Intensive Behavioural Intervention (IBI): Children receive Intensive Behavioural Intervention (IBI), a highly structured, customized program that builds social skills, promotes language development, develops learning skills, and if necessary decreases challenging behaviour.

Transition Services: Transition services help to connect families to resources and services in their community and assist children who are in treatment to move into community programs and school.

Parent Education and Training: TPAS provides families with information, consultation and training to learn new skills that support the child and family.

Intensive Behavioural Intervention

The Toronto Partnership for Autism Services use the scientifically proven Intensive Behavioural Intervention (IBI) method. IBI is an intensive treatment, provided for a minimum of 20 hours per week and delivered through both one-to-one and small group instruction. It requires frequent, direct measurement of the child's performance and progress with regular updates to the child's customized program.

IBI was developed for young children with autism spectrum disorders, based on the scientific principles of the broader field of Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA). ABA is the science of designing, implementing, and evaluating environmental modifications to produce meaningful changes in behaviour.  ABA can be considered as an overall category, which can be applied to many different groups and ages, with IBI being one model of intervention for children with autism spectrum disorders.

IBI is comprehensive in scope, targeting a broad range of developmental areas. It is developmental in sequence, focusing on skills in the order they would tend to appear in typically developing children. IBI is designed to improve key learning skills in the areas of cognitive, language, and social development. In order to do so it is imperative that intervention be provided intensively during children’s best learning periods, typically during a regular daytime schedule. 

The goal of Intensive Behavioural Intervention is to increase the developmental trajectory, or rate of learning, for children with autism.  Treatment research suggests that up to 40% to 50% of young children may make substantial progress typically over a 1 to 2 year period.  When this goal is achieved, children show clinically significant improvement in cognitive, language, and adaptive functioning, which can be demonstrated at regular intervals throughout their intervention.  Children have different outcomes with IBI. While some children make very good progress, others make slow to minimal progress.

Transition Services

TPAS provides supports to the child and family that help to make the transition from IBI to new environments as smooth as possible.

TPAS School Stream Program

Intensive Behavioural Intervention is not intended to be a long term replacement for school. Careful planning and close coordination between treatment and education can help to ensure smooth transitions for children.

The TPAS School Stream model has been specifically designed for children who are eligible to attend school on a full day basis. In this service option, children receive a half day of treatment in our learning centres, while building or maintaining their link to the school system by attending school on a half time basis.

This program focuses on building skills that are needed for success within school by providing intensive support during small group instruction. The four primary areas of treatment include: functional communication, self help skills, independence with play/leisure/school routines, and reduction of challenging behaviours where appropriate.

Consultation from Speech Language Pathology and Occupational Therapy is incorporated into this model. Children in the School Stream will also attend weekly group instruction through the TPAS Stepping Stones program provided by Geneva Centre for Autism.

TPAS Transition Coordinator Support

Transition Coordinators are available to any family whose child is in the TPAS Intensive Behavioural Intervention (IBI), whether through a TPAS partner agency or the direct funding option, and for up to one year following IBI.

Transition Coordinators help to connect families to important resources such as funding and services in their community such as respite and parent support programs.  They also assist children who are in treatment to move into community programs including childcare, recreation programs, and school.

TPAS Stepping Stones Transition Services

TPAS Stepping Stones is a series of services including skill-building groups for children, parent workshops and coaching sessions, and support sessions in the new environment. TPAS Stepping Stones services are coordinated and delivered by Geneva Centre for Autism.

Children can participate in a variety of play-based groups to meet their individual needs. Coaching one-on-one or in pairs is also available for developing new skills or managing specific behaviours. The groups include:

• Early social skills
• Functional skills for the classroom
• Community play skills
• Friendship skills
• Managing anxiety, anger and change 
• Managing bullying 
• Classroom peer orientation
• Understanding my ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder)

Parents attend workshops that address the skills their children are learning in the skill-building groups. Parents also receive individual consultations in their home or a community setting, to help transfer skill-building techniques to the family.

Connections for Students

The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Children and Youth Services have developed Connections for Students, a new collaborative approach to improving transitions for students with autism spectrum disorders.

Approximately 6 months before a child prepares to transition from Intensive Behavioural Intervention a child specific, school based transition team will be established. Members will include the school principal, parents, teachers, School Support Program (SSP) ASD consultants, and school board staff with applied behaviour analysis (ABA) expertise and other team members as required. Transition teams will develop transition plans that are tailored to the specific needs of the student. For more information see School Support Program.

Parent Education and Training

Parents play an important role in the success of the Intensive Behavioural Intervention program. Parent involvement in a child’s learning is correlated with higher achievement and can greatly assist children to generalize their learning from one setting to another, i.e. learning a new skill at TPAS and transferring this knowledge to the home and other community settings.  

Jumpstart

Jumpstart services are delivered by Geneva Centre for Autism. For families registered with TPAS, Jumpstart provides both intensive in-home parent coaching, designed to assist parents in teaching their children, and workshops that build a foundation of knowledge to support child development.

During Intensive Behavioural Intervention

TPAS offers specialized learning opportunities to parents with children in IBI so they can help their children reach goals and live life to their fullest potential. 

Opportunities include:

• Access to resource materials such as books, articles, videos and DVDs
• Regular treatment observations
• Small group parent training sessions
• Individual and small group coaching
• Workshops and conferences
• Stepping Stones program