LEAP Program

LEAP at a glance…

The Language Education and Application with Peers (LEAP) program offers a clinical-classroom style environment for your child created and implemented by Board Certified Behavior Analysts and Certified Teachers. Scientifically validated teaching procedures are used to ensure rapid acquisition of communication, social, behavioral and academic skills. Opportunities are afforded for immediate practice of newly learned skills with peers in a carefully designed educational setting. This setting guarantees that your child can apply the skills learned in a 1:1 fashion, to groups of 1:3. Because research shows that children learn best when they are motivated, the teaching procedures used offer high rates of positive reinforcement. The materials used are developmentally appropriate and carefully selected to increase the motivation, curiosity, and excitement of each child.

Language Education and Application with Peers:

At first glance, the LEAP program looks like a small pre-school classroom. Created and implemented by a Speech Language Pathologist and a Behavior Analyst with dual teacher certification, the LEAP program identifies language and other critical skills that are in need of intervention in order for your child to become more capable of learning from his everyday experiences.

Parents and educators who live and work with a child with language delays know there are a variety of skills that each child must acquire. The acquisition of what to others may seem to be a minor skill is often viewed as a major “breakthrough” for those involved in the child’s intervention. Those individuals involved in the child’s treatment realize that the amount of time, and the sophistication of teaching methodology, is greatly magnified compared to what is required for a child with normal language development to achieve a similar skill.

Carefully designed instruction of critical skills may result in the faster acquisition of a larger set of skills without the need for sophisticated teaching. LEAP’s educational activities focus on teaching the child skills that will result in generalized learning that will allow the child to learn many skills in educational and social environments containing less structured opportunities such as a classroom, church group or play date. The purpose of the LEAP program is to arm each child with the skills needed so that he or she can “learn to learn” without highly specialized instruction by incorporating the following:

Language- An individualized skill development plan designed for your child coupled with specially designed activities allow for language instruction in all of the different environmental conditions under which language typically occurs.
Motivation- Certain skills will only be demonstrated when a child is motivated to engage in the skill. A focus on the interests of your child gives the intervention team insight into your child’s motivation. Motivation sets the stage for authentic learning!
Generalization- Skills learned are only beneficial to a child if he can use those skills in a variety of new situations. The LEAP program teaches to generalization by ensuring that your child can respond correctly given different materials, different people, different social settings, and in different verbal contexts.
Spontaneity- A child’s spontaneous use of language is a very important marker in language acquisition; specific behavioral procedures are employed to help your child develop spontaneity.
Fluency- Children in therapeutic settings often acquire basic skills but lack the ability to quickly use them when they are required in a variety of contexts. Precise language and behavioral teaching techniques assist your child in gaining fluency.
Joint Attention- The ability to share attention with others to items and events that occur is crucial in developing functional language and social reciprocity. Developing joint attention is a major goal of the LEAP program.
Learner Readiness- Children who are able to follow directions and complete tasks to access social reinforcement are generally more successful in school.
Social Skills Development- Instruction in the subtle skills that are needed by children to interact with and learn from their peers is embedded into each activity.
Imitation- The importance of having a well-developed imitative repertoire has been long recognized by parents and professionals as critical to development of a wide variety of language, self-help, motor, academic and self-help skills. Imitation is incorporated into all LEAP learning activities.