Mrs. Bristow’s incredible relationship with parents will also ensure that they are in connection with their child's individualized goals, enhancing their ability to understand their child and help them in the home setting as well. Mrs. Bristow believes it is a slower process than an "easy fix". This type of training and learning is not something you get in school, simply because the understanding and time constraints are limited by curriculum needs, benchmark assessments, and academics.
What she does ensure is that you will see the growth and success of your child, and it will spill over into the school setting -- not only in understanding their world and how their actions play a part, but they will become better observers, improve on interpreting intentions of those around them, and most importantly, improve on perspective-taking in order to create more positive relationships.
This will also be evident in the community, which would include team sports and work experiences, as well as provide a basis for improved reading, writing, and communication skills, which thus helps support academic and intellectual growth.
Her expertise is in behavioral planning and Applied Behavior Analysis, along with applicable cognitive behavioral approaches. As a certified School Psychologist, she received the Governor’s Teacher/Child Study Team Advocate Award in 2020. She has helped many families understand their child and navigate through challenges both at school, home, and community settings.
Bari Bristow
As the COO and Founder of the Bristow Center, Bari's passion is unsurmounted.
After 33 years of experience working in public schools, private schools, case management, and advocating for children and families, Bari has come to realize that the lack of social skills is often overlooked and children are misdiagnosed. Bari believes that "kids are the best diagnosticians of finding the friends who are quirky and different, and what happens then? We all know they become the targets!”
Her research and experiences have led her to her passion of understanding the social world -- not only of children with developmental delays or neurological implications, but to include the general education children who are smart, quirky, frustrate easily or may be perfectionists, in addition to understanding those who are shy or filled with anxiety.
Her work has led her to understand their world and their perceptions as well as the fact that their peers aren’t educated and trained to understand the reality that "social skills" are not innate for many.
Her biggest pet peeve is that most guidance counselors, psychologists, or even school teachers just can’t deal with the presenting behaviors. So, when a child drops to the ground during recess crying, we tell him or her that’s not the right thing to do. But Bari realized quickly that these children don’t always understand the "why" of what's happening around them.
The Bristow Center’s uniqueness is to have both the parents and the children involved; to be taught and to understand that social skills are multi-layered, and it is a learning process that drives problem solving abilities, not necessarily an innate skill set. At the Center, Bari will be able to diagnose the developmental level of a child’s social awareness through understanding
How they attend
How (or if) they interpret information from the environment
How well they can solve problems
Their own social responses
It is Bari’s intent to then be able to build and fill in gaps with their foundational skills.