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CARD Develops One-of-a-Kind Comprehensive SKILLS

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Shaping Knowledge Through Individualized Life Learning Systems, also known as CARD SKILLS ©, is a three part system designed to give anyone who will be a behavioral educator of children with autism (including parents, teachers, behavior analysts, and other professionals) access to: (a) training in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and how it is used to teach skills to children with autism, (b) an assessment (SKILLS Index) to identify the child’s mastered and unmastered skills, and (c) a set of curricula that can be utilized to design an individualized ABA-based program based on the needs of the child identified by the SKILLS Index. Available 2010!

E-Learning
Provides training in ABA and how it is used to teach skills to children with autism. It is composed of on-line training modules which focus on topics such as:

     • Autism and how it is diagnosed
     • Introduction to ABA and its principles
     • Assessment and identification of skill targets
     • Teaching Paradigms
           - Natural Environment Training (NET)
           - Discrete Trial Training (DTT)
           - Fluency-Based Instruction (FBI)
     • Procedures Discrimination training
           - Prompting and Fading
           - Shaping
           - Chaining
     • Generalization and Maintenance
     • Functional behavioral assessment (FBA)
     • Interventions for challenging behavior
     • Data collection

"The CARD E-Learning series won't make a user a pro overnight, but it will teach basic skills and information to establish a foundation in which a user can build with proper supervision,” said Dr. Adel Najdowski, CARD Research and Development Manager and co-creator of SKILLS.

"We recommed that users work along side a CARD Supervisor in order to gain the most value from SKILLS. Once a trainee finishes an e-learning module, he or she must take and pass a quiz before moving on to the next training module. Then, once a trainee completes all modules of the e-learning, he or she is ready to begin using (with supervision) behavioral analytic techniques to teach skills to children with autism."

CARD’s SKILLS Index is the alternative to the complex myriad of psychological, cognitive, and intelligence tests
SKILLS Index

The SKILLS Index is an assessment tool comprised of a series of yes or no questions that thebehavioral educator answers about the child.

The questions are organized by skill area and listed in chronological order of child development across eight domains:

Language, Play, Adaptive, Motor, Executive Functions,
Cognition, Social, and Academic Skills.

Answers to the assessment questions are logged in a computerized database which automatically produces simple bar graph reports identifying skills that are in the child’s repertoire versus those that need to be taught. The report is relevant to the child’s age and is summarized according to skills that the child’s same-age peers would exhibit.

Based on this information, specific skills can be targeted. TheCARD SKILLS Index directs the child’s behavioral educators to areas of the CARD Curricula© that can be used to teach identified skills. The outcome of this process is that the behavioral educator is able to use the SKILLS Index to develop an age-appropriate comprehensive ABA-based program for the child.

“CARD SKILLS is like no other product because of its comprehensiveness,” said Dr. Doreen Granpeesheh, CARD Founder, Executive Director, and Co-Creator of CARD SKILLS “This single package derived from what we know about child development is a one-stop-shop for treatment providers who are developing ABA-based intervention programs for children with autism ages 0 – 8, because once the assessment results are obtained they tie directly to a comprehensive set of curricula. There is no longer the need to decipher what to teach because it is all there for you."
CARD's Curricula includes lessons to teach skills in each
of the eight skill domains assessed in the SKILLS Index.
CARD's Curricula

CARD's Curricula includes eight different areas: Language, Play, Adaptive, Motor, Executive Functions, Cognition, Social, and Academic Skills. Each curriculum is composed of lessons developed to give behavioral educators examples of specific concepts that should be taught. Each lesson provides information such as:

  • Average age ranges for when skills develop
  • Prerequisites necessary before teaching the skills in the lesson
  • Type of nonverbal or verbal operant that is being taught
  • Sample Individual Education Plan (IEP) goals related to the skill
  • Ideas for setting up teaching materials and scenarios
  • Teaching points for ensuring the child’s success in learning targeted skills
  • Ideas for programming for generalization
  • Direction for what to teach next
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    Taken together, CARD SKILLS, which consists of the CARD E-Learning, SKILLS Index, and CARD's Curricula provide behavioral educators with the knowledge and confidence necessary (with supervision) to implement ABA-based programs for children with autism.
    To receive regular updates about CARD SKILLS:
    © 2009 Center For Autism & Related Disorders Inc.