Palm Beach County, FL
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The SCERTS® Model

The Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders applies The SCERTS® Model for diagnosing and treating children with ASD. This model description is presented below (to get more details about this approach, feel free to visit The SCERTS® Model at scerts.com).

The SCERTS® Model is a comprehensive, educational, multidisciplinary framework that is directed to main difficulties faced by children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and similar disabilities. The model consists of theoretical and research-based foundation on social-emotional and communication development at children with and without special individual peculiarities. The SCERTS® model was created to deal with critical needs determined by professionals and parents for comprehensive multidisciplinary model for children with ASD that concerns educational priorities on the basis of the latest research on ASD.

The SCERTS® Model makes priorities and uses practices that pay special attention to improve Social Communication, Emotional Regulation and Transactional Supports for children with ASD and similar social-communicative disorders and their families. It is based on research and practice that points out that educational programming should concentrate on:

  • improving and training spontaneous, functional communication and safe, confidential relationships with other children and adults (Social Communication);
  • increasing skills to maintain well-controlled emotional state for learning and interacting (Emotional Regulation);
  • supporting children, their families and experts to enhance positive social experiences at home, school and community settings (Transactional Support).

The SCERTS® model concentrates on functional skills development in every day activities across community settings, and gets information from researches about individual learning style of children with ASD. It is not an exclusive method, as it provides general principles which may combine practices from other approaches. Examination is conducted through observing children in different environment and different partners be means of detailed curriculum-based assessment and parents reports. The SCERTS®® model can be applied to patients of a wide range of ages and developmental abilities, including both preverbal and verbal children. It is also applicable to older school-age children and adults. Particular attention is given to parent-professional cooperation and careful coordination in conditions of all settings and partners.

The SCERTS® Model is:

Child-oriented:
Each child has its own individual strength characteristics and requires a guide program planning, including choosing goals and strategies.

Family-centered:
Family members are included in the process as contributors and partners in all activities, and objectives are created to support families.

Developmentally-grounded:
This model and curriculum base on extensive development research among children with and without any disabilities.

Activity-based:
Daily activities and routines are the primary environment in which children learn and demonstrate progress in skills development.

Relationship-based:

Confidential and secure relationships development with adults and other children contributes to enhancing social communication and emotional control capacities.

For more information about this model application in the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders, please contact us at (248) 723-4ASD.