MANSFIELD, Ohio — The establishment of St. Peter’s Catholic School’s autism and special needs unit came about to help meet the needs of the community.
Bob Neumann works at the unit as the state services coordinator and intervention specialist.
“We’ve got a lot of parents out there and very few options,” he said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about one in 68 children has been identified with autism spectrum disorder.
St. Peter’s has been a provider school in the Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarship Program for the past four years and became a provider school in the Autism Scholarship Program three years ago.
“We wanted to develop a therapy-based program that uses speech and language, occupational therapy, physical therapy, recreational therapy, play therapy, along with some ABA [Applied Behavior Analysis] components.”
Their therapy-based program, Neumann said, is modeled after Dr. Stanley Greenspan’s Developmental, Individual-differences, and Relationship-based model.
“My basic premise is that we want kids to move up developmentally, Neumann said.
“We start out with the first level, which is attention. Can we get the child’s attention?”
The subsequent steps are engagement, communication, social problem-solving, abstract thinking, logical thinking, gray-area thinking and reflection.
“We always tell parents and the staff that we want to engage, challenge and expand,” he said. “We want to challenge the child every day to expand their horizons.”
Laura Gregory, who works at the unit as the state services office manager, noted, “Not all children go through the typical educational program. If they feel like looking at pictures all day, then we sit beside them and look at the pictures with them. If they want to do math, then we do that. We wait until they’re open to do it–that’s what play therapy is about.
“We sit and watch the child play and when we find an opening, when they offer us a game or a toy, that’s when the teaching begins. Not before then.”
Ginny Hahn has two sons who are on the Jon Peterson Scholarship at St. Pete’s. While her children learn primarily in their classrooms at the high school and middle school, they also get homework assistance at the autism and special needs unit, where Hahn works as a paraprofessional.
As a paraprofessional, Hahn said she tries to assess what the student’s needs are, both academically and behaviorally.
“We try to form an attachment with them, whether it’s through playing Candy Land a million times a day, or sitting and reading with them,” she said. “We form a bond with them and then we meet their academic [needs].”
There are currently 27 children in kindergarten through twelfth grade enrolled in the program who have autism. Neumann said they serve all spectrums of autism, adding, “We do have some limitations, but we hope to still help them progress.”
Whereas most centers have a 1:4 student-teacher ratio, St. Peter’s has a 1:2 or 1:3 ratio, Neumann said. The staff includes two certified teachers, a recreational therapist, occupational therapist, speech and language therapist, physical therapist, occupational therapist assistant and intervention specialist.
“Your typical school would provide maybe 150 minutes in a quarter–that’s nine weeks–we’re providing that sometimes within two weeks,” he noted.
St. Peter’s also partners with the Rehab Center to provide sign language classes.
“They do a great job in partnering with us to provide services that we can’t provide here,” Neumann said.
People interested in learning more about the autism and special needs unit are encouraged to call 419-524-0970 ext. 6100 or ext. 6101.
Neumann noted that the earlier a child receives services, the better. “The brain has a certain amount of placidity,” he said. “You can teach old dogs new tricks, but it’s a lot easier when they’re younger. The changes that happen are much more dramatic and much faster when they’re younger.”
As a result of participating in St. Peter’s program, some children have “mainstreamed” into the traditional classroom setting, Neumann said.
“Most of our high school students are totally mainstreamed,” he said. “A lot of our junior high kids are mainstreamed, and we have four elementary kids that are mainstreamed. So as we move up that developmental ladder and their learning curve starts to show an upward tick, then we can put them back in the regular classroom, and that’s our goal.”
Moreover, Hahn said she’s noticed the students “feel like instead of being the person in the room who can’t be successful like everybody else, they see that they do have something to offer and that they can be successful.
“They really do blossom.”
