Our specialist areas
All students throughout the organisation access a therapy package tailored to their individual needs.
Our Specialist Areas: All students throughout the organisation access a therapy package tailored to their individual needs. The therapies on offer are detailed below.
Attention Autism
Targets the teaching of attention, communication and social interaction skills
Focuses on building functional social communication, understanding and spontaneous communication
Uses the power of shared good times for building engaged learning and trusting relationships where interaction, communication and learning can flourish
Delivers activities that inspire attention and motivate communication
Zones of Regulation
An established curriculum created by Occupational Therapist Leah Kuypers
Aims to teach students to identify their feelings and internal state, and to become more independent with self-regulation
Teaches tools (strategies) to use to support regulation
Supports students to understand how their behaviour could impact others
LEGO® Therapy
- An evidence based therapy developed by clinical psychologist Daniel LeGoff (2004)
- It targets social communication skills in young people with Autism using LEGO ® which is often a natural motivator.
- Students alternate between three roles:
Engineer. The Engineer holds the instructions and is responsible for leeting the Supplier know which bricks are required and telling the Builder how to assemble them.
Supplier. The Supplier holds the bricks and is responsible for listening to the instructions given by the Engineer to find the correct LEGO ® piece, and giving these pieces to the Builder.
Builder. The Builder is responsible for assembling the model with the pieces they receive from the Supplier by following instructions provided by the Engineer.
Social Inclusion
Offers a variety of unique social inclusion experiences and provides opportunities to work on social skills, outside of the usual learning environment, and often within the wider community.
Opportunities to work on conversation skills, positive interactions with unfamiliar people, forming and expressing opinions, listening, tolerating and working with others, and generalising skills in new environments.
Developing empathy and Theory of Mind.
Supported Conversation Groups
Targets the teaching of conversation and listening skills
Focuses on topic maintenance, listening to responses and asking follow up questions
Goals include conversation initiation and topic selection, gaining attention appropriately and repairing breakdowns in communication
Music Therapy
Music Therapy at Wargrave House is commissioned from Nordoff-Robbins who employ highly skilled Music Therapists who are experienced with working with a range of children and adults including those who have ASD and associated anxiety and stress. Our Music Therapist is expertly trained to tune into each movement, reaction and expression of the individuals she works with to discover how music can enrich their lives. This could be to communicate where words have failed, to socially connect with peers, staff and friends, and to build confidence and self-esteem.
While other forms of music therapy may involve playing music, we make music, together. This could be through improvisation, making use of music people already know, creating new music together, or working towards some kind of performance.
Rebound Therapy
Rebound Therapy is a fun and interactive activity that can not only influence a person’s physical function but also participation, communication and sensory system. These benefits can be enhanced by using games that incorporate activities such as counting, teamwork, silly sounds, finding specific colour flash cards, identification of images or colours.
- Strength of limbs
- Numeracy
- Patience
- Communication
- Co-ordination
- Independence
- Self-confidence
- Balance
- Muscle tone
- Reaction speed
- Self-image
- Eye contact
- Relaxation
- Freedom of movement
- Sense of achievement
- Stamina
- Spatial awareness
- Body awareness
- Social awareness
- Consideration of others
- Trust and confidence in Coach/Assistant
- Colour recognition
- Height and depth perception
- Fun and enjoyment
The benefits of Rebound Therapy have been likened to those found in hippo therapy, it provides a weightless environment and as well as three dimensional movement. This challenges the body in a multitude of ways for a variety of benefits including the development of:
Narrative Therapy
What is narrative therapy?
When we talk about ‘narrative’, we are referring to the ability to tell a story or series of events with precision and clarity. For younger children this will happen verbally, but it also transfers to written work for older children. This is a very complex skill that requires remembering what happened, getting all the parts in the correct order, picking out the key information, finding and using the correct words in sentences and remembering grammar rules!
Why is it important?
We expect children to use narrative skills everyday. Remember it doesn’t just mean telling a story. When you ask your child what they did at school that day or when a teacher asks a child to explain what happened on the playground – these require good narrative ability. As children get older and have to logically order their work, make arguments, use paragraphs – these all require narrative skills.
We also see a knock-on impact on children’s literacy skills. They may have difficulty decoding and understanding the meaning of text. They may find it hard to make inferences and predict what is going to happen. In their written work they may have difficulties using more complex grammar and conveying their ideas.