Sanford Shapiro looks at The Lab School
© 2006 Sanford Shapiro

The Lab School is in the Georgetown area of Washington, DC and was founded in 1961 by Sally Smith, who is also the head of the Master’s Program in Special Education: Learning Disabilities, at American University. It’s a K-12 school for children with learning disabilities and has had a fair amount of national exposure over the years. The school and the director have won numerous awards and distinctions, deservedly so. A big part of this school’s distinguishing feature is its reliance on hands-on experiential education and the use of creative arts as a teaching and learning tool. The profile of the students is largely that of language-based learning disability, with approximately 10% of the children falling somewhere in the NVLD category, with organizational struggles. Continued…

Sanford Shapiro looks at Delaware Valley Friends School
© 2006 Sanford Shapiro

During my visit to the Delaware Valley Friends School (in Pennsylvania), the fact that it’s a school for kids with learning differences faded into the background in the best sense. Primarily it seemed to be a supportive encouraging and challenging school for 7th through 12th graders. What is most notable to me is the school’s apparent ability to strike a balance between providing traditional academic learning and encouraging its students to explore creativity, challenge assumptions and to get involved with community. While there was definitely an organized and coherent structure to the place, high school kids could be seen moving through some hallways, engaged in photographic and video projects, definitely not goofing off. Continued…

Sanford Shapiro, Director
Bend Learning Center
1569 SW Nancy Way, Suite 2
Bend, OR 97702
541-383-3208
sanfordshapiro@mac.com
http://www.bendlearningcenter.com

For $150, Third-World Laptop Stirs a Big Debate: “The debate is centered on whether cheap laptops are the best way to improve education in the developing world.”

(Source NYT > Business.)

Sanford Shapiro looks at The Crossroads School
© 2006 Sanford Shapiro

As I traveled through this historic area of Pennsylvania, I was impressed with the variety of private independent schools that cater to the needs of atypical learners. My hope is that more schools are developed that can be ’special schools’ because they appeal to a rich and diverse set of learning profiles; that “special” education is for everyone. This would be the universal design for education.

Until then however, we need more schools like the Crossroads School in Paoli, PA. It’s been around since 1977 (it actually began in 1971 but refocused in 1977 on dyslexia) and is very much set up for students in grades K-8, who fall in the category of having a language-based learning disability. In fact, though it might be wonderful to have a mythical school that is so rich in content delivery style that it helps all learners, no matter what the learning profile, it’s a testament to Crossroads that they are very focused and specific about who they teach. They really don’t pretend to be set up for students with classic Non-Verbal Learning Disabilities for example. The central focus of this school is for bright dyslexic children to improve their specific areas of language processing weaknesses while engendering self-esteem and positive feelings of self-regard.
Continued…

Sanford Shapiro looks at The Jemicy School
© 2006 Sanford Shapiro

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I visited the Jemicy School, a day school located in Owings Mills, just outside of Baltimore, Maryland. I had heard of it for years and what I had heard had always been positive. However, based on what I’d heard I didn’t know if I’d see a typical remedial school for kids with learning disabilities or one that tried to be a kind of “multiple intelligence” school, one that had Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence theory as a curriculum delivery model. What I found was probably the best of both worlds. It is a school steeped in Orton-Gillingham based instruction that uses research-based methods that focus on reading and writing development for the dyslexic learner. And, while no one I spoke with even mentioned multiple intelligence as a framework, kids were demonstrating the essence (in my opinion) of multiple intelligence, that there’s more than one way to be smart, and more than a few ways to learn and demonstrate problem solving abilities and intellect. I observed different students in dance classes, sitting and engaged in reading, writing and analytical discussion, as well as playing a creative version of the ball game ‘four square’ to apply math and counting concepts. Continued…

Sanford Shapiro looks at The Pathway School
© 2006 Sanford Shapiro

The Pathway School is located in Norristown, in the northeast corner of Pennsylvania. In existence since 1961, Pathway is an independent day and residential school for kids with complex learning disabilities. No kid is really simple of course, but in terms of descriptive labels for learning profiles, “complex ld” means there are overlapping and multiple learning struggles. For one thing, the intelligence (as measured by standard IQ tests) range from mildly mentally retarded to the high average range. In some cases there are Pathway kids who have areas of intellectual functioning in the gifted range. The “complexity” of the Pathway students however also includes the possibility of a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders, such as Tourette’s Syndrome, and have difficulties regulating aspects of their moods and behavior. Many of the Pathway students are diagnosed with PDD (Pervasive Developmental Disorder) and display characteristics of high functioning autism or Asperger’s Syndrome. There are about 50 kids who are in the residential program and another 110 in the day school. The age ranges are from 9-21 in the day school program and 12-21 in the residential component. Enrolled students at Pathway may have lower cognitive profiles than say the students at Maplebrook School (also written of here at ldresources). Pathway will also enroll kids with a higher cognitive profile. The students here at Pathway will generally have more pronounced social issues and anxiety related difficulties. Continued…

Sanford Shapiro looks at The Village Glen School
© 2006 Sanford Shapiro

The Village Glen School is another part of the Help group (which owns and operates several schools throughout the greater LA area). On the Village Glenn campus, the focus is for students with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. When you descriptively dig beneath this umbrella term (ASD) you find students who have social and communication challenges that carry diagnostic descriptors of Asperger’s Syndrome, high functioning autism and non-verbal learning disabilities (NVLD). There are three different programs on this campus and they reflect a range of functioning in the students. The Beacon program is geared for students with Autism who need a more intensely focused behavioral modification program. These classes are all self-contained and the multi disciplinary team has besides the primary teacher, behavior interventionists, speech and language pathologists, and therapists. Continued…

Sanford Shapiro looks at The Bridgeport School
© 2006 Sanford Shapiro

In Sherman Oaks, California (Los Angeles), the Help Group operates a day school program called The Bridgeport School. On a five-acre campus, Bridgeport is designed for students between 5 and 21 years old who struggle with autism and developmental or cognitive weaknesses. Particularly with younger students with autism, language development is delayed and, cognitive functioning (problem-solving, flexibility) can be stimulated and enhanced through educational and therapeutic intervention. What may appear as developmental disability/ may be cognitive delays. Central to the mission of the Bridgeport School is to maximize function and increase real life skills; vocational, academic, and social communication. Program faculty for this program is built around these goals and in addition to primary class teachers; each student’s team may include counselors/behavior specialists, adaptive physical educators, Speech and Language specialists and Occupational Therapists.

In the classes I observed, there was ample display of very high adult to student ratio. Building social communication skills is clearly one of the priorities regardless of level of present student level. In some of the younger classes, students were guided quite consistently on integrating visual and augmentive communication with spoken language. Lots of verbal phrases, high frequency words and numbers, common requests (”I want to go to the bathroom.”) are paired with picture cues and displayed on small plastic boards for easy access and use. Low tech for sure, but research-based and effective.

There was a lot of opportunity for kids and faculty to practice and “make real” the skills taught. The student store, for example was a high motivation place for application. Students were also quite engaged in helping to care for and maintain the campus and building maintenance. Kids were cleaning up and vacuuming around the hallways after lunch. This may not seem so important but personally I recognize the consistency of value in chores, in healthy families and even well designed therapeutic boarding schools for at risk teens.

Sanford Shapiro looks at Summit View School
© 2006 Sanford Shapiro

Summit View School is a private K-12 day school for kids with language-based learning disabilities. It’s within the city limits of Los Angeles, specifically in Valley Glen. It was founded in 1994 and in 2001 the parent organization, the Help group, opened a similarly designed school in Culver City, which is probably just over the hillside. Those of you who know LA traffic patterns understand that just being on the other side of the hill can take a lifetime to travel.

Summit is generally for a pretty bright kid who’s having primary difficulty succeeding in school due to weaknesses in fundamental aspects of reading and writing. The school strives to present a fairly rigorous curriculum supported by remedial, strategy-based instruction and classes. Every student has a specialized reading development class and each student gets fairly expensive testing upon enrollment if needed. The core instructional programs used for remediation and language processing development are Language! Lindamood Bell, and Wilson Reading. They are committed to using only evidenced-based programs. Continued…