Inclusive early years support

To receive our supports children do not need a formal diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Our team will assess each child’s skills and presentation of needs and supports accessed to confirm their eligibility (i.e., that the child shows indicators of an Autistic learning profile and would benefit from our services). Families are encouraged to share prior assessments or other service provider reports as part of the enrolment process.

Preschool-aged children (IE under 6 years of age) are eligible to receive autism supports delivered in early education settings, such as long-day-care and kindergarten. Children aged younger than 7 years old can receive specialist supports from allied health and parent coaching staff in their family home, at La Trobe University Community Children’s Centre, or in their local early education settings.

Some children receive early autism supports in Kindergarten and All-Day Care rooms at La Trobe University Community Children’s Centre (Bundoora campus). Some children receive early autism supports in local community Early Education Services, located within 30 minutes’ drive of our Bundoora Centre. Children can also receive supports across multiple early education services, depending on the child’s learning priorities and location considerations. Early education classrooms are “mainstream” or inclusive settings with a neurodiverse group of children (both Autistic and non-Autistic) learning together.

If there are service disruptions due to an emergency/unforeseen event at the Centre, we will communicate with families about alternative arrangements for early autism support service provision (e.g., telehealth).

As part of the enrolment process;

• We will meet with your family in-person or virtually via telehealth to collect information about your family’s previous and current support services, priority goals, and helpful strategies to support your child’s learning, and the everyday setting/s you are seeking additional support within.
• If receiving services at community early education service: Our team member will connect with your child’s early education service and complete a classroom-based assessment, in partnership with your child and their early education team.
• If joining La Trobe University Community Children’s Centre: Your family and child meet your child’s new education team at scheduled orientation visit/s (30-45 mins) prior to commencing their childcare enrolment.

The focus of the assessment process is to identify ways to best support each child’s learning, and your family’s input is a crucial ingredient. Your Key Worker will meet with your family and child’s early education team to assess your child’s skills in their everyday settings twice per year (approximately every 5 months).

This process includes:

• Reflecting on your child’s learning progress, lessons learned by team members, and planning sustainable ongoing strategies to support everyone’s learning, particularly strategies that facilitate your child’s participation and engagement.
• Exploring new learning goals that build on the skill growth of your child and build on the routines and interaction styles of your family and their education team.
• Adjusting our supports to meet your child’s individual support needs based on their wider team, including;
  • The focus and types of Key Worker support
  • Considering specialist Allied Health or coaching referrals for assessment and support
  • Increasing/decreasing the number and range of goals to suit the next teaching period’s hours and type/s of supports
  • Increasing/decreasing the number of support hours and type of staff member provided to meet the child’s current needs.

This includes considering support plan changes, such as;

• Step-Down Approach: reducing support (see Appendix 3 – Step-Down Approach in the support guide document) or;
• Step-Up Approach: increasing support (see Appendix 4 – Step-Up Approach in the support guide document).

A child’s progress is monitored in several ways, including data reviews and family meetings, to support continued progress.

• Daily – Therapy Assistants take data on children’s goals at regular intervals on our secure ASDCapture App during the session.
• Fortnightly – the child’s Key Worker will review the data to monitor child’s progress for each goal/step, and either move the goal to the next step or adapt the current teaching step to support learning (i.e., develop individualised strategies to support their learning and participation).
• Monthly – the child’s Key Worker will offer an update either via email or meeting in-person/via telehealth to share learning goals updates and helpful information for topics of relevance (EG toilet skills training, preparing for transition).
• Twice Yearly – New goals are developed for each child in partnership with their family, Key Worker team, education team, and as applicable, community service providers or second early education service.

Key workers

Key Workers are experienced clinicians (qualified speech pathologists, occupational therapists, psychologists, or Bachelor/Diploma-qualified educators). Each family has a Key Worker team of two staff members, who are their main contact regarding their child’s supports.

The Key Worker team collaborates with family, co-develops goals and monitors the child’s learning progress, shares information and strategies amongst the team, and coordinates referrals to specialist supports team as required.

Therapy Assistants

Therapy Assistants facilitate supported learning opportunities, as part of individual Therapy Assistant sessions. They are early childhood educators, or university students completing teaching, psychology, speech pathology or occupational therapy degrees. They receive early autism support training and ongoing supervision to create and facilitate learning opportunities for the child to practice the goals with their peers and early childhood educators.

While Therapy Assistants are focused on teaching the individual child’s goals, they teach as part of the early childhood education group setting, promoting group participation and interaction with peers and fostering their relationship with their education team.

Specialist staff

Specialist staff provide support through consultations and direct input with the child, their family and early education team as required. The team includes qualified speech pathology, psychology, occupational therapy, and parent coaches.

Referral for individualised support is made via the child’s Key Worker with family’s consent as additional fees apply (see Appendix 2 in the support guide document for details).

Coaches

Coaches are experienced clinicians (including Allied Health and education specialists), who provide individualised coaching support to the child’s education team and Therapy Assistants to ensure each child’s goals are being delivered to a high standard and with optimal supports and resources.