to family involvement. We don’t just coach parents, we educate and enable parents to be confident. Our collaborative approach to parent coaching empowers families to be strong advocates for their children so they are successful and supported in the future. In addition to parent coaching within our ABA services, we also offer consultative parent coaching.
We offer a variety of social and play groups throughout the year. Check in with our calendar of events to see what programs we are currently offering.
Authored by Kim Moore, M.ADS, BCBA.
Contributors include:
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