Educational Services - Functional and Academic Curriculum

Our academic services revolve around the strengths, requirements, and interests of each student. Each student has a program tailored to meet his or her unique academic needs. Activities and materials are specially tailored to meet the child where he is and move him to where he needs to be. The teachers at Sarah Dooley design each and every activity – individual or small group - with the student’s IEP objectives and academic goals in mind.

The curriculum at Sarah Dooley focuses on maximizing independent functioning in home, school, vocational, and community settings. We know students with autism have difficulty transferring skills learned in the classroom. Our program places an emphasis on the maintenance and generalization of learned skills to more complex environments.

Instructional activities are designed to:

• enhance response opportunities,
• be appealing and interesting,
• promote active engagement of the student,
• focus on basic skills before more complex skills,
• provide multiple opportunities for practicing skills identified on the IEP,
• be (whenever possible) embedded within ongoing and natural routines of home, school, vocational, and community settings.

Real life teaching environments provide skills necessary for transitioning into adulthood with the greatest degree of independence. For example, a bedroom-bathroom combination offers students the opportunity to learn and practice activities of daily living as well as to develop skills for potential job placement. See pictures of the functional rooms below under Our Facility.

Our staff is trained in applied behavior analysis methodology including: discrete trial training, natural environment training, errorless learning, prompting and cueing. We believe decisions about a student’s behavioral and educational programming should be driven by data. Therefore, data is collected and monitored on a continuous basis. Regular treatment planning sessions are held for each student to track educational and behavioral progress.

Students participate in music, art, and physical education two times a week. We are fortunate to have a certified music therapist to conduct our music classes! These special activities provide students with the opportunity to learn and to practice communication, social and leisure skills.

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Behavioral Intervention Services - Individualized Behavior Planning Supervised by a Board Certified Behavior Analyst

Many of our students come to us with challenging behaviors including aggression and self-injury. We conduct functional assessments for each student and design behavior plans to decrease maladaptive behaviors and replace them with functional skills. We use positive reinforcement strategies to build each student’s repertoire of communication skills and adaptive living skills to help minimize problem behaviors.

Click HERE to download a copy of the Sarah Dooley Center for Autism Fact Sheet.

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Speech Services - Integrated and Individual Speech Services

The role of our speech language pathologist in working with students with autism is to collaborate and consult with teachers and caregivers to create a functional system of communication for each student. Daily instruction is provided to meet the individual communication needs of students with autism.

We are dedicated to providing speech services that are functional and meaningful to the student and their families. Individual pull-out sessions are provided as indicated in the student’s IEP. In addition the student is provided with repeated opportunities to practice communication in natural learning environments in the school, across our campus, and in the community.

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Specialized Transition Services

The Sarah Dooley Center for Autism offers unique opportunities to students in need of services that support transition to adulthood. The campus style school provides us safe environments for students to try a multitude of independent living and pre-vocational training activities. Off-campus community based instruction and vocational opportunities are available as well. The system of planning integrates considerations of future placements (i.e., skills needed in the next classroom or school setting) with the student’s current program.

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Parental Involvement

Parents and caretakers are essential ingredients for our success at The Sarah Dooley Center for Autism. We are committed to working with the families of children with autism to create a bridge from school to home and beyond. We offer a variety of opportunities throughout the school year for caregiver trainings. Please contact us if you or someone you know would like more information.

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