About our program

Marcus Autism Center’s School Consultation Program provides consultation, trainings, and professional development for school systems to effectively serve students with educational needs and behavioral challenges, especially those diagnosed with autism and related disorders. All school consultants are Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) who provide a variety of behavior analytic services within the school setting aimed at both increasing students’ appropriate skills and decreasing aberrant behaviors that are disruptive in the classroom.

Classroom Consultation: Creating Supportive Environments for Students

We provide consultation to teachers and school staff to help guide their classroom services. Our goal is to increase the capacity within the school district by increasing teachers’ skills and knowledge in working with students with autism and related disorders. We consult with classroom staff to design intervention strategies and develop case-specific solutions to complex problems that can be generalized to other students.

Consultation services include but are not limited to:

• Arranging classroom environment and creating structure that is understandable to the student
• Develop classroom schedules to increase efficiency
• Monitoring student’s progress and staff’s fidelity when implementing behavior procedures
• Assisting school staff with individualized education plan (IEP) development
• Assisting school staff in recording and interpreting data for educational and behavioral programming
• Behavioral or academic assessments
• Hands-on training of individual school staff
• Data collection for assessment or intervention
• Advising on functional behavior assessments (FBA) and behavior intervention plans (BIP)

Training & Professional Development: Education for Teachers and School Staff Working with Students with Autism and Related Developmental Disabilities

We provide professional development training to school staff based on the needs of the individual school, school district, or region. Professional Development frequently focuses on the topics below but can include a variety of behavioral and educational topics relevant for individual students or all students. These trainings are offered in-person or through a video-based platform in order to allow for proper safety guidelines while maximizing professional learning for staff.

Professional Development services include but are not limited to:

• Understanding autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
• Skill acquisition to ensure students meet their IEP goals
• Classroom setup for effective behavioral management and increased academic engagement
• Creating a positive learning environment
• Capturing student motivation to increase learning in the classroom
• Writing measurable IEP goals and objectives
• Progress monitoring for students with high needs
• Conducting Functional Behavior Assessments
• Developing data based Behavior Intervention Plans
• Reducing aberrant behavior by understanding behavioral functions and how to developing function-based behavior intervention plans How to conduct skills assessments and develop data based IEP goals (i.e., ABLLS-R or the AFLS)

Applying Behavior Analytic Strategies in the Classroom: A comprehensive training series

We offer a comprehensive virtual training series to share behavior analytic strategies to support school-based personnel across Georgia in meeting the educational needs of their students, particularly those with Autism. This training series is broken into three parts, with two small-group follow-up sessions offered at the completion of parts two and three. The learning objectives for each part of the training series can be found below.

Part 1: Fundamentals of Learning and Behavior

• Increased understanding of Autism and Intellectual Disability
• Understand the foundations of ABA
• Understand the functions of behavior
• Learn to apply the principles of ABA in the classroom
• Ability to answer parent questions about how ABA is applied in the classroom

Part 2: Fundamentals of Behavior Analytic Teaching Strategies

• Identify ways to assess a student’s skills when pre-requisites for the general education curriculum are a challenge
• Understand various data collection methods to track student progress
• Develop observable, measurable IEP goals to address a student’s deficits
• Understand and be able to implement various teaching methods (e.g., Discrete Trial Training, Task Analyses)
• Develop data collection methods to track a student’s progress towards meeting the IEP goals

Part 3: Fundamentals of Addressing Challenging Behavior in the Classroom

• Identify the functions of behavior
• Understand how to use indirect and direct methods to obtain information about the hypothesized function of a student’s behavior
• Understand how to interpret data collected on the student’s aberrant behavior
• Identify antecedent strategies to decrease the likelihood of a student’s aberrant behavior
• Identify behavioral interventions that are matched to each function
• Develop a function-based Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP)
• Develop data collection methods to monitor integrity of implementation and progress of the student’s behavior change
• Assess effectiveness of current BIP

Professional Development services are focused on students with autism and related disorders, but can also be more broadly applicable to assist with more effectively managing behavioral or developmental issues among other students.

For more information on our comprehensive training series, contact Deva Carrion, PhD, BCBA-D, or call 404-785-4729 for more information.

B-CASE Team: Intensive Training to Build District Capacity

Our most intensive training model is a combination of didactics and ongoing consultation so that trainees display the skills to mastery. Our goal in this model is for our trainees to become the go to person in their district for addressing behavioral concerns in the school setting. Trainees may be any identified district representative in a supportive role (e.g., lead teacher, behavior specialist, etc.). We provide training on the full range of functional behavior assessment (FBA) methods, including indirect, naturalistic observation, and experimental assessments. Upon completion of the FBA we develop a function-based behavior intervention plan (BIP) and guide our trainees to provide training to the classroom staff. We aim for our trainees to meet mastery of these skills for independent practice with a focus on building capacity within the school system.

Contact Deva Carrion, PhD, BCBA-D, or call 404-785-4729 for more information.