The Quad Cities Autism Center (QCAC) is a not for profit, 501 (c) (3) organization that was established in 2006. The QCAC provides Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy, an evidence-based treatment that has proven to be particularly effective for children diagnosed with autism, developmental disabilities and behavior problems. ABA is the science of behavior, as it applies to socially significant issues. ABA is the only method of treatment recommended by the US Surgeon General for children diagnosed with autism.
We typically serve children diagnosed with autism and other developmental disabilities between the ages of 18 months and 10 years old (child must not yet have reached their 8th birthday to be enrolled). Our sessions run between the hours of 8:30am and 4:00pm, Monday through Friday, all year long.
Our services begin with a tour of our facility with parents that are considering an appropriate placement for their child and may wish to join our program. Once a family decides to enroll their child, an intake appointment is scheduled. The intake appointment is a time when families are able to discuss their child's strengths, interests and areas of primary concern. Generally, parents are concerned about a lack of functional communication, impaired interactions, repetitive behaviors and overall inappropriate behaviors.
The next step, once a child begins services, is to assess the child's skills across environments, stimuli and people. The assessment provides pertinent information that will guide the direction of an individualized treatment program. The QCAC uses two assessments that evaluate the child's requesting repertoire, listener behavior, imitation, labeling, match to sample skills and conversation skills. In addition, the child's behavior is also assessed, particularly across situations that require the child to accept no, handle interruption or transition, tolerate and respond to demands being placed, and waiting for reinforcement to be delivered.
Once the assessment has been completed, a team of professionals evaluate the data collected. This evaluation will allow our team, including the family, to prioritize which specific programs will be introduced. These new programs will be taught across two settings, known as the natural environment and the intensive teaching environment. The natural environment is where the child's interests and motivation will be utilized to keeping teaching fun, yet functional and promote generalization of skills. The intensive teaching setting is a more structured environment, usually taught at a table where effective procedures and multiple teaching trials can be prioritized.
All treatment programs are supervised by our team of Board Certified Behavior Analysts. They supervise both the natural environment and intensive teaching settings where ongoing feedback is provided to the therapists during the session. Clinic notes are taken during each supervision period and then provided to the therapists to refine teaching methods, prevent procedural drift, ensure high quality services, as well as increase programs and their complexity based upon documented progress.
