San Diego Behavior Solutions provides in-home behavioral health services to improve skills and support children with Autism Spectrum Disorders, ADHD, and other social and behavioral challenges. In addition to direct intervention and skills training with children, we also provide education, instruction, and in-vivo training of parents and caregivers to allow families to foster the growth and development of their children in natural settings in day-to-day life. Charlie, our behavioral interventionist specializes in several empirically- validated approaches that are incorporated into each child’s individualized plan. Principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) provide the fundamental basis of many of our intervention programs, however we do not adhere to a strict ABA programmatic approach. Rather, we integrate ABA components with other successful modalities such as CBT(Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy), along with some popular parenting, emotion- regulation training and social skill training programs
Learning New Skills and Behaviors through Daily Routines in Naturalistic Settings
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Our unique approach allows us to provide a highly customized and tailored approach to each child and family we serve, which allows us to maximize each child’s unique
developmental potential. We strive to provide these services in a caring manner that stimulates, engages, and
motivates children to embrace learning by addressing their individual needs in their own familiar environments. The specific strategies used in each child ’ s program will vary
based on their individual needs and abilities. We also strongly recommend families take advantage of our parent coaching sessions, to allow parents to gain the skills necessary to reinforce and accelerate their child’s progress in-between intervention sessions. The overarching mission of our in-home behavioral health services is to build on each
child’s individual strengths and innate gifts, in order to allow them to overcome challenges, and achieve their maximum developmental, social and emotional potential.
The overarching mission of our in-home behavioral health services is to build on each child’s individual strengths and innate gifts, in order to allow them to overcome challenges, and achieve their maximum developmental, social and emotional potential.
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Our mission
David Kravetz, M.D., Professor of Clinical Medicine, School of Medicine, UCSD
"Dr. Pontillo is an exceptional, and one-of-a-kind child psychologist. I keep referring to Dr. Pontillo because of her expertise, efficiency and especially her warm and caring personality that is extremely necessary when dealing with children. I very highly recommend Deborah Pontillo, Ph.D as a child diagnostician, developmental and behavioral specialist, and therapist."
A. French
"Charlie is awesome. My Child was charmed by him and about half way through the sessions flipped her behavior and was amazing."
Nicholas Levy, MD, Medical Director, El Camino Pediatrics, V. Asst Clinical Professor, School of Medicine, UCSD
"She is my “go to” psychologist for more complicated developmental issues and for diagnosis of subtle high functioning disabilities. Dr. Pontillo’s interest in her patients and her ability to clearly delineate developmental problems allows parents to move forward with establishing a treatment plan. She is an invaluable resource to the San Diego Pediatric community."
K. Ogawa
"With their knowledge and expertise, they could provide necessary services, recommend additional evaluations, collaborate with other professionals, and coordinate our services. It was such a relief to have an organized effort to diagnose, treat, and, in some cases, eliminate many of the issues we were facing.
Through their services, we started to see real, measurable progress and get answers to questions we could not figure out before. We feel supported and headed in the right direction to provide the best future for our child emotionally and academically.”
J. McCormack
"Charlie thank you so much! I’ve already tried the car seat suggestion this afternoon and it went much more smoothly. Looking forward to reviewing the rest of your suggestions tonight. My child kept saying your name, “toys” while smiling and laughing…..so sweet. You have a special gift working with children.”
"I’ve been referring my patients to Dr. Pontillo for the past several years with the utmost confidence that she will care and understand their developmental needs. Dr. Pontillo always provided them with a balanced and age appropriate intervention to help not only the child but the family as a whole."
Chrystal de Freitas M.D., Pediatrician Carmel Valley Pediatrics
S. Wightman
“My granddaughter was severely traumatized from family alcoholic dynamics with major issues of abandonment, neglect, criminal family abuse and stranger sexual assault. Professional diagnoses are: depression, suicide attempts x2, PTSD & anxiety.
School issues included aggressive behaviors, suspension & expulsion. Since we started working with Anna my dear granddaughter has improved about 80% over several months.
Without the weekly therapy sessions with Anna Williams — and often daily contact via texts — my granddaughter would not be alive today. And I would not have had the education I needed to support her and myself.”
“Charlie thank you so much! I’ve already tried the car seat suggestion this afternoon and it went much more smoothly. Looking forward to reviewing the rest of your suggestions tonight. My child kept saying your name, “toys” while smiling and laughing…..so sweet. You have a special gift working with children."
J. Mccormack
“Charles went beyond the call of duty helping our son. He was professional from the first phone call and beyond. Our child is very breakthrough with our child and help. Most importantly, he was very kind and honest in his assessment. He is the type of person that really cares about a child’s health and helping a family. Having an in home visit is super helpful. He can observe a child in the natural surroundings and the child may be more open to communicating. His main specialties are with autism, social training, and ADHD. At first, our son was crying and resisting working with any therapist. However, after talking with Charlie he was able to open up and share his feelings. We would recommend Charles Aguilar and SD Kids / SD Behavioral solutions."
J. Chan
Integrates with your daily routine.
Fosters a positive learning environment.
Motivates individuals to embrace learning.
Decreases challenging behaviors
Improves interpersonal/ social skills.
Builds independent living skills.
Promotes healthy self-confidence and self-esteem.
Increases flexibility/decreases rigidity.
Improves resilience and adaptability.
We identify each individual’s natural strengths and gifts, not just challenges or ‘labels’, in order to maximize progress and help you reach your goals.
We're Commited
We are committed to finding solutions. You expect timely progress, and we ensure it.
We Identify
We Colaborate
We Propose
We Tailor
We tailor our assessments to the unique needs of each individual and family.
We propose only and precisely the specialist services you need.
We collaborate. Our clients benefit from the insights of our entire team.
Behavioral Intervention Services at SDBS:
Initial in home Appointment
Most clients begin with an initial in home 2 hour assessment with one of our specialists. This is your opportunity to share your concerns, ask questions, and provide any documents or other information you feel would help us get to know your situation. By the end of the session, your behavior specialist will have made a tentative plan about next steps.
Share Your Concerns and Create a Plan
consultations
Consultations are periodic 50 minute sessions with one of our behavior specialists to tweak your current behavior plan. Common issues addressed in a consultation include: social, emotional, academic, behavioral or developmental concerns. Consultations will act as a follow up meeting and provide advice for behavior implementation. Many individuals have all their questions and concerns sufficiently addressed within a single appointment, while others may choose to have subsequent consultative visits.
In Home Behavior Management
If you have a child that has difficulty regulating emotions, has frequent tantrums, trouble with authority, in school, at home, with siblings, and you need help learning new parenting strategies to change these behaviors, please call us for an assessment. These sessions are scheduled with one of our experts to develop specific tools and strategies designed for the individual child and family. These sessions can be scheduled as needed, and often in conjunction with other types of services, such as therapy/counseling or evaluations.
Bright Stars Parenting Program
Does your child have any of the warning signs of Autism Spectrum Disorder?
Symptoms of ASD may include:
- Social struggles (making/maintaining friendships, being understood, lack of reciprocity)
- Academic challenges, specifically with reading and math comprehension
- Black and white thinking
- Anxiety
- A tendency to be rigid, argumentative, possibly aggressive
- Difficulty focusing and participating in undesired activities
- Special interest/ hyper focused
Click here to watch the first module of our Bright Stars Parenting Series about bright children on the mild end of the autism spectrum.
Functional Behavioal Assessment
The FBA Interventions service allows parents to observe first-hand our providers implement individualized FBA interventions. Providers will directly work 1:1 with your child, modeling interventions for effective parent coaching and learning. Also, providers can develop client- individualized visual stimuli and visual aids to support parents in addressing behaviors consistently.
Parent Training
The Parent Coaching service is to help parents identify and understand the function of their child’s behavior. We will coach parents in appropriately addressing their child’s behavior in order to decrease the intensity and future occurrence of the behavior. Furthermore, we will support parents in replacing undesired behaviors exhibited by their child with more socially desired behaviors.
In Person Academic Support
Elementary, middle, and high school children and their families may participate in individually tailored sessions with one of our experts to improve academic and organizational skills. Areas of focus include homework/task completion, study skills and strategies, problem solving, decision making, academic planning, goal setting, improving peer relations, improving frustration tolerance, and developing healthy self-confidence and self-esteem. Appointments for these services are available in-home to maximize your child/teen’s progress.
Clinical sessions
Clinical Session service will begin with a 45-60-minute assessment and interview with the parent(s). Next, an observation of the targeted behavior(s) will be conducted. The session will end with a review and discussion of the observed behavior and ensuing behavior intervention plan.