Growing with Pyramid Classroom Certification: The Seed Program

By Jaime Wedel, M.Ed., CAGS, BCBA

This month, I had the privilege of speaking to Julie DeMarco Zimmerman, Licensed and Board-Certified Behaviour Analyst (LBA, BCBA). Julie is the Clinical Director at The Seed Program in Memphis, Tennessee. The Seed Program is a therapeutic day program for children from the age of diagnosis until first grade, as well as an Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) therapy program for students up to middle elementary age. The Seed Program supports students on the Autism Spectrum, as well as some learners who benefit from small, structured classes and have been unsuccessful in other schools. Seed has eight BCBAs currently on-staff, Masters- and Bachelors-level staff in Occupational Therapy and Teaching, and a wonderful team of Registered Behaviour Technicians in ABA.

I recently got to work with Julie and her team as three of their classrooms became Pyramid Certified Classrooms in 2020. We get a lot of interest in our Pyramid Classroom Certification (PCC) process, and I knew Julie would be a great person to share what going through the process was like.

Thank you so much for talking with me today, Julie! There is a training component to becoming a Pyramid Certified Classroom, as well as a consulting piece, and later a leadership piece. Given the experience of your team, you could have easily done training in-house. What made you decide to have training through Pyramid?

When we were looking at our in-service plan, we didn’t want to just do five days of training and forget everything. That’s not sustainable change. We wanted a true training to really separate our program and challenge us to improve.

My go-to has always been going back to what Pyramid is doing. I was first personally PECS-trained in 1985 with Andy Bondy and Lori Frost. They have a history of success. They are not the flavour of the month or a fad. They continue to have a great reputation after decades. They have a successful company and are research leaders. I wanted us to attach ourselves to best practices and truly improve services. As such, we wanted access to professionals like Dr. Bondy and Ms. Frost. I wanted us to think about things differently, to be challenged, to see other ways of doing things. Lots of things can be good practice but I wanted deep, international-level expertise not just local expertise.

When you think of The Seed Program before the Pyramid Classroom Certification process and after, what are the biggest changes your team has seen?
Everyone in our program looks like natural teachers now. I see constant language and teaching opportunities captured across the whole day! Our staff have challenged themselves and changed their own way of doing things as clinicians. I’ve seen such growth in all of them!
Before certification we were focused on the number of trials and didn’t think we’d get enough trials naturally. The opposite occurred-we got more learning inserting trials into natural opportunities! We’ve seen that when activities are meaningful to kids, we really see kids progressing.

How was the PCC program helpful to you as an administrator?
This process shows commitment to our parents and also to our staff. We want to be the best provider for kids! We have an obligation to maximize our time with our students, they can’t get this time back. It’s easy to be at an agency and you can be hurting, not helping, if you take on things that you are not equipped to handle. Parents have chosen us to help them. That is a huge responsibility and we don’t want parents to look back and say, “They were nice but those critical years could have been better spent elsewhere.” Before PCC, we never had parents say, “We really love how they are over there working in the cubby with the teacher.” Parents want to see classrooms and natural learning opportunities. They love that we do that now! Further, staff appreciate being at an agency with a commitment to their professional development and growth. The PCC process has really brought out their skills and creativity. They agree we can never stop learning; we can’t just say we know how to do this as professionals. As Dr. Bondy says, “When are you going to be done learning?” The answer is, “Never.”

You have always had many students at The Seed Program who speak and use Speech Generating Devices, as well as PECS Users. Were you ever concerned the process would be just about PECS or that parents and caregivers would want other options besides PECS for their learners?
When I understood clearly what the Pyramid Classroom Certification process entailed, it made sense to me. It wasn’t just a PECS Training and there was never a feeling that we were going to provide PECS for everyone. It was so much bigger! It was a whole approach to learning and communication. Our speakers and device users are able to benefit from the systematic way we teach communication across the day. We never felt like we had to sell PECS to our families. It became a natural fit for some students, and several of those PECS learners have transitioned to speech or electronic modalities. Some parents had apprehension. Some were even worried a PECS user would never speak, when we know that’s not true. We needed to explain PECS better so that it doesn’t feel like taking away communication, when of course it’s the opposite. They came to understand that PECS had previously not always been implemented correctly and having the support of Pyramid, not just us, really helped us get parents on board.

What was difficult about the PCC process for your program?
We view ourselves as open minded. But when we’re challenged, we can all feel uncomfortable. We had a hard time separating at first, “Is this what the consultant wants or is this what we really want for our kids?” It was hard to see how moving away from traditional trial-based stuff we could still have enough learning opportunities. It’s funny that in the beginning natural activities felt contrived! Then we realized, “No, what we did before was contrived!” It started to flow, and kids really like it when concepts are incorporated into activities. We’ve seen so much progress! I once heard a staff member say, “I have to get the consultant’s things ready.” I said, “If you feel it won’t work, do what you feel comfortable with and talk to the consultant. We have to do what’s meaningful and what matters to us and our program.” And guess what, all the pieces fit in! Now I see the staff feeling so confident. They can try new things because they know the rationale behind it and they’ve really risen to the occasion!

You’re in an area where there are other groups serving the same population. How does the Seed Program stand out as a result of everyone’s hard work?

We operate much differently. Yes, we are an ABA agency but we take a functional, whole-child approach. We are not a place where you drop kids off and they get therapy. Our families are very involved. Our approach to therapy is whole-child and family, taking ABA and making it real, functional, and meaningful. We build relationships with local schools too, as we also want to provide support to those teachers. We meet regularly and talk about what’s working-and what’s not working. We want kids to be successful not just at Seed, but more importantly in their homes and communities.

I love how happy students and staff always seem to be at Seed!
When we started working with Pyramid, we were a small program with a big dream. PCC has been a real game-changer. You know you’re doing something right when kids are running to your door! They don’t realize they are in an intensive therapy program; they are doing engaging and creative activities. Therapy should not be arduous, boring, and repetitive. If adults feel this, I guarantee kids feel it and none of us like it. We really like what we’re doing now, it’s fun for everyone, and it WORKS!

Learn more about Pyramid Classroom Certification and watch a short video here.

Special thanks to Julie DeMarco Zimmerman and The Seed Program. All images are from The Seed Program website.
© Pyramid Educational Consultants, LLC. 2021