Classes at the Shafer Center for Early Intervention:
The Shafer Center for Early Intervention offers a full day and half day class program taught by a mastered special educator and mastered speech and language professional, all of whom have experience working with children on the autism spectrum. At the Shafer Center, it is our goal to help each child reach his or her best potential. It is our philosophy to teach a general curriculum aimed at increasing language, communication and socialization in the classroom. We do this by seamlessly integrating education, speech, sensory integration, applied behavioral analysis, and verbal behavior elements into the curriculum to teach the whole child.
Prior to joining the classroom, each student undergoes an extensive assessment to identify his strengths and weaknesses. This assessment is used to ensure that the child is placed in the appropriate classroom, and to help the faculty to establish individual goals for each child that will be monitored and evaluated via daily data collection. Through this system of assessment and tracking, we will know if a child’s goals need to be augmented.
Learning to share, play and communicate in social groups are fundamental aspects of early learning that take on added dimension at the Shafer Center. For children on the Autism spectrum, these skills are a part of their overall success, and therefore, the teaching of group dynamics is woven into the curriculum. In the same way that individual goals are set and managed, so to, are group goals.
At the Shafer Center, we feel that parent involvement is an extremely important component of the education process. Therefore, we will inform parents of progress through daily communication sheets, report cards, and monthly meetings. We also ask that parents let us know what they think about their child’s progress, so we can better serve each family.
