VitaLab offers effective and efficient evidence-based interventions that aim to guarantee a higher level of quality of life for adolescents and young adults.
The science used, Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), thanks to a daily data collection allows the implementation of carefully customized development paths.
We work to improve autonomy and to correct problem behaviors.
In agreement with the family, we put the boys in contexts suitable for age and experimentation with work placements with the aim of breaking down social barriers.
Our settings, the environments in which the learning path is developed, are the domestic walls
but also, and above all, the city.
Mission
Our mission is to improve the quality of life of every child with cognitive disability or autism, making them reach the maximum level of autonomy possible.
Day by day we set the enabling goals, we adapt them to the individual paths,we monitor them and we adjust our choices based on the daily results.
The teaching objectives are guided by daily data collection and a decision making protocol.
What is the decision making protocol?
It is the set of rules given by the scientific literature that allow us to make decisions based on the progress of the data and to compare ourselves with other professionals who have also made their results available.
The ABA science with a daily and constant method based on evidence (based on the evidence of the results) allows a highly individualized teaching and consequently a high reduction of the problem behaviors.
The learning contexts designed to improve the quality of life and
socially significant are not only the apartment but the entire city.
Research
By collecting and storing daily information on the learning of our children, we can use and replicate educational strategies to teach them what they need.
Whether we are talking about children with more or less serious intellectual disabilities, various rare genetic syndromes, who are suffering from problems in social interaction or aggression, adolescents with high or low functioning autism, we constantly monitor the effectiveness of the strategies used.
Thanks to research we create sets of strategies: having constant access to the history of strategies, we can choose which ones have proved effective and efficient and adjust the single learning path.
The goal is to share data with the scientific community by continuing to develop and improve the A.A.C.V. (Autonomy Assessment and Life Skills).
In Italy we are co-founders and partners of ERREPIU 'with whom we share research and updates.
Gianluca Amato, psychologist graduated in Developmental Psychology, processes and educational contexts
Claudia Puchetti, psychologist graduated in Psychology of clinical and social intervention
Keep the data available to have constant evidence of the results obtained.
The dozens and dozens of data collected on each individual boy are entered daily in his personal database and can be consulted at any time by the family, to intervene on special educational needs and grow together.
Highly individualized paths
The constant evaluation, thorough and detailed, allows us to have a concrete photograph of the young person's starting point and to sew the learning path on the real needs.
In this way we optimize the time dedicated to us, the boys remain at ease while they learn and we intervene on learning difficulties
Breaking down social barriers
How to reduce social exclusion? Aiming for real social integration.
VitaLab offers a wide and diversified range of activities to be carried out at times and in places that are socially significant for age and individual abilities, satisfying personal tastes and interests.
We promote aggregation and positive inclusion in society, we support young people in the challenges related to entering the world of work. We work with a view to participation, sustainability and sharing.
In agreement with the family and giving priority to the characteristics of the boy / girl, during the week we insert them in contexts of:
swimming pool, gym, theater, work stages, museums, photography / cooking / yoga / decoupage / biosynergic agriculture courses, etc.
Family training
Family members who feel the need can take advantage of interventions aimed at both personal training and that of the family unit at any time and on a support in the management of complex dynamics.
In addition to evaluation, diagnosis and follow-up, we train families through:
Parent training
inside the home or in the VitaLab walls, we intervene wherever there is a need for intervention. In parallel to the learning path that develops in our environments, we support the family providing them with information on how to interact with the child to reach the goals set, moment by moment;
Parent education
we periodically organize lectures on issues related to intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorders (ASD), mental retardation, to the story of innovation in the field of Services, School and Health
Psycho-educational counseling
for families in other territories, Vitalab offers a psycho-educational counseling service to families unable to attend the center with an adequate frequency for the implementation of an intervention.
Professional training
Not just for families.
VitaLab provides educators, psychologists, teachers and healthcare professionals with services:
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psycho-educational counseling for schools, educational centers, individual professionals;
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theoretical training on the basic principles of applied behavior analysis and verbal development (Greer & Ross, 2008; 2016)
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Theoretical and practical training on Learn Units, data acquisition, data entry in the databases and reading of the graphs on establishing the educational objectives through the administration of the assessment methods of the ELCAR® e A.A.C.V. Measurement methods;;
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Training in the assessment of cognitive skills and basic autonomy in adolescents and young adults;
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Training on the analysis and management of problem behaviors through the union of supervised in vivo practice courses with lectures;
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organizational consultancy for the implementation of evidence based educational models for adolescents and young adults.
Get in touch
About us
We are Gianluca and Claudia, two BCBA, psychologists who met in 2016 in a learning and research center. The common passion for working with children and young adults with intellectual disabilities, combined with an interest in science,
brought us day after day to imagine and our project together.
Create a project designed and sewn starting from the needs of our families and those encountered over the years. Starting from the needs of the families met over the years, the VitaLab project is born: the union of our skills and the collaboration of many professionals of the Reggio and Italian territory allow us to respond concretely
to the needs of our boys and their families.
Gianluca Amato
BCBA, Psicologo laureato in Psicologia dello Sviluppo: processi e contesti educativi, sociali e clinici. Con formazione in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), con 8 anni di supervisione dalla dott.ssa Fabiola Casarini rank II CABAS®. E' stato coordinatore, supervisore e formatore in diversi centri in Italia, ha partecipato come relatore a diversi convegni in Italia su ABA e autismo.
Claudia Puchetti
BCBA, Psicologa formata in Italia con la dott.ssa Fabiola Casarini rank II CABAS®, E’ membra attiva di Errepiù e all’ interno di Vitalab responsabile dell’area ricerca applicata e dei contatti con i professionisti sul territorio reggiano per le diverse attività abilitative. Relatrice di convegni autismo e sviluppo di autonomie in adolescenti ed adulti con disabilità intellettiva, è stata docente presso master su autismo.