Welcome to RCS
Realizing Children’s Strengths (RCS) was developed to provide the highest quality of individualized behavioral and educational services for children with autism spectrum disorder and other developmental disabilities. We believe that every child has unique skills and we are dedicated to helping each child develop these skills and reach their full potential.
Our Educational Philosophy
RCS is committed to providing quality educational services consisting of scientifically validated teaching procedures and highly trained staff.
Our program is designed to provide each individual with the least restrictive environment possible, as mandated by law, while maintaining the integrity of our teaching procedures to ensure each child has an optimal possibility for success. The least restrictive environment may be in our substantially separate classrooms with a low student to teacher ratio; for others the least restrictive environment may entail partial inclusion with typically developing children in our facility or the community throughout various portions of the day.
Our program focuses primarily on the principles of applied behavior analysis (ABA) with an emphasis of O. Ivar Lovaas and colleagues. In accordance with proponents of incidental or natural environment teaching, our program capitalizes upon incidental learning opportunities dispersed between discrete trial teaching sessions to promote generalization of skills in the natural environment and sustain child motivation. Aspects of other nationally recognized preschool programs with empirically supported efficacy are also incorporated within our program.
Structural features of the TEACCH (Treatment and Education of Autistic and Related Communication Handicapped Children) program, for example, including classroom layout and daily visual schedules are an integral part of the physical environment of our classrooms. Additionally, components of the verbal behavior model for teaching communication and language skills to children with deficits in these areas, with a specific emphasis on the works of Carbone, Sundberg, Partington, and McGreevy, are also a central feature of our program.