Camp Practice
An approach born of forty years' experience; camp programmes shaped around need.
Not a school. A school of practice.
is not a course, a series of therapy sessions or a holiday programme. It is what happens when an approach born of nearly forty years of work at Özel Çocuklar Yaşam Destekleme Derneği (OYADDER) — a school of practice — is put into practice in the field.
At the heart of it: learning is only sustainable when it happens inside life and beside the family. So children spend a minimum of ten days in the same place, at the same table, in the same natural surroundings — and the specialists live alongside them.
This school of practice is not confined to a single camp format. Programmes of different lengths are run according to how long and how deep the need runs.
We keep walking alongside the development journey
The move into adolescence, changes of school, peer relationships growing more complex, preparing for independent living — each calls for its own kind of support. These stages do not fit one mould: for one child social skills come to the fore, for another adapting to daily life, for another independence.
That is why, for older age groups, we run longer-term camps whose duration, intensity and content are shaped entirely around individual needs. The framework is not picked off the shelf; it is built together, starting from where the child and the family actually are.
will announce its start date on our social media accounts.
You can complete the application form to pre-register.
First Diagnosis
The earliest stage at which a diagnosis can be made
A diagnosis is not an ending but a starting point. Time gained at this age compounds across every year that follows.
Why these ages?
International screening schedules place autism-specific assessment at 18 and 24 months, and a diagnosis made by an experienced team becomes markedly stable from 24 months onwards. In other words, these are the years for not noticing something, but starting something.
But a family that has just received a diagnosis often cannot find its bearings. Which support comes first? Who does what? What should be expected, and by when? While those questions go unanswered, valuable months slip by.
The First Diagnosis programme is precisely where those question marks get answered.
What do we work on?
Six areas of work — all of them addressed in a natural setting, within the natural flow of the day.
Secure attachment and joint attention
Eye contact, face tracking, turn-taking, looking at something together. The first step is not teaching — it is building the relationship.
Initiating communication
Requesting, using pointing and gesture, responding to sound and to their own name, expressing themselves at their own level, and alternative communication routes where needed.
Core daily-living skills
Sleep routine · Sitting at the table · Toilet readiness · Dressing and undressing · Age-appropriate self-care.
Sensory regulation
Mapping the sensory profile · Identifying over- and under-responsive stimuli · Passing calming strategies on to the family.
Gut & brain — nutrition
A gut cleanse and repair protocol aimed at the wearing effects of inflammation-driven oxidative stress. Working on food selectivity and introducing new tastes. Putting a gut-brain axis programme into practice in the kitchen.
Helping the family find its direction
A post-diagnosis roadmap: which support, in what order, at what intensity. Building the parent's ability to observe and keep records.
Early Intervention
When the brain is most open to learning
The stage at which the brain is most open to experience. Time lost at this age is paid back twice over in the years that follow.
Why these ages?
“He's little, he'll come out of it,” people say, and for a while the family manages the picture through sheer intensity of attention. That holds until the child is sent to nursery to learn by playing with children of the same age. Nursery is where the difficulties surface, where the family starts searching in a rush, and where the child struggles to be accepted into the setting.
It is also the stage at which the brain is at its most flexible and most receptive — which is exactly what is put at risk if it is not handled with the right method.
The Early Intervention programme exists so that this learning advantage is not missed.
What do we work on?
Six areas of work — all of them addressed in a natural setting, within the natural flow of the day.
Communication and relationship
Joint attention, eye contact, initiating communication, requesting, gesture and pointing, expression at their own level.
Core daily-living skills
Eating and table routines · Toileting routine · Dressing and undressing · Sleep routine · Self-care.
Sensory regulation
Mapping the sensory profile · Identifying over- and under-responsive stimuli · Teaching regulation strategies and passing them on to the family.
Nutrition
Working on food selectivity · Meeting new tastes · Putting a gut-brain axis nutrition programme into practice in the kitchen.
Transitions and routine
Responding to a “we're finishing now” warning · Moving from one activity to the next · Building a predictable shape to the day.
Play
Moving from parallel play to playing together · Drawing out imitation and learning by watching · Tolerating the presence of a peer.
Adapting to Life, Peers and School
From the world of home to the world of school — the hardest stretch
For some children, what was manageable at nursery hits a wall in primary school. This programme exists to answer that.
Why these ages?
This is the point at which a child enters the social system. In reception, not being able to build play, to queue, or to pair up with a peer gives the first signals. But reception is flexible: the teacher is patient, the family compensates, the system copes.
Then primary school arrives, and its demands are different: how long you sit, following an instruction given to a group, working independently, social hierarchy. None of these are things a family can compensate for.
That is the hardest moment in a child's life so far. The cost is not only academic: it is social and emotional wear, and it is bullying. This programme exists to prevent that wear.
What do we work on?
Six areas of work — all of them addressed in a natural setting, within the natural flow of the day.
Peer relationships
Building play and joining in · Turn-taking · Following rules · Resolving disagreements · Peer mediation.
School readiness
Extending sitting time · Responding to a group instruction · Starting and finishing a task independently · Adapting to classroom routines · Classroom simulation.
Self-regulation
Recognising and naming feelings · Managing anger and frustration · Waiting and delaying · Self-calming strategies.
Independence
Looking after their own things · Packing their own bag · Managing their own self-care · Taking responsibility.
Social scenarios
Working through real situations: break time, queuing, group work, being left out, a new friend.
Building play
Starting their own game, inventing rules, keeping the game going and bringing it to an end.
When you apply, the programme category is set from the age you give us. In borderline cases — a child who has only just turned the age, or whose developmental profile sits closer to the programme above or below — the placement is decided by the team, together with the family. The aim is not to fit the child to the programme, but to find the place that fits the child.
Free-time activities — play, mealtimes and so on — are where natural mixing finds its own harmony.