The following is an excerpt from a letter that was recently sent to me from an appreciative mother of a seven year old boy with autism: 

“I brought my son, Sean, to Montano because he was not speaking in school and I had suspected that he had more ability than the school was able to ascertain, and that he school program was not appropriate to develop Sean’s potential.

Phoebe at Montano uncovered pre-literacy and literacy skills that no one had realized Sean had!  She developed a sophisticated program that combined fulfilling intense sensory requirements to increase his attention span and prepare him for learning, along with a literacy program to nurture his budding reading skills.

I shared the testing from Montano and Sean’s Montano program details with Sean’s school.  They then attempted to find the pre-literacy and literacy skills that Phoebe had uncovered in Sean.  The school said they were shocked to find out that, indeed, Sean, had reading ability and that their opinion in Sean’s potential had totally changed!

This prompted the school to ask for an outside consult to develop a new school program for Sean, to focus on fulfilling his sensory needs and developing Sean’s reading skills.  They admitted that they had no idea how much ability that Sean had and they needed outside assistance to develop a new academic program for him. 

In fact, Sean’s newly developed school program that will be implemented for the next school year, looks nearly identical to the program Phoebe had developed for Sean. 

Sean has made great strides in articulation, number of words and development of 2 words spoken phrases and recognition of sight words, since the Montano team has begun working with him!

Thank you, Phoebe and Molly, for finding and unlocking my beautiful Sean’s potential!”

The newest software and hardware that you can see at our center:

The Fusion (www.writerlearning.com ) is a state of the art word processor that talks. Our students have multi-sensory writing experiences where they can use word prediction, select the word they need, and then hear the entire sentence spoken. This device is fantastic for those participants who are weak spellers. They type the first one or two letters of a desired word and 9 words appear at the bottom of their screen. They press the number beside the word and it appears in their text.  Then they push the speak button to hear the entire writing.  This is not only great for weak spellers but for those who need help in reading because they have to read the word prediction lists.   This is ideal for individual use because it is light weight and can be easily transported.  Come and see it at our center.

Train the Brian develops cognitive skills. Can you amagine your child or student or older adult interacting with  simulations projected on a wall such as driving a car to learn cognitive skills.  We will be receiving this soon and will update you on our and our student’s input.   .   

We are developing job related and social skills for participants 13 and up.

Examples of the objectives with job and time management skills include:

1. Developing a positive image for job interviews and interactions with employer and employees.

2. Developing skills of getting a job and keeping it, such as attitude. (Students will develop a rap to solidify concepts such as attitude, “ Attitude attitude, What you say and do, to make everyone want to be with you.”).

3. Developing job application and time management skills vocabulary.

4. Developing strategies to recall someone’s name (FACE _ Focus, Ask, Comment, Emphasize).

5. Developing time management techniques, such as keeping a daily log.            

6. Based on our evaluation The Work Effectiveness Evaluation taken from the Bureau of Rehabilitation Services, students will develop communication, self care, self direction, work tolerance, and work skills.

7. Participate in reading the newspaper and/or listening to the news to have built in conversational starters with others to demonstrate how aware they are. For those who don’t read we have News 4 U, a newspaper written with icons above the pictures.

The Montano Assistive Technology Center accepts Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance as well as Healthnet insurance for speech/language services and sensory integration services. Even if you don’t have either of these insurances available to you, our insurance coordinator can assist you in filing claims with your insurance company. 

Since we have become a provider outside of waiver of the  Department of Developmental Services. Our in-depth evaluations have covered the some or all of the following depending on the needs of the participant;

Ø     Vision Screening, both tracking and acuity at approximately 16 inches from the participant’s face.

Ø     Auditory Testing

Ø     Selected Language Testing

Ø     Screening to determine Learning Style

Ø     Determining what the participant is understanding ranging from objects to words.

Ø      An assessment that determines which of the critical “knowledge  language” domains the participants is and is not using when spelling.

Ø     Administration of a newly developed test  The Work Effectiveness Evaluation.

Ø     Sensory Integration Testing

We are getting significant results from our testing. Examples include a 7 year old whose educational program had never addressed reading, was found to identified and read words. A 10 year old who had never spoken, said “Let’s go” in one of our sensory integration activity centers.

 We are in the process of researching Virtual Reality.  This will allow our participants to interact in realistic environments such as stepping on the cushioned floor and seeing the ice break beneath their feet with fish swimming around their feet.  Another virtual reality system allows the participant to clear  the leaves away from the screen to see house that is hidden in the background.  Since virtual reality is in the beginning stages, we will be closely working with the  developers for  them to create language rich environments.