GIANT Steps Autism Preschool - Orem

GIANT Steps is the autism day-treatment preschool operated by Wasatch Behavioral Health. It serves children ages 3 to 5 who have a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder, or who are found to be on the spectrum at the time of assessment, and children graduate out when they move on to kindergarten. Six classrooms hold up to 12 children each, for a total of 72 preschoolers and their families. The schedule runs Tuesday through Friday, 9:00 am to 3:30 pm, follows the local school district calendar through the end of June, and adds a summer program in July so children keep working on what they learned during the year.

Classrooms sit inside working school buildings. The main site is at Foothill Elementary in Orem, with additional sites at Canyon Crest Elementary in Provo, the Horizon School trailer in Saratoga Springs, and the Summit Center in Springville. Partnerships with the Alpine, Nebo, and Provo school districts supply the special education piece, including occupational therapy, speech therapy, adaptive physical education, and the TeachTown curriculum, which the districts provide and Wasatch Behavioral Health staff administer.

Instruction draws on principles of learning and behavior modification including applied behavior analysis, attending leveling taken from the Getting Ready to Learn model, naturalistic teaching principles, and TEACCH picture schedules. Each child works an Individualized Recovery Plan covering attending goals, imitation, receptive and expressive language, and cognitive skills, with self-help targets such as toilet training, dressing, cleaning up, and eating a wider variety of foods. Group time covers language, social skills, weekly themed centers aimed at fine motor and sensory work, Kindermusik, computer group, and community outings. Because this is a behavioral health program rather than a private school, it also delivers mental health and autism diagnostic evaluation, PEP-3 and CARS-2 developmental testing before and after, psychiatric services, individual and family therapy, case management, and help transitioning into school district services at graduation.

Parents are worked into the treatment rather than kept at the edge of it. About one hour a week of parent training happens inside the program, with two to four hours a month of evening training, a parent support group sponsored by Friends of GIANT Steps, and an annual sibling day camp. Home visits and in-home treatment are provided as needed. Both Medicaid and non-Medicaid families are served, though Medicaid funding pays for roughly twice as many placements and those slots are held for Medicaid clients. Eligibility assessments are offered first come, first served, and the waiting list often runs past a hundred names in a school year, so contacting the program at the first signs of developmental delay matters more here than in most places. Call (801) 226-5437 about getting a child on the waiting list.