Behavior support, starting with why
Hitting. Bolting for the parking lot. Meltdowns at every transition. A bedtime that takes three hours and everyone’s last nerve. If some version of this is running your house, start with the one idea that changes everything: the behavior is doing a job for your child. Our work is finding the job, then teaching a safer, easier way to get it done.
Services designed and led by Oak & Arrow’s Board Certified Behavior Analysts: Paige Tully, BCBA #1-20-44228, CT license BA.001021, and Tiffany Salvatore, BCBA #1-25-81796, CT license BA.001840. Both came to behavior analysis from the classroom.
Every behavior is communication
A behavior that looks random almost never is. Watch closely and it’s accomplishing something specific: a break from a hard demand, a way out of an overwhelming room, your attention when the baby has it, or a thing they want and can’t request. That’s not manipulation. That’s a person using the most reliable tool they have.
Which is why punishment-first approaches disappoint. Take away the tool without replacing it and you get a different behavior with the same job, often a worse one. Build a better tool and the old one fades because it’s no longer needed. That’s the entire discipline in two sentences, and the rest is craft.
How to Get Started
What we won’t do
We won’t treat your child as a problem to suppress. We don’t use punishment-first plans, we don’t work on stimming that isn’t hurting anyone, and we don’t measure success by how convenient a child has become. Success is your child getting what they need with less distress, and your house getting its evenings back. Both, not one.
Questions Parents Ask
Not the way that question usually means. Behavior that works gets repeated; that’s true of all of us. Your child isn’t scheming, they’re succeeding with the tool they have. We’re going to hand them a better tool.
Yes, and safety planning comes first in those cases. Both of our BCBAs supported students with significant behavioral needs in schools before joining Oak & Arrow. If a situation needs more intensive support than an in-home model can safely provide, we’ll tell you directly and help you find it.
It depends on how long the behavior has been working and how consistent the new plan is, and we won’t quote you a fantasy number. Many families see the temperature drop within weeks once the replacement skill takes. The data will tell us honestly.
Not if you’re paying privately. Private pay means no diagnosis or insurance approval first, so if the behavior is real, we can start with the behavior. If insurance is paying, your plan will require an autism diagnosis before services can begin.
More of what we work on
Social Skills
Taking turns, reading the room, making and keeping friends. Practiced in real settings, because that’s where friendships actually happen.
Functional Communication
Helping your child ask for what they need, in words, signs, or pictures. For many kids this is where everything else starts.
Executive Functioning
Routines, transitions, starting and finishing things. The skills that make school days and mornings work.
Daily Living Skills
Dressing, brushing teeth, washing hands, cleaning up. Everyday routines, taught step by step until your child can run them on their own.
Parent Collaboration
You’re part of every session, because the plan only works if it keeps working after I leave. Teaching you is part of the job.
Something else going on?
Most of what families bring me doesn’t fit neatly in a box, and the assessment is where we find out what actually helps.
Start with the interest form
Tell me a little about what’s going on. You’ll hear back from me, not an intake department, within 24 business hours.
Interest Form
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