energy psychology and emotional freedom techniques are not substitutes for medical care always consult with your physician and healthcare provider regarding any health care questions individual results will vary and you take full responsibility for your health if you choose to try any of the energy techniques taught on tapping with the cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body's energy system pillow everyone my name is joan kaylor and welcome to tapping with gem i'm so glad that you're all here and thank you in peter's township and across the world for watching today is an exceptionally exciting show for me this is a conversation with me in the fridge or about autism spectrum disorders and how to help children on the autism spectrum so i'm going to read mandy's credential i get this correct here mindy is a licensed behavior specialist and certified trainer in functional behavioral assessment in pennsylvania with an emphasis on autism spectrum disorder treatment planning she is currently this is big the director of autism services for highlands hospital highland hospital entered into a consultation agreement with the cleveland clinic in two thousand and ten to bring autism services the southwestern pennsylvania so under mandy's direction highland hospital has recently become the first site now affiliated with the cleveland clinic mandy is the educational director for highland hospital center for autism which is a licensed private school and oversees the child diagnostics center mandy is also the voice of highlands for the organizations radio series mandy welcome thank you so much for being my highlands hospital and that's a small hospital and fayette county in the laurel highlands region and i started with highlands back in two thousand and ten and i was actually hired right after my c e o pursued options for autism services in the area because we're such a low resource area she was really researching what we could bring to the area and found the cleveland clinic and she went and she toured the clinic several times and they asked us to engage in a consultation agreement with them and a lot of people ask why us why in the laurel highlands and they were very clear at choosing providers or agencies who were really  looking at doing the right thing for the kids and have in their best interests in place so we were very flattered to be able to be part of that ongoing arrangement so we opened the two service lines that cleveland has modeled right after there's we have a diagnostic center which we call baby day and we see children anywhere from birth to twenty one to look at diagnostic you know any type of diagnostic issues whether it be behavior developmental issues and we also have a licensed private school as you mentioned so both of those services are modeled after cleveland services and you know the cleveland clinic when they started their services their leaders had been you know several different places in the country working with autism spectrum disorders for many many years and seeing what was very effective with these kids and what wasn't so effective so we had really the privilege of working with leading experts from the clinic you had really put the best model in the place for a school and for diagnostic services so we've been very grateful to have them and like you mentioned relatively recently we were honored to be the first licensed site in the country that's available so it's amazing right here in pennsylvania i'll tell you pennsylvania rocks love the rest of the world too but we are on target here in pennsylvania ok and i'm just glancing at my notes because i want to make sure that i don't miss anything that's ok so big as autism is on the rise and the cause is still generally not known but it is treatable can you talk about the types of treatments that are effective for autism sure the cleveland clinic has brought to us their a b a model and a b a is called applied behavior analysis and there's a lot misconceptions about a b a but basically what you're doing when you're working under an a b a model is you're working with behaviors and looking at it from an innocent behavior and then a consequence response type of model and this can be with respect to treating any behavior or any skill or teaching any task so you could teach essentially anything in this model from a very basic skill from a b c s or numbers to something you know as as complex as you know going to the grocery store or you know type skills so it's a very very broad way of teaching but it can be used for any any types of skills so what our program we teach academics and we have a heavy focus on behaviors so we work with a b a to teach our kids basically everything we do teach a lot of life skills in our program so it's really been amazing when you use this model when you use it very effectively and with the right synergy that i'll talk about in a little bit that you know you can see kids make wonderful gains i've had parents in my program who you know they've been very frustrated and have been through a lot of different services or different schools and professionals were just not able to meet the need and to really address the individual students need so it's amazing when these kids started our program we can teach them how to toilet independently and we can teach them how to dress independently i have several students who can go into the community and not need to be you know really you know restrained through you know harness for their safety or you know they don't absolutely have to have their hand held at every turn and they can navigate with their families i've had families go on vacations but they never thought were possible after you know they've learned some of the readiness skills in the safety management that we can teach i think i already know the answer to my next question but you're the expert so what makes highlands hospital different from public school system at highlands the model from cleveland  we follow at highlands and the interesting thing about that is we're a hospital system today so even though our site is off campus from our hospital we have you know a lot of medical support with our hospital system so one of the things that makes us difference is when our kids need to go for medical or clinical diagnostic treatments such as blood work or you know if they have to go to the emergency room or something we're very close we can sort of make arrangements so they don't have to sit through those lengthy you know pre registration times and don't have to wait you know often times you know as people do when they're going for medical treatment so we can kind of get them right in my staff actually can escort them to we've done extended e g with kids that we've you know gone to different hospital systems and on that because we're very good at knowing the students and managing behaviors and it's just been invaluable to families you know there's so much that that families experience when they have a child let alone a child who has autism or an autism spectrum disorder as far as you know different feelings and going through the grief cycle and you know feeling lots of very very strong emotions at different times and it can be very very hard to navigate the community so that does make us stand apart that we're attached to the hospital we have those resources but also that my staff kind of company families to these appointments so the families can focus on what the clinicians are trying to relay to that you know the health of their child rather than have to worry about you know is my child going to run down the hall or are they in are they going to have a toileting accident do i have to take care of this need and i can't focus on what the physicians are saying so that makes us stand out to one of our other secrets that i think is very unique to our center too is my staff in the way that they work with the students a b a there's a lot of mechanics to a b a and you know specific scientific a call that you need to follow to implement  right but as we're working with with kids the much different than working with an object or an item you know we're individualized humans that we're providing service to so my staff have to be very very flexible  implementing the mechanics so you know the a b a is the science part and i think the implementation is an art and it's interesting to see when people come to work at the center it takes a very special person to work with these kids but it takes it takes a nice balance you know someone who's coming from the heart but really has a very good consistency and is very center and well themselves to be able to treat the child you know any child in any school setting let alone a child in a private s with autism and that's something that my staff take very seriously and they're very committed to working on themselves and doing a lot of energy techniques for themselves including mindfulness and being aware that working with a student or teaching them isn't just directing at them it's a more of a symbiotic set type of relationship and you know if the staff is feeling something it might affect the child and so they're very very diligently conditioned to being able to harness their thought energy and be able to deliver the best for the child so it's it's an amazing process as they do so i've known you for a long time and both of us have a passion in energy psychology so what energy psychology enter into any of the services and as i just mentioned with the stuff you know it's been really phenomenal with my staff and being able to keep them well you know i think a misconception  with with autism and working with autism spectrum disorders is you know we have to work so hard at the child or to get them to do something but again that's really the most effective and comes when the relationship between the staff and the child and that doesn't necessarily mean that everything's fine or we do everything that the child wants to do again it's keeping in mind the a b a mechanics and we're working on structured goals and we're not giving in we're following through but we work a lot with the motivational principles of a b a and keeping that motivation meaningful to the child and where the energy psychology piece comes in for the staff is keeping the mindfulness that the you know they're doing this for the child this isn't about them it's the positive thoughts that they're they're bringing to the table it's the openness and willingness to you know have the child succeed and being confident that they can do it you know that they can do their jobs in the child is going to make progress also so that mindfulness has just been a work in progress but it's a beautiful part of our center and i think my staff for being excited and wanting to participate in that piece because it's made all the difference for the kids in combination with the a b a treatment it's so exciting that there is this resource available and so close by here in western pennsylvania i mean where we taped the show live when these hostile highland hospital is what an hour away from here not even not even so you help children on the autism spectrum from the severely autistic where they're so into themselves shut down can't communicate all the way up to asperger's is that we treat any child or adolescent or young adult who has a diagnosis on the autism spectrum ok and  students that we have in our program do range they range from age wise from ages five to twenty one but also some of the children are very profoundly affected with the disorder and some are not so profoundly affected with the disorder so we have students who  like you mentioned are very inside of themselves have very limited verbal communication who might have a higher rate of self injurious behaviors when they start in the program they might not be able to feed themselves or be able to toilet independently to students who are able to do all of those things and can speak in full sentences and and you know have very good articulation and almost on a grade level for some of their academic skill sets so that socialization piece you know is really important to when we're looking at the a b a model and you know what the staff are doing again it's an art to try to to be able to teach and you know get the academic curriculum and content across to the student have not but also them to have you know an understanding and teach them what it means when you know i i make a certain face at your if i turn my back to your what those little social cues are so those are very very hard to teach and we're very proficient at doing that also as well as managing behaviors so i program highlands as you mentioned it's not not even an hour away we have our license private school and the diagnostic center also and there to me actually exclusive services so if a family was interested in the school based program the only requirement would be that the child had a diagnosis on the spectrum and if you know perhaps a family who had a very young child who was interested in looking at a first diagnosis just because they want to our diagnostic center to seek treatment doesn't necessarily mean that they need to come to the school based programs so they are mutually exclusive services one point that i want to make sure i make today is mandy is world i'm going to be at this workshop are teaching an all day workshop on helping children on the autism spectrum so if anybody is available on may twenty ninth ok i think ok i'm leaving on the twenty eighth that was on the twelfth in phoenix arizona go to energy dot org if you'd like to come out to that workshop want to make sure i make that point also i know i can hear people on the other side the camera screaming how do i get my child and how much money does it cost who is going to pay for this what is the transportation i hear you so i'm going to ask miss mandy  what do you have a maximum number of students children that you can see what is the process if a parent wants to contact you and how much does it cost and everything i just said sure ok i'll start with the diagnostic center and the families are interested they're seeing some behavioral or developmental kind urns for their child and would like a comprehensive evaluation they'll be a website at the end i believe that you can go to our website and there's the contact information there so call me and then we would get a lot of preliminary information to move forward with the diagnosis so that or looking at any type of diagnosis the diagnostic center is funded the solely through insurance or private pa and it's a very comprehensive then i'm sure and be a commercial product as well as a medicaid products be it depends on the family's coverage ok and we would let the family know that before the process w but so how we handle this process is we send a lot of information to the family before hand and a lot of behavioral assessments and developmental assessments and then when i get those back we were view them and we get a little bit of a picture of the child before they come in to the center when they come in for the evaluation they see a team of clinicians they see a psychologist i administer the dos which is pretty much the gold standard in autism assessment they see a speech pathologist and they also see a physician so it's a comprehensive half day evaluation and again we would let the family know if you know their insurance would cover that up front and then they have the results section or they review the results with  the psychologist after after the diagnosis the other thing that we do as far as the quality of care in that service line is it's important that we link families up with services after the diagnosis or if there is not a diagnosis and where can the family go what do they need to do for the next steps so even though we're located in fayette county we can see families from all over the region who are not limited to the cow though if somebody a little west virginia shore shore they can be seen and you know we'll look for resources in their area to help support for the school based program that's also located very close to the hospital as i mention the only criteria on my end is the student does have a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder and how it how it works is the family would contact their home school district and the tuition for the school is primarily and exclusively covered through the home school district so we are a private school we don't accept any insurance money directly for our school based program we do have the option of private pay also we are  year round school so we have we don't call it extended school year but we we just work january through december the students have a few week breaks here and there so they can have their downtime in vacation but what the model of the a b a in the research does show that the thirty two and a half hours a week is you know the best for the students in your round so so if there's anyone out there that's frustrated with whatever school system you're in right now and you don't feel that your son or daughter is getting the proper treatment proper education proper attention this hyland school could very well be an opportunity for you and i know that it can be very heart wrenching and frustrating seeking the correct treatment so here we are right here for treatment and or education through mandi and the highland school continue must continue to be an advocate for your child because some school districts operate will say oh we have to do this and we have to do that before we're going to pay for it you keep pressing because your son or daughter deserves the very best so you know what the school district if they're not if you're not satisfied with the education that your son or daughter is getting and you would like to consult with mandy and her team and see if there's something better for your son or daughter yep that school districts going to have to pay for it so i just wanted you to know that to keep don't let a school district tell you that it's not possible or puts you off or say that it can't be done because it can be done there by law right there obligated a few things that  spectrum disorder and one of the things that was put in place for our center and of course by cleveland was the staff to student ratio and that's a very hard hard ratio to keep up affectively in different types of settings or ratio was one point four students to one staff at all times and that was what is what will continue to be our long term goal for our students is to send them to a least restrictive placement or back to their home school district so we're not a program that wants to keep the students forever ok and with our affiliation with cleveland we're also in the research network so with the a b a programming that we do in our kids are expected to make progress and when you implement the model right they do make progress so our kids are making a lot of gains and it's a lot because of the ratio and a lot of different resources and systems really struggle with giving these kids what they need because public school system at some point yes ok and that's a very very different for for every student our curriculum it's very very individualized as i mentioned earlier because every student is different so every ip looks different you know all the treatment looks different we try to actually move the students around frequently in the center depending on where they're making specific progress so if there's a student who is just blossoming with social awareness we might pair them up with another student who is about at that same level and do a lot of facilitated socialization there too so that's a very difficult thing to be able to evidence that flexibility in other settings and public school settings that's just it's just very difficult even though they're going to put the website would you be able to give it verbally also or are both of our services are listed on our website which is w w w dot highlands with an ass hospital dot org and the contact information for me and the centers are on there and there's some fun pictures too of our students we do a lot of fun things with the school to do holidays we do you know summer outings and things like that so you'll be able to get a little bit more of a picture of what we do and feel free to contact me if you have any questions i just think it's so exciting that cleveland clinic has i want to make sure i get this straight licensed highland school is the first school in treatment center and this is true alfie and i did states yes the cleveland clinic children's hospital center for autism has entered into a licensed agreement with us and we are the first one in the united states so they have probably a half a dozen centers now throughout the united states the that are just starting and they have different type of arrangements with we are the first license site so we're honored to be that again what that means for us is increased support from cleveland and the experts there and their research team and the oversight so it's just phenomenal you know we're so blessed here in western pennsylvania to have this resource to have this opportunity so one of the things i always like to have in my shows is the message of hope that you are not alone out there if you have a child on the spectrum and you've been struggling to find proper treatment a proper assessment ok now there is a resource so i am just so thrilled that mandy has been able to come and join us today to describe the services at highland hospital and let everybody know what is available we're going to start winding down here a little bit but i wanted to let everybody know that  next time we will really be in the spring so i'm excited about that but in april my guess is going to be renee tackiest who is intuitive and she's been on some other cable shows and we're going to talk about tapping communicating with your animals and tapping with animals to help relieve their distress so i'm sure that you will be interested in watching that show was well but i want to thank mindy much for coming on today for describing all the services at highland hospital describing the treatment the educational opportunities how to get in touch with her everything that's available this is very exciting very exciting to have this resource available to us in western pennsylvania so he called me handy hotmail dot com i'm sure the ribbon has been below my picture for several times during the show but any time you have a question about anything counseling apple anything we discuss in the show please don't hesitate to call me i really appreciate your time thank you for having me having mandy and i in to wherever you're watching this thank you so much everyone for watching the show today and i look forward to seeing you next time so you all come back now because i always have interesting topics that's for sure thank you very much for watching