Talking Playhouse

--Please email for the current schedule--

If you are a new family, please make a "meet and greet" appointment in order to find the best match for your child.

Please see below for registration process and classes offered.

How to develop new pathways in the brain when certain areas appear underdeveloped is a complicated and tedious road to hoe and yet it is one of the most life-rewarding efforts one can embark on. It takes courage, willingness, indefatigable effort, patience, and an inordinate amount of time and tenacity to help the brain change itself.

According to brain fitness expert and neuroscientist (widely seen on public television) Dr. Michael Merzenich, "Brain Plasticity" refers to the brain's ability to change…the brain is not static; that it responds to circumstances, to new learning...." He purports there are science-based guidelines for choosing daily activities that are likely to engage the brain for positive change." Dr. Norman Doidge, author of "The Brain that Changes Itself" says "… It (the brain) doesn't simply learn; it is always 'learning how to learn.'"

Evidence-based practice for over 25 years in autism has led me to understand that this is true. While I pull from a variety of resources to exercise and develop the social brain (some are listed below), the real change results are in the consistent and daily practice of a multimodal approach--largely executed by parents with their child.

The weekly sessions allow the lesson plan to be taught to the students in my groups with an emphasis in social project based learning whenever possible. The Parent Training is designed to give parents the tools to use daily for practice so that the information is shifting, beyond the superficial level of talking and knowing of working memory into the long-term memory of the hippocampus for generalization.

A brief overview of goals at the Playhouse will help you to understand the current practices to change your child's social trajectory by helping the brain learn and change itself.

Enhancing the brain for social interaction.
Organizing the brain for time management, homework, school, physical environment, schedules (dressing, etc.)
Developing Executive Functions for sequencing, impulse control, memory, problem solving, decision making, categorizing things, follow complex directions, & associative memory.
Creating compensatory visual tools for coping with challenging areas.
Using problem solving systems for managing conflict and resolution.
Understanding accurate perceptions from information we receive and how to use them during engagement.
Utilizing pragmatic language from idioms to abstract reasoning.
Making sense out of an implicit world of inconsistent rules.
Understanding hidden social rules and agendas.
Exercising the various areas of the brain to enhance cohesive thought and action.
Reading nonverbal cues in our environment.
Understanding the space and bodies around us and how to navigate accordingly.
Utilizing voice modulation (tone, volume, pitch) to garner positive impressions.
Sharpening predictive skills.
Monitoring our own behavior for awareness and change.
Exercising flexibility in thought and practice.
Adjusting our lenses: changing behavior based on reading the social cues -- verbal, nonverbal and vocal tone.
Using verbalizing to build visual images to aid in gestalt thinking, perceptions, sequencing, writing development and social interactions.
Moving knowledge from working memory to long-term memory.
Acting and theatrical games to carve deeper memory pathways stored in the amygdala and hippocampus.
Storytelling to make connections to past experiences and enhance storage of new social information.
Focusing on emotions: reading (nonverbal), responding (language), and exhibiting (facial expressions and gestures,etc.)
Creating positive discipline behavioral systems that work at home and school.
Reinforcing expected behavioral techniques with visual cue cards (It's a Visual World© KueKards copyright The Talking Playhouse.)

* Social Skills Groups, Writers' Workshops, Lindamood Bell's®, Verbalizing & Visualing®, Organizational Life©, Parent Consultation, Social Skills/Speech & Language Assessments, Positive Behavior Planning Children to Adults

The Talking Playhouse, A Place for Social Learning offers therapeutic training for adults, children and their parents to develop skills and/or retrain how we use our social skills, how we think socially, how we organize our thinking to shape our work, environment and social engagements. And, how we enhance our ability to cultivate and manage abstract thinking during writing and social pragmatic language interactions.

Coursework includes curriculum drawn from Michelle Garcia-Winner's Social Thinking©, Mel Levine's Schools Attuned© & Social Cue Cards from Talking Playhouse's "A Visual World©," theater transformational and sensory techniques to enhance role playing rehearsals and other evidenced-based techniques to increase social cognition. Activities including team based projects, outings, team building exercises, theater games, etc. The Talking Playhouse works with school districts to train staff who may be working with children with Nonverbal Learning Disabilities, Asperger's, ADHD and High Functioning Autism.

New families: If you are a new family, please make a “meet and greet” in order to find the best match for your child. Please see below schedule grid for details.

All classes are conducted by a therapist with specialization in Social Cognitive Therapy.

Please see below for registration process.

TITLE	AGE	Description
Social Navigation Group	PreTeen-Teen	BOYS
Social Pals	3rd-4th Grade	BOYS
Social Integration Play	4-5 Y.O.	G/B
Project Social	Middle School	GIRLS
Social Integration Play	Kindergarten	Girls/Boys
Social Navigation Group	9-12 Y.O.	Girls/Boys
SOCIAL PLAYHOUSE PRESCHOOL Parent Training: How To Navigate A Successful Social World For Your Child	Ages: 4-5 Y.O. (new families only)	This is a discovery course and continuing course for those that want more in social engagement using structured play. Students will learn the fundamentals of Social Thinking© Michelle Garcia Winner© vocabulary, RDI© and other related social skills methodologies to build an arsenal of pragmatic language and behaviors to better navigate their social world. Parent Training focuses on strategies to enhance playdates, how to maximize socialization at school, use positive parenting practices, and to heighten social thinking throughout the family dynamics.
Social Pals	1st -3rd grade	BOYS and/or GIRLS (group may break up into separate groups with one on weds.)
ORGANIZATIONAL WORKSHOP	Time/TBD (5p weekdays)
Writing Sensibilities© LindamoodBell’s® Verbalizing & Visualizing®	TBD (5p weekdays or early dismissal day)	Enhance your child’s ability to build visual imagery, memory, and abstract thinking skills to enhance social strategies.

New families: Please email info@talkingplayhouse after you read about The Talking Playhouse schedule. Email with "M&G" in subject of your email for a brief, 30 minute meet and greet appointment . Please include the information requested on the website. Please bring your child, the application, reports and a picture for our files.

PARENT TRAINING

This is a key component to your child's success. Every session provides 30-35% parent training at the end. This is a daily-practice intensive curriculum and parents are provided with tools to help with generalization of skills of the day. A social language vocabulary list is also provided.

PROCEDURE FOR APPLICATION

STEP ONE:

Send an email with Application/your child's last name/age in the subject.
Please provide:
- diagnosis (if any and by whom)
- current therapies (and w/whom)
- has any testing that has been done in the last 12 months, by whom and what actions did you take based on results/suggestions from the practitioner/or team?
- are you in an IEP program?

STEP TWO:

We will contact you either by email or phone. If you receive an email, it will have "application" in the title and it will be attached. You can download to your desktop and fill in electronically to email back or hard mail back. If you email be sure to save the doc to your hardrive b/f you start working on it with your child's name. Any info filled out while it's in your email program will be lost. SAVE TO YOUR HARD DRIVE FIRST.

STEP THREE:

We will set up a time for you to come in for a 30m appt. to gather information to appropriately match your child. Fee: $64.00. Longer appointments and/or an assessment may be scheduled at that time. We do have a 24 hr. cancellation policy BY PHONE.

NEW BILLING POLICY:

Available by request: forms for insurance companies. Parent fills in dates, return and we sign and date.

Please note: Our apologies but there are no make-ups in group sessions.

Please note that class enrollment is based on a first come first served basis and compatible matching; size of group is limited. All deposits are non-refundable. Before sending in checks please make sure the following have occurred:

You have sent back your social skills questionnaire, if applying for social groups.
If applying for a speech or language therapy and/or groups, fill out the first part of this application only.
You have spoken to a Talking Playhouse therapist to review your child’s background & ensure a space. Once you have been given a verbal approval, you may then proceed with payment. There are no makeups, refunds or rescheduling for missed days for the social group sessions. Balance due first day of session. Cancellations for private/dyad/evaluations sessions, other than group programs require a 24 hour notice.

The Talking Playhouse is ‘A Place for Social Learning' for speech and language therapy services with an emphasis in Social Skills or, what we call in the vernacular, Social Pragmatic Language. While we emphasize Social Skills, we also provide traditional speech and language services for articulation, voice, fluency and language.

We are committed to helping change your child's social language destiny with early intervention to set the stage for future communication. Social awareness and the language needed to foster it , is at the focal point of our program. It is not an instinctive ability for many of the children we see. We are dedicated to providing a fun, creative, humor-driven environment that children from preschool age to late teens enjoy participating in.

Every child has something to communicate yet many of them do not have the framework to communicate what they need. We focus on pro-social behavioral intervention and positive redirection to help reduce the frustration and difficulty that is often accompanied with communication difficulty.

We believe in the interdisciplinary team approach and therefore provide related services in occupational therapy, physical therapy, behavioral intervention, art and music therapy and psychology services.

* The Talking Playhouse is NOT Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes nor is it affiliated with, certified, endorsed, licensed, monitored or sponsored by Lindamood-Bell, Nanci Bell, Phyllis Lindamood or Pat Lindamood. Lindamood-Bell - an international organization creating and implementing unique instructional methods and programs for qualilty intervention to advance language and literacy skills -in no way endorses or monitors the services provided by The Talking Playhouse.