Autism is a neurodevelopmental difference that reflects the natural variation in how people think, communicate, connect with others, feel and experience the world.
Autism is not something that needs to be changed or fixed. It is a different way of processing the world, often with unique strengths such as deep focus, creativity, honesty, or attention to detail.
Autistic children may think, move, play, and interact differently than their peers. In young children, autism may look like:
Autism is a neurodevelopmental difference that begins early in brain development. Research shows there is no single cause. Genetics play a significant role, and in some cases, other biological factors may also contribute.
What we know for certain is that autism is not caused by parenting style, vaccines, trauma, or screen time—these are common myths that have been clearly disproven.
Neurodivergence often runs in families, which is why some families may have more than one autistic person. Autism is not new—it has always been part of the natural diversity of how human brains develop and experience the world.
Early Supports
While we don’t need to change who your child is, we can provide supports that help them feel safe, understood, and able to thrive.
Early supports can include:
Support should never aim to make a child appear less autistic. Instead, it should help your child feel secure in who they are and build skills in a way that honours their strengths and preferences.
Ashton’s Place is a charitable foundation that supports young autistic children.
The foundation does this by:
Our hope is that we can provide resources and support to parents and caregivers so they can better understand their child and their individual support needs, and feel better equipped to support and advocate for them throughout the early years of development.
Ashton’s Place offers child and family-centred therapeutic supports for young children.
Supports offered include:
A developmental assessment is a way to check how your child is growing, learning, and developing skills for everyday life. It looks at areas such as:
A developmental assessment can:
A developmental assessment may be helpful if:
Ashton’s Place is focused on using research evidence to develop innovative educational approaches for autistic children. To achieve this, we have partnered with the University of New England (UNE) to embed continued review and evaluation across the ACE Programme and experiences, so that we obtain an objective measure of how children are learning and growing.
We draw from the evidence base that informs early intervention from an education, speech pathology, occupational therapy, and psychological perspective. These models and theories include:
We offer neuro-affirming developmental assessments that are individualised to each child’s developmental profile, strengths, and family priorities. We utilise a range of standardised assessments, parent report and observational tools that are appropriate, and culturally safe for each individual child and family; and that are relevant to the assessment purpose.
Our multidisciplinary assessments provide a concise and accurate picture of the child’s functional strengths and support needs, which can assist in the exploration of diagnosis by a medical professional.
Please visit our Education and Training page for more information on the supports that we can offer you, or your education team.
We support NDIS participants and utilise the NDIS Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits documents to guide billing for our service provision. Please reach out to see how we can help you. We offer training, mentoring and support for early childhood educators. Please reach out to arrange an individualised quote.
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Click Here: ACE Program
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The Free kindy funding is available at some of our services, where there is an Early childhood qualified teacher leading the programme. Please enquire with the ACE Coordinator when you enrol.
Our daily sessions are $275. This fee is our way of ensuring affordable, accessible access to early intervention supports and includes all parent capacity building, stakeholder engagement, team collaboration and report writing.
Our therapy team spends time on the floor with the children during programme hours. We do not allocate specific 1:1 time to this therapeutic support.
This looks more like direct intervention with children, as well as capacity building for staff, so everyone is able to implement the strategies identified by the therapist. The support offered by therapists will vary in accordance to family priorities
and the changing support needs of your child.
The ACE Programme hours are 9am-2:30pm.
Our transdisciplinary team has core therapy supports including Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy and Positive Behaviour Support, as well as therapy assistants. Therapies may be offered in person or via telehealth support.
ACE programme operates within the early education and care centre community. We work collaboratively with the Centre teams to implement an inclusive environment. The Centre Directors can assist with all childcare fee enquiries. educators. Please reach out to arrange an individualised quote.
Absolutely! Meaningful participation is a core principle of our ACE programme. We encourage inclusion through a meaningful and supported approach. Children will spend time learning alongside their peers in the centre-wide community.
Your child can only be enrolled in 1 studio within the centre. A lot of families come to the ACE programme for their intervention supports and may attend childcare elsewhere on other days.
All of our transdisciplinary team receive Ashton’s Place ACE Programme training, developed by transdisciplinary therapists. The educators working with your child have a high level of understanding of autistic development and play; sensory processing; how to support emotional regulation; supporting all communication styles and preferences; individualising experiences to meet the needs of all children; developing self help skills and encouraging positive behaviour. Along with this introductory training, educators are consistently being upskilled by Ashton’s Place professionals, to meet the needs and target the goals of each individual child.
The ACE Programme is created to reflect three important features that distinguish it from other early childhood autism-specific services that exist in Australia. First, from its inception, the programme has resisted use of existing ‘branded’ models (e.g., ABA, Floor Time, TEACCH, ESDM), instead focusing on the
principles for education/support of autistic children recommended in the research. Second, and arising from the decision to ‘return to research principles’, the ACE is a ‘living programme’ designed to evolve and change in line with child responses, parent feedback, and research findings. This means that, whilst the ACE Programme is based on sound evidential principles, the application of those principles in daily practice will be continuously refined and expanded to address current needs. Third, the ACE Programme maintains an active collaboration with UNE researchers to ensure that it functions according to evidence-based procedures and that its key components are regularly assessed in relation to ‘changes in’ child functioning, educator performance, and family knowledge/linkages. Further, all instruments for measuring these changes in child functioning have been created by ACE personnel and UNE researchers to ensure a deeper understanding of how the ACE works and how it might be improved.
Yes, the ACE Programme is proud to be neuroaffirming. We embrace and support the unique strengths and needs of each autistic child, fostering a positive and inclusive environment that respects their individuality.
We provide individualised supports for non-speaking children through a variety of communication methods, including augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems, visual supports, and tailored strategies to help them express their needs and engage with others effectively.
Our programme is developed for autistic children, however, we understand some families may still be on a waitlist for a diagnosis and keen to access services as soon as possible. If children without a diagnosis are deemed to meet our eligibility criteria and can satisfy by this through the completion of additional assessment and observation tools, a 12 week programme trial can be offered whilst the exploration of a diagnosis is continued.
Engaging in this trial period helps to ensure that we are the correct programme for your child.
We implement a positive behaviour support approach in the ACE programme. We endeavour to support children who may be exhibiting behaviours of concern, however our main priority is always to ensure the safety of all children and staff. Our Behaviour Practitioner and therapists can work to develop interim behaviour support plans for children requiring them.
We sure do. Our Occupational Therapists can work closely with your family to develop a toilet training plan, which our skilled educators can implement in the studio environment.
Early supports are key. If your child is not reaching their milestones with regards to their motor skills, emotional regulation regulation, self help, communication, or play a developmental screening assessment is recommended.
No. Please reach out to see how we can support you.
This varies based on each child’s goals and progress. Some children may benefit from short and intensive blocks of therapy to target specific goals e.g. toilet training or learning to use an Alternative or Augmentative Communication (AAC) device. Other children and their caregivers may benefit from regular and ongoing therapeutic supports. We work closely with families to develop an individualised support plan.
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