Q3: Can you describe your collaboration with MAIA? I believe you come to France for a few months
In October of 2013, I had the opportunity to begin to implement the CLM in a very small private school in Paris named, IME MAIA. The children attending MAIA were diagnosed with Autism. The director of the school, who invited me to implement the CLM, was Ana Bibay, BCBA. I was able to spend over two and half months starting the implementation of the CLM. Fortunately, Ana and her colleagues were mostly bi-lingual since I spoke very little French.
Most of my time was spent at MAIA was coaching the implementers to deliver the CLM Curriculum to educate the learners. Or, assuring that the implementers could apply what they learned in each of the CLM Units.
The remaining of my time was spent collaborating with Ana and other on how to best implement various components of the CLM. For example, we would conduct the CLM Placement Test to determine where each learner placed in the curriculum. At other times, Ana would demonstrate one of the curricular formats for one of her implementers since she was so good at working with her learners. It is rare that a BCBA can delivery programming so well. I loved watching her teach. Ana and I worked together along with her implementers to bring about the common goal of developing competent learner who could act effectively in novel circumstances.
Besides the implementation of the CLM, Ana had arranged other programs for her learners. For example, some of them learned fitness activities such as biking in the locale park. While other children would be learning to prepare a snack. At all times, the learners at MAIA were actively engaged in learning day to day functional activities to better prepare them for living successfully in their communities.
Over the past four years, other Certified CLM Coaches worked toward completing the implementation of the CLM at EIM MAIA. Currently, the CLM Products are being translated into French so other schools can benefit from the model.