As your family begins to plan for summer break this year, remember that BCI offers flexible scheduling and it may be the perfect time to increase session hours temporarily to target intensive or tricky programming! With many parents taking time off during the week it may be the right time to dive into an intensive potty training program or tackle those sleep issues. Consult with your BCI clinician on what some of your goals are and they can help you identify how to address these issues within the week. Don’t forget to include your RBT in the planning! They can attend events to help ensure success or practice current skills. 

Plan a community outing

1. Park playdate with peers to practice community safety skills, social skills, and play skills
2. Visit a zoo or local outdoor spot to practice community safety skills
3. Ice Cream Social to practice social and daily living skills

Fun at home

1. Invite some friends over during session to practice social skills
2. Crafts and Cooking to practice following instructions, fine motor skills, completing a task

Supporting Development Over the Break

As summer break gets closer remember to let your clinician know of any time off or changes to the session schedule. While taking a vacation from therapy can be a wonderful time to rest and regroup from daily busy life, it is also a wonderful time to include programming in your everyday life. If you are taking some time away from therapy to vacation or veg out at home, here are some ideas on how you can continue to support your child’s growth and development. 

• Generalizing Skills
  • Before taking vacation, ask your clinician or RBT for a list of programming that is ready for generalization. Throughout the week you can capture opportunities to run that programming to ensure your child has generalized the skill. *ABA Fact- Generalization is demonstration of a skill across people, environments, and materials.
• Maintaining Mastered Skills
  • During your time away from therapy, you can still implement various programs to support the continued maintenance of these skills. *ABA Fact- maintenance is the demonstration of a skill over time. Sometimes when we don’t practice a skill for long periods of time we lose the skill or we lose some independence with that skill. 
• Providing Learning Opportunities
  • Throughout your break providing new and different learning opportunities is a great way to continue to support your child’s development. Signing them up for a camp or extracurricular activity can help them identify new interests, make new friends, and practice many skills needed to be successful in the community. 

Dump all ingredients into the bag and squish around until the playdough is formed!