Early Intervention

For Children With Autism and Related Disorders

Catherine Trapani, Ph.D.
Director, Early Intervention program

About Us

The mission of the Marcus Autism Center Early Intervention program is to provide empirically based interventions for young children 18 months to 8 years of age, who have been diagnosed with autism and related disorders.

The goal of the Early Intervention program is to develop readiness skills, enabling children to successfully transition to community schools and kindergarten programs.

Marcus Autism Center Early Intervention Family Support Services
The Marcus Autism Center Early Intervention program is expanding its services to better address the needs of children and families from across Atlanta. We are now offering:

• Parent training
• Sibling support groups
• Family therapy
• Expanded assessment clinic

Symptoms

Early identification and subsequent intensive intervention for children with autism and related disorders is critical, and diagnosis is possible as early as 18 to 24 months of age. With early intervention, a child may make significant progress—potentially increasing language and social skills as well as circumventing the development of aberrant behaviors. Characteristics of autism and related disorders include:

• Impairment in social interaction
• Impairment in communication
• Restricted, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior
• Development of these impairments before age three

Services

The Early Intervention program uses applied behavior analysis (ABA) to document and evaluate each child’s progress in an individually designed intervention plan, including:

• Training the essential introductory skills for learning.
• Developing functional, spontaneous communication.
• Developing social skills.
• Developing functional and symbolic play skills.
• Planning materials to develop cognitive skills.
• Intervening in target problem behaviors.
• Introducing acquisition skills.
• Developing self-help and daily living skills.

Approaches

The Early Intervention program uses many different approaches in designing and implementing interventions, including:

• Direct Instruction
• Incidental Teaching
• Discrete trial instruction
• Multisensory techniques

With a child-to-staff ratio of 3:1, children work in individual, small and large group environments to adequately prepare them for participating in community school settings.

Additionally, an artist-in-residence program provides children with an opportunity to develop leisure time and recreational skills.

Make a New Patient Appointment

Referrals

If you are interested in having your child evaluated by our team, you must obtain a physician referral and/or complete the steps to make a new patient appointment.

Fax the physician referral to our intake specialist at 404-785-9485. Once the referral form is received by Marcus Autism Center, we will then contact you to conduct an intake interview and if appropriate, schedule your child for an evaluation.

The physician referral must include the following information:

• Child's name
• Child's date of birth
• Child's diagnosis
• Reasons for referral
• Primary caregiver's name (i.e. parent or legal guardian) and contact information
• Referring physician's name and contact information