City School Aims To Pave The Way For Better Autism Education
To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.
Then come back here and refresh the page.
Thousands of children across New York City are diagnosed with autism, and parents say that often leaves them struggling to find the best spots for them in schools to address their needs. But as NY1 Health & Fitness reporter Kafi Drexel explains in the following report, at least one school is trying to create a model for change. When Carol Santiago's son Ralphie was picked for admission to the New York Center for Autism Charter School through a lottery system, she says it was like striking gold.
"For any parent in New York City finding the right placement for their child on the spectrum is difficult," said Santiago. "It was very hard. He was actually a semester out of school prior to coming here because we couldn't find appropriate placement for him where we were in the Bronx."
The school is the brain-child of Harry and Laura Slatkin, a couple already known for creating popular home fragrances for chains like Bath and Body Works. The influential New Yorkers are now becoming just as well-known for their work in autism advocacy.
"My son David was diagnosed with autism at 18 months and as he got older we started looking around for schools," said NYCA Founder Harry Slatkin. "We live in Manhattan. And we realized there were really no places to send David. At the time, there were 5,000 children in the public school system who had autism. Now, I believe it's doubled. So the reason we opened our charter school is to be a model school for the public school system to follow."
While New York City's school system has various services for students with autism, many are mixed with the general education environment or other special-needs programs.
The charter school's program is unique in that it only serves students with autism, something parents and teachers say is essential because of the broad spectrum of disorders.
"Most kids when they go to school focus primarily on academics, reading, writing, math," said Julie Fisher, executive director of NYCA. "Although that's a portion of what we focus with our kids and it might be more for some kids than others that are here, we also do span the range of skill areas that include things like life skills, self-care, even pre-vocational skills for some of our older students.
The Slatkins, along with the teachers at NYCA, say a major reason why the work they are doing is so important is because educational development goes hand in hand with improving children's overall health.
"If children with autism are given an early intervention in a very tight, well-organized program early on, the chances are that they will make vast improvements," said Laura Slatkin.
In addition to watching the charter school grow, the Slatkins are also funding a program at Hunter College to train more teachers to work with autistic youth throughout the public school system.