Weekly Update August 11, 2023

The Tree of Possibilities is more than just a logo at Strive Center! We celebrate all the little victories - for every new skill a child learns, we give him a leaf or an apple sticker to put on his very own Tree of Possibilities poster. We keep one poster here at the center, next to his table, and one goes home, so families can celebrate all the little victories too. In July, our learners acquired 260 new skills. That brings our total for 2023 to 1,388 new skills!

The Autism Alliance of Michigan (AAoM) will be hosting their annual Hero Walk at the Detroit Zoo on September 23rd. Strive Center for Autism is please to sponsor the event and we'll have a team of walkers again as well. If you plan to attend the walk, please join our team using this link.

The AAoM provides resources, advocacy, and key information about autism to families and individuals affected by autism, to the general population, and to those who are in the position to affect positive change. As an organization helping people with Autism, we support their work in the community through fundraisers like this one. This walk brings together nearly 5,000 people at the zoo - people diagnosed with Autism and those who love and support them. It's a fun, family friendly day to enjoy the zoo with people who understand what it's like to live with Autism.

Our organization will also have a free four pack of tickets to raffle off for the Zoo walk - stay tuned for info and you can enter the raffle and enjoy the zoo and parking for free on September 23rd.

Please save the date for Inclusive Halloween 2023 on Friday, October 27, 2023 in the early evening (final time to be determined) at the University of Michigan-Flint!

This is a very fun event for all families - there's trick or treating, sensory activities, food, and so much more! We have hosted a table at this event each year and it is definitely one you don't want to miss. We will pass along more info as we receive it, but definitely mark your calendars for now.

Each Friday in the summer, we plan for an extra fun activity and a dress up day. All the dress up days are designed to be simple ones you can do with things you have at home, please don’t feel obligated to buy anything to make these happen. Staff and children will both participate in dressing up! We'll send home a calendar with all of the dates for the summer, or you can check here for weekly details.

One of our recurring dress up days is School Spirit Day, where we all wear Strive shirts. We will provide Strive shirts for each of the children to wear.

8-18-23

What melts in the sun? Science experiment - this is a fun activity where we put lots of different things out in the sun and find out what melts and what doesn't.

All one color day - dress in all one color of your choice - last Fun Friday for the summer!

One addition to our newsletter this year will be some definitions of terms we use most often in ABA. We know we use a lot of lingo and we want to help families understand it better. All of these terms will also be on our website in a glossary, so you can check them out anytime.

This week's term is chaining.

Chaining ties in to our term from last week, task analysis. Remember that we use a task analysis to break down a bigger activity into smaller steps and teach them. Chaining is the process we use to teach those steps in order.

There are a few different ways we can use chaining. Total task chaining is when the entire task is presented every time and we provide the level of prompting that is needed for the child to be successful at each step.

Backward chaining is where we require the child to complete steps in the chain, beginning at the end. This is often helpful with shoe tying - the adult ties the shoe almost all the way, and then we have the child just pull the laces at the end to finish. We provide reinforcement and get the child to complete that step independently, then we add the step right before, then the one before that, and so on.

Forward chaining is where you begin at the beginning of the task - we teach the child to complete the first step independently and then we prompt or complete the remainder of the steps ourselves (or completely skip them if they're not essential.) For example, if you were teaching tooth brushing using forward chaining, the first step might be opening the toothpaste. We could teach just opening the toothpaste, provide reinforcement, and stop the task there. This makes for quick and easy practice, with lots of success!

We'll just keep this link right here, for your convenience. For any absences scheduled in advance, please use this form to report the dates. You may take an entire day or half day, depending on your needs.

Therapy Schedule Update Form

Here are some additional dates that the centers will be closed:

Friday, August 25th - Professional Development Day

If your family is planning a longer absence around one of those dates, or at another time, please let us know as soon as you are able!

Email: info@sc-centers.com
Website: www.sc-centers.com
Location: Burton and Brighton, MI
Phone: 810-344-8082