The Children's Center, A School for Early Intervention
Video Summary
This documentary is an in depth look at an early intervention school. It follows Sandy, a special instructor at the children's center, as she explains how she works with kids on the spectrum, the different programs she implements in the classroom and the importance of therapy such as this for children on the spectrum who are under three. The Children's Center for Early Learning (CCEL) was established in 1996 in Brooklyn, New York to provide educational and therapeutic services to children with developmental delays. Their program annually serves approximately 150 children aged three to five years in the school setting. Additionally, each year it conducts between 100 200 multi disciplinary evaluations of children who are referred by multiple sources for a determination of their eligibility for special services. The Children's Center for Early Intervention (CCEI) is the sister program of CCEL and annually serves approximately 250 children ages birth through three years in a combination of center based and home based programming. The mission of the Children's Center is to provide the highest quality intervention for children with special needs, in the hope that as graduates, they will be integrated into the general education population with minimal or no further support. The program for children with disabilities and their families includes Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) services for young children with Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD). Their ABA program is a comprehensive data based program of instruction. Curricular goals are individually scripted to meet each child's needs in the following domain areas: Verbal Behavior, Cognitive, Social Skills, School Self Sufficiency, and Fine and Gross Motor Behaviors. Programming for some children includes a comprehensive home based component. The Children's Center is a partner in research and service activities with Teacher's College, Columbia University and they maintain clinical affiliations other universities and colleges in the New York City area.
"The bottom line is that our kids are only going to go as far as we take them we as a people. "
— Rosa Martinez, PhD
Keywords
- Autism-General Information
- Early Signs
- Early Intervention (EI)
- pediatrician's role
- risk alerts
- labeling
- Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS)
- Individualized Family Service Plans
- Family Life
- school
- making transitions
- expectations
- General Behaviors
- Inappropriate behaviors
- tantrums
- Learning
- curriculum
- classroom strategies
- group/circle time
- classroom experiences
- object recognition
- transition cues
- transition to preschool
- manding / requesting
- using gestures
- school readiness skills
- body part identification
- animal recognition
- preference for structure
- Milestones
- not eating with a spoon
- Nonverbal Behaviors Used in Social Interaction
- lack of eye contact
- lack of facial expressions
- Nonverbal Communicative Skills
- pointing to show
- nodding / shaking head
- gesturing
- pointing to request
- picture exchange system (PECS)
- Physical Development
- gross motor coordination
- Play
- appropriate play
- interest in books
- Self-Injurious Behavior
- Head banging
- Social Interaction
- social skills
- Social Interaction
- Friends
- engagement
- lack of affection
- Therapies
- Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA)
- Parent Involvement
- imitation
- Speech Therapy
- Verbal Communicative Skills
- lack of receptive language
- lack of response to name
- greeting
- social vocalization
- vocal expressiveness