Free preschool for autistic kids

published in October 2007 on www.richmond.com


Preschool class gives new hope to autistic children

By Angela Smith

Children with disabilities often fall behind academically due to a lack of sufficient special education opportunities. Thanks to a new program in Richmond, those with autism are now getting a head start.
Richmond Public Schools has teamed up with the Faison School for Autism to create a free preschool classroom specifically designed to meet the unique needs of autistic children.
Autistic children think, learn and behave in ways very different from other children. Wendy Kreuter, director of advancement and finance at the Faison School, defines autism as a “pervasive developmental disorder that really strikes children’s ability to communicate, and their social skills.”
The classroom is designed to help them learn despite these disadvantages.
In the past, parents of autistic children generally had two choices: send them to struggle in a public school, or shell out big bucks to send them to a specialized school. At Faison, tuition is $57,000 per year. For most parents, that’s just not an option.
Kreuter understands that. She said that the Faison School wishes to extend its services to the community, at no cost to parents.
“We don’t want to focus solely on our on-site school. Part of our mission is to go out into the community and then to local school systems and take what we are learning how to do and be able to teach other people,” she said.
So in September 2006, the Faison School and Richmond Public Schools opened their first preschool classroom with hopes of developing it into a statewide program.
In fact, it’s already expanding. This year, a kindergarten classroom opened in Richmond, and the program is being replicated in Hopewell’s elementary schools.
Who’s paying for all this?
The Community Foundation of Richmond donated $40,000 to fund the project. According to program officer Elaine Summerfield, the goal is “to provide specialized training to build the school system’s overall capacity to address the needs of children with autism,” not just to create one class.
The foundation collects donations and distributes the funds to charitable nonprofit organizations that the foundation deems worthy. These donations must be used to better the community. The grants to Faison School were made through this process, Summerfield said.
The Faison School worked “very closely and cooperatively” with Richmond Public Schools to establish these classes, which are located at the Preschool Development Center at 2124 N 29th St. The classes use the “most current, empirically proven techniques, with Applied Behavior Analysis at its core,” Summerfield said. Faison continues to support the program by providing a coordinator who works alongside the public school’s teachers.
Teachers identify a specific problem and behavior in a child and then use Applied Behavior Analysis, or ABA, to target it directly, improving the child’s social skills. “It’s a thinking process about why things are happening. It’s about identifying a tactic that can help to…improve those skills and then having some measure in place to see if you did the right thing,” Matthews said. If not, the method is adjusted.
ABA generally requires one-on-one instruction. In the public classrooms that’s not possible, but the student-to-teacher ratio remains very low. In the kindergarten class, there are two instructors for five students.

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What are the symptoms of autism?
Tell your pediatrician if your child:
Doesn’t respond to his/her name
Has delayed language skills
Doesn’t gesture, point or wave
Doesn’t babble
Doesn’t smile when smiled at
Has poor eye contact
Loses any language or social skill at any time
Source: National Institute of Child Health & Human Development

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How to get your child enrolled:
Enrollment in the classes for autistic children at the Preschool Development Center, 2124 N. 29th St., involves an eligibility process:
Child must be delayed in one or more areas of development
Child must be referred by an outside agency, such as a doctor, or by a parent
Parents must give informed consent for child to be evaluated
The school system conducts an evaluation to determine if the classes are right for him or her. The child can be placed in the classes at any point in the school year.