Services

Student Case Management Services

Contracted Clinical Services

Case management services are designed to provide support to students and their families, while linking them to resources and services in the community. The case manager will provide the family and child with information regarding the child’s diagnosis, training, conferences, new research, support groups and resources and services from which the child and family may benefit.

Case managers will help families’ access services to meet their children’s needs such as occupational, speech, and/or physical therapy and/or recreational services. The case manager can assist the child and family with coordinating services, such as locating a therapist, counselor, doctor, dentist, or recreational activities from which the child would benefit. The case manager can also assist a family with utilizing in home support services for their child.

Speech and Language Therapy

Speech therapy is a treatment for speech and language disorders. A speech disorder involves a problem producing words and sounds, whereas a language disorder refers to a difficulty understanding words and putting together sentences and ideas for communication. Speech therapy helps individuals gain the ability to communicate through speech and language. Speech therapists might use repetitive exercises and training as well as assistive devices for communication to assist with what is speech therapy. Called augmentative and assistive communication, or AAC, these devices produce speech or sound for those who are nonverbal.

Speech therapy targets a great deal of speech and language disorders, including the following:

Occupational Therapy

Occupational therapy helps children through developmental milestones, and they help improve a person’s ability to function independently. The activities of daily living, such as getting out of bed, brushing your teeth, eating morning cereal, walking to school, sitting quietly and still at a desk, playing at recess, helping with dinner and dishes, taking a shower, and going to bed, are all functions many people take for granted. However, some individuals have difficulty with these tasks.

Occupational therapists work from age newborn through adult. Occupational therapy includes the use of work, self-care, and play activities. Through these activities, the therapist and child learn ways to deal with an obstacle and work on modifications or adaptations to improve quality of life. Each activity might be fun for the client, but they work on specific therapeutic goals. For example, placing dry spaghetti vertically into a Styrofoam cup and stringing cereal on each spaghetti strand works on eye-hand coordination, manual dexterity, grasp, finger strength, in-hand manipulation, and visual perception. Another example is the use of swings to promote balance, posture, and sensory integration.

Nutrition Monitoring

Nutrition Monitoring for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

South Florida School of Excellence provides scientific evidence- based nutrition implementations in daily school meals:

For students with ASD, a healthy, balanced diet can make a world of difference in their ability to learn, how they manage their emotions and how they process information. Because children with ASD often have restricted diets as well as difficulty sitting through mealtimes, they may not be getting all the nutrients they need, particularly calcium and protein.

School has listed the various treatments in approximate order of what is typically recommended, but every child is different and initial assessment by a physician and/or nutritionist may suggest a different order. School nutritionists assess the effect of each treatment on each student, by careful assessment of behavioral symptoms and through testing if possible.

Mental Health Therapy

Why Is Children’s Mental Health Important?

Mental health is an essential part of children’s overall health; it has a complex interactive relationship with their physical health and their ability to succeed in school, at work and in society. Both physical and mental health affect how we think, feel and act on the inside and outside

Mental health services include the following services when necessary for the student to benefit from his/her special education: individual or group psychotherapy; medication monitoring; intensive day treatment, day rehabilitation and case management.

Applied Behavior Analysis Therapy

There are many forms of specific behavioral therapy. However, applied behavioral analysis is one of the most common types of behavioral therapy used for children with certain developmental disabilities. Applied behavior analysis, or ABA for short, was developed in the late 1960’s and is characterized by a careful observation and analysis of challenging behaviors as they occur within the child’s natural environment. The analysis is then directly linked to a behavior intervention plan so as to produce healthy, more adaptive ways of responding to situations. The ABA approach has been used widely with children with autism spectrum disorders and other problems of a developmental nature.

ABA techniques can be used to foster development of basic skills such as looking, listening and imitating, as well as complex skills such as reading, conversing and understanding another person’s perspective. These therapeutic approaches might also be used to help a child handle things like a change in schedule, changes in their environment or other things that might be difficult for them to manage without support. ABA can reduce the chances that these situations will trigger problem behaviors.

Psychosocial Rehabilitation Services

South Florida School of Excellence provides Psychosocial Rehabilitation Services are designed to prepare students to the isolation and withdrawal experienced by emotionally disturbed children. This service will function as actively, adaptively, and independently in society as possible and appropriate. The service assists students strengthen, restore and/or develop the necessary individual skills, abilities and environmental supports to improve their personal, social, family, occupational/educational lives, and overcome help the students assume responsibility over their lives and behaviors, and improve their general wellbeing.

The psychosocial rehabilitation services are supported services:

Independent Living, Daily Medication, Social Skills, Housing, Pre-Vocational, Transitional, Employment Training, Networking, Social Support, Food Planning, Money Management, Life Management

Psychological Evaluation and Screening

Conducted by a school psychologist, this evaluation may include cognitive assessments; look at emotional and behavioral concerns, and measures of adaptive functioning. Cognitive assessments measure a student’s intellectual abilities. It gives general information relative to other students the same age. The test shows how well he problem solves, how he best interprets information (visual, auditory, etc.), and measures other areas such as memory and speed of processing information. These assessments have an overall IQ score, which is comprised of various scales. Each assessment is different, but often the scales will focus on verbal ability, nonverbal ability, spatial ability, memory, and processing speed. Each of these scales consists of subtests that measure different aspects of the ability.

A social and emotional assessment is also typically conducted. Emotional functioning may be assessed formally or informally. It may include observations and interviews. It may also include projective measures that ask a student to draw, finish a sentence, or tell a story from a picture. Evaluators look for common themes in the stories, pictures, or sentences completed by the student. Rating scales are also used to measure and quantify emotional issues and behavior relative to other students. Raters respond to a series of questions and the responses are compared to a standardized sample of other students the same age. Students, parents, and teachers may be asked to complete rating scales.