Giant Steps is an innovative educational and therapeutic program for individuals living with autism. We take pride in offering specialized programming to enrich the daily lives of each student and/or young adult with autism.
Licensed Therapeutic Day School
Click on each of the therapies to learn more about them.
Secondary Education
The Secondary Education Program at Giant Steps provides programming for students diagnosed with autism on the levels of Junior High, High School, and Transition. Secondary provides individualized programming focusing on functionality and independence through the integration of functional academics, life skills, vocational skill development, community readiness, and leisure/recreational development.
Junior High
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High School
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Staffing | Each classroom has 1 Special Education Teacher and 1 Senior PA. The number of program assistants per classroom range depending on the level of need per class. |
Student Community Outings:
- Students participate in Community Outings every week. The length of time increases as students get older.
- Outings focus on introducing and practicing functional money skills; appropriate social and communication skills, and specific IEP goals
- Students are exposed to a wide variety of community environments
- Community outings are designed to increase our students’ ability to be safe, active participants in the world around them
- Students in the community continue to work on specific IEP goals, such as communication, appropriate social interaction, greetings, waiting, transitioning, money skills, referencing a schedule, academics, and safety
- Examples- Various types of outings include:
- Vocational (Hyatt Hotel, We Grow Dreams, food banks, pet stores)
- Volunteer (Animal Shelter, Nursing Home, Habitat for Humanity)
- Community Resource (Library, grocery stores, police/fire station)
- Rec/Leisure (Pump It Up, ice skating, zoo, swimming)
Elementary Education
The Elementary Education Program at Giant Steps provides individualized programming for students diagnosed with autism in grades K-8. Elementary provides academic and therapeutic programming that draws from a variety of treatment approaches specific to Autism Spectrum Disorders. Students are divided into two distinct program models: individualized intensive therapeutic learning or group-based learning (our Explorers Program).
Individualized Intensive Therapeutic Learning:
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Group-Based Learning (Explorers Program):
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Elementary Support
Giant Steps is committed to partnering with families and providing excellent communication between home and school. In addition to daily communication logs and therapy notes, the team at Giant Steps is willing to individualize family support as we know the best outcomes for our students occur if the school and family are working together. Some examples of individualized family support include:
- Home visits to collaborate on current challenges
- Having parents attend their child’s therapy sessions
- Sending video of students throughout their day
- Regularly scheduled phone calls with families
- Person-centered planning meetings with families
- Training in-home workers through observation at school
- Collaboration with outside therapists and doctors
- Advocacy and referrals to appropriate community-based agencies
- Monthly trainings for Giant Steps parents sponsored by social work department
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Inclusion | One of the unique programs offered by Giant Steps is our inclusion program. This is a program that supports current Giant Steps' students in accessing appropriate educational or social opportunities within their home school district. Once a child has made gains in skill areas that affected their ability to successfully participate within district programming, our staff can partner with families and the home school district to look at opportunities for GS students to participate in a less restrictive environment with GS support. Some of our GS students spend part of their day in community school. |
Achieving the Possible with
Individualized Educational Planning
The Day School at Giant Steps is licensed by the Illinois State Board of Education and exclusively serves the needs of people with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).
Social Work
Social work at Giant Steps primarily focuses on nurturing students' social and emotional development across a variety of environments, as well as partnering with families to increase their access to supports in the home and community.