Hours of Operation:
Monday – Friday from 9:00 am – 6:00 pm
Session Times:
Sessions start on the hour and end at the 45-minute mark.
The last 15 minutes is to accommodate for sanitizing between clients, graphing data, and completing communication notes.
Minimum Hours:
Attendance is required two days per week at minimum. We recommended that students engage in at least 6 hours per week of therapy in order to see meaningful skill advancement. The more intensive the hours, the faster goals will be met.
Location of Services:
1076 Rutherford Road, Unit 3, Vaughan, ON L6A 1S2
Kid Mechanix is located on the north side of Rutherford Road, between Bathurst and Dufferin (in the same plaza as Dollarama).
We do not offer home therapy, however we do provide online/virtual therapy.
Kid Mechanix can also provide school/classroom support.
Social Skills & School Readiness Groups:
Our social skills and school readiness classes are 45 minutes in length.
Sessions can either be at 3:00-3:45, 4:00-4:45, or 5:00-5:45pm depending on the group (with limited options for earlier group session times).
We pair our students according to age, interests, goals, and skill level. Our team works hard to assign students to groups with peers of similar age and need, but also groups with appropriate peer models. If there is not an opening in a best fit group, a family may be wait listed or referred to another provider if the wait will be more than a few weeks. We appreciate your patience and cooperation through the decision making and placement process.
We offer both virtual groups and in-person groups.
Programming for 1:1 & Group Sessions:
1:1 Sessions: The intake meeting gives us crucial information about your child’s language and communication skills. It also gives us an opportunity to talk to you, the parent/caregiver, to find out what goals are appropriate for your child. From this initial meeting, we put together a rough program outline that will give us the basis of where to start ABA programming. Once registered, you will receive an overview of our program plan. When your child begins with us, we will test your child on this program plan and make necessary adjustments accordingly.
Group Sessions: Once enrollment has been confirmed and registration finalized, it means that a ‘best fit’ group has been identified and your child has been invited to join. We love making new friends and take an immense amount of joy in seeing positive social gains and progress week to week. The first day of group is the final step of the assessment process. Data collected via observation on day 1 is combined with parental input to finalize specific learner goals and objectives.
Our team is committed to best practice, implementation of ethical and evidence-based practices and staying up-to-date in the field of ABA and social skills instruction. Utilizing only evidence-based practices means that we implement strategies and interventions that have been proven to work with the populations we serve. We combine professional expertise, best research evidence, and client and family values. Data is collected on goals and objectives and analyzed regularly to identify trends and make ethical and data driven decisions.
Staffing:
Our program is supervised by an on-site BCBA (Board Certified Behaviour Analyst). Our Founder and Clinical Supervisor, Shayna has been BCBA certified since 2005.
All of our staff are certified as a Registered Behaviour Technician (RBT). New hires who do not currently have their RBT certification are supported to complete 40-hours of online training, on-site training and supervision during working hours, and complete a competency assessment prior to applying for and writing the RBT exam for certification.
In addition, many of our staff are currently completing their Master’s degrees in an ABA-related field, or have completed their degrees and are working towards their BCBA designation.
What To Bring:
Please label all belongings with your child’s name or initials. A change of indoor shoes can be brought to every session, or left at Kid Mechanix. We ask families to bring a complete change of clothes (i.e., socks, underwear, pants, shirt) in case of any accidents, plus a water bottle and snack for the session.
Intake Meeting:
An intake meeting is the first step of registration. The information obtained assists our team in determining whether our services and model appears to be a best fit to meet your child’s individual needs.
It provides an opportunity for us to discuss goals and skill areas to focus on, interact and learn more about your child, and create an individualized plan unique to your child’s needs. We are a highly individualized program and use the information obtained to begin to prioritize individual goals and objectives.
Intake meetings are typically held at the end of the day to ensure client confidentiality for those in-center receiving services, and to reduce the number of contacts for our learners.
Communication:
We communicate with parents via online communication books. Due to COVID-19 protocols we’ve been forced to limit in-person interactions. However, we are always happy to talk over the phone, email, or zoom.
Our team values family communication and welcomes collaboration with other service providers to best meet the needs of all of our learners with a global goal of disseminating information regarding ethical and evidence-based practices and programming for generalization of skills taught in-center to other people, places, and scenarios. Session notes are shared regularly with families along with data collected on individual goals and objectives.
Observation:
Observation of your child’s session can be arranged virtually.
Through zoom, caregivers may observe their child during individual programming. To maintain client confidentiality and reduce the risk of observing others’ therapy programming, observations can be conducted via zoom for 1:1 programming (not during group programming), in a private therapy room.
We ask for notice to arrange a private viewing space to set up the video call. A concerted effort is taken to minimize exposure to your child’s programming by others, but it is possible that other parents may inadvertently witness your child’s programming. Under no circumstance, will other observers view your child’s data or files.
Families are responsible for bringing their own device to observe a session, and a zoom link will be arranged for the caregiver to use. Due to some limitations of our learning space and our focus on the individual, we will not be carrying the device around Kid Mechanix throughout the session.
About ABA:
Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) advances skills of learners by breaking down skills into smaller, teachable components. ABA can be used with all types of learners – those with a diagnosis and those without!
ABA can be used to teach a variety of skills, but the exact number of teaching hour and skill progression varies depending on each learner’s individualized needs. Learners do not need to be exhibiting challenging behaviours to benefit from ABA – it can be used to teach social and play skills, academic skills, perspective taking, independence and self-help skills, vocational skills, and more!
Evidence suggests that learners can make significant gains if support is comprehensive in scope and learning expectations are consistent across all environments. This is why Kid Mechanix encourages and welcomes collaboration with families and other service providers!