Cognilab Intensive Behavioural Intervention

Program Focus

Cognilab Intensive Behavioural Intervention is an individualised therapy program for children with a range of presentations, including children with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder and children with complex communication, behavioural, or learning needs.

The program addresses disability-related support needs and is designed to improve functional capacity, daily living, and participation. It is delivered as a clinic-based therapy service in Claremont, Perth, with extension into the home, school, and community environments to support generalisation of skills.

We support children whose progress in other programs has been limited by behaviours that interfere with learning, including self-stimulatory behaviours and behaviours that have developed alongside delays in communication and language. Where other approaches may describe these children as having attentional difficulties, Cognilab assesses for the specific “learning to learn” skills a child needs to engage with instruction, and teaches those skills directly.

The “learning to learn” skills we assess and teach include attending to a teacher, making sustained eye contact, sitting and working with materials appropriately, remaining in the teaching environment, staying focussed in the presence of noise or other people, waiting for access to preferred items, and engaging for long enough to practise and consolidate new skills.

Our Approach

Cognilab takes a proactive, constructional approach. The focus is on building an individual’s repertoire of adaptive skills and behaviours, rather than reacting to behaviours of concern. We teach the person, through intensive direct service, the skills that most support their participation in family and community life.

The program uses fluency-based instruction, drawn from behavioural science. Children are given repeated, supported practice of skills until those skills become easy, accurate, and embedded in more complex tasks. Fluent performance is the basis for mastery and is supported by behavioural and neuroscience research showing that durable learning is built through deliberate, repeated practice under high rates of reinforcement.

Our work is grounded in Applied Behaviour Analysis, an approach with over 40 years of use in supporting children with autism. We do not use restrictive practices.

Evidence-based strategies

We incorporate strategies recommended by Jacqueline M. A. Roberts (Griffith University) and Katrina Williams (University of Melbourne, Royal Children’s Hospital, and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute), as outlined in their report prepared for the NDIS, including:

• Functional Behaviour Assessment
• Functional Communication Training
• Antecedent-based interventions
• Behavioural interventions
• Cognitive behavioural interventions incorporating Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (Mindfulness)
• Naturalistic Interventions and Natural Environment Training
• Picture Exchange Communication Systems
• Pivotal Response Training
• Response Interruption and Redirection
• Story-based interventions
• Social skills training
• Task analysis
• Video modelling
• Visual supports

Clinical Oversight

Programs are designed and overseen by our Clinical Director, a Board Certified Behaviour Analyst (BCBA). Therapy is delivered by trained team members, with allied health consultation (including Speech Pathology and Occupational Therapy) drawn in as needed where co-occurring conditions require specialist input.

Individualised Programs

Every program is individualised to the child’s assessed needs and the goals identified with the family. Parents and caregivers are central to the program. Families can observe sessions at any time and have ongoing access to session data and notes. Intensive parent training is built in, so that skills generalise from the clinic to the home and to the everyday environments where they matter most.

We collaborate with each child’s broader support network, including teachers, allied health professionals, medical practitioners, and other specialists, and we welcome these stakeholders to the clinic for training so that consistent approaches can be used across settings.

Measuring Progress

Progress is measured continually using behaviour science measurement procedures and is typically presented on a Standard Celeration Chart or other graphs that show change over time. Data is reviewed each session and informs the next, so that therapy is adjusted in real time to the individual.
Note that academic curriculum and school performance goals do not feature in our therapy programs. Where a skill or material looks educational, the team is measuring a specific behaviour related to functional capacity, not academic achievement.

Program Structure

Early Intensive Behavioural Intervention enrolments begin at a minimum of 10 hours per week, typically delivered as 2 hours per day across 5 days. Most enrolments run across a full calendar year. Programs may include intervention targeting attention, learning to learn skills, language, speech and articulation, play skills, social skills, self-care, eating and sleeping routines, and independent activity schedules, combined with parent training to support the use of these skills in everyday life.

Where a participant has less significant support needs or a lower level of funding, we will assess their disability-related support needs and discuss whether a less intensive model can offer value for money.

NDIS Funding

Cognilab is an unregistered NDIS provider. Participants who self-manage or plan-manage their NDIS plan can choose to use their NDIS funding to access this program. Services are billed under Capacity Building – Improved Daily Living, using the relevant NDIS Support item codes. Hourly rates align with the maximum amount in the NDIS Pricing Arrangements.

Choice and family involvement

Families are central to planning, goal setting, and review. Children and families are supported to make informed choices about the goals and structure of the program, and to adjust the plan as the child progresses or as family priorities change.