In Providence, R.I., programs for children with autism integrated into public schools

From The Providence Journal in R.I.:

EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Anxious thoughts haunted David Stevens (pictured) by the age of 4.

In pre-kindergarten, other students’ tantrums would leave him shaking, crying and screaming. If another child touched him, he thought he was being assaulted. Teachers regularly sent home notes of concern.

Public meltdowns were frequent. His father and mother, David Sr. and Rose, endured sleep-deprived nights and family vacation trips were disrupted by David’s anxieties about loud noises and crowds.

At the Providence Center a year ago, David’s ability to cope with change and crowds and noise improved.

Nonetheless, his parents sent him to the city’s public schools this year as part of a unique new special needs program staffed collaboratively with Bradley Hospital — the country’s oldest hospital for children with mental illness, also in East Providence.

The move ends bus rides that took two hours to go a few miles to the East Side of Providence as it picked up many children with various disabilities on its route. It also lets him go to school with children he sees every day in his neighborhood.

For the city, the shift of 67 students from placements outside the school district to inside its public schools represents a savings of about $10,000 a child.

“I want them back in here and it’s not because of anything financial,” Supt. Mario Cirillo says. “That’s not the driver. These kids are special, special to me.”

In just the first year, Cirillo says, “The obvious success is we are giving [more seriously disabled] kids a program with tremendous supports in the least restricted environment. “They are allowed to take advantage of not only the ancillary benefits of being in a mainstream school setting — the sports, school band, chorus, field trips and assemblies — but even sitting in a cafeteria interacting with the rest of the student population is advantageous for them.”

Several school districts in Rhode Island and Massachusetts are watching the program’s progress to see if the model could work in their community to curb costly bills for out-of-district special education.

State Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist says, “We support this new Bradley-East Providence partnership insofar as it enables students to receive the services they need in a less restrictive setting, closer to home and with the high likelihood of integration with nondisabled peers for at least part of their school day.”

She said her department had been concerned that the programs might be concentrated in a single East Providence school but is satisfied that the East Providence children are being educated in schools throughout the city.

Bradley already has successful partnerships in Middletown and Newport but these programs are much smaller — one classroom in each community. In East Providence, there are three Bradley classrooms each at Silver Spring Elementary School and both middle schools, Martin and Riverside. They are staffed by 4 district faculty and 30 professionals from Bradley.

The students in those classrooms have behavioral and emotional disabilities — like the anxiety disorder David experiences along with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder — or more severe speech and neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism.

David Stevens Sr. now takes his son in-line skating. The young David also has the confidence and communication skills to ask a kid to play with him in the park. Breathing and other calming techniques make road trips manageable. And he even gave indoor soccer a try, although a kick to the shin “sent him over the edge,” his mother says.

“But he takes it so much better now,” she says. “He’s able to tell you, ‘I’m sweaty’ or ‘I’m getting frustrated’ and he knows how to back off. Before, he used to go in full meltdown and we didn’t know what the problem was … . That’s huge for me. That’s what I always wanted, for him to tell me how he felt.”

Academically, David decodes and sounds out words better. His math skills have improved and reading aloud is more fluent and less staccato, say his mother and his teacher, Natasha Rosa. Rosa says he often earns all possible stars “for respect and achievement,” one of many methods used to motivate students to cooperate and pay attention in class.

He’s eating lunch and attending gym class with the mainstream students at Silver Spring. Teachers plan to put David in art, music and library with his nondisabled peers next year and then gradually integrate him into a core class, such as math or science.

“I knew it was a good thing,” Rose Stevens says, remembering her first impressions of the school after meeting the staff.

Anne Walters, Bradley’s clinical director who oversees the partnership, said, “I definitely get how scary it is [for special needs families to take a chance on the new program], but there are so many advantages. I really don’t see any disadvantages.”

The mainstream students and faculty at the city’s three Bradley sites have also profited, Cirillo and Walters say. The students learn tolerance and acceptance while the teachers learn best practices with Bradley’s professionals.

Construction paper cutouts of feet decorate the walls of the corridor that leads to the Bradley partnership classrooms at Martin. The steps read, “Walking toward being a star.”

Karen Cammuso, Bradley’s assistant clinical director in charge of the Martin site, said a partnership goal is to make every moment — even the mundane walk through a hallway — a chance to educate, celebrate and encourage kids to grow.

Martin houses the partnership’s largest site, an entire wing that used to be the school’s home economics area. Seventeen students with autism and other neurodevelopment diagnoses are educated here with an average student-to-teacher ratio of 2-to-1.

Issiah Lopes and Tony Sousa share one classroom and two Bradley teachers, Emily King and Tricia Flori. Issiah, 10, has a severe communication disorder and uses sign language and pictures to state his feelings. Tony, a seventh grader, has autism and doesn’t speak. Each has his own station “so they can become more independent,” Cammuso said.

The classroom is full of things you don’t usually see in a mainstream classroom: a quiet corner with a picture of a person ssshhhing and a medicine ball to soothe students when they feel overwhelmed. Visual aids, which autistic kids use to communicate, dominate the room. Hundreds of images indicate activities, feelings, wants, time, clothing, social behavior and daily tasks.

The staff and families have together set social and academic goals. Improving life skills — mastering bathroom routines, tying shoes and zipping up pants without help — is a must. The students are also taught to respect other students’ personal space.

Although academic successes are harder to see, King says Issiah is using words more, enunciating his limited vocabulary clearly and writing in a journal each day.

Tony could only write his first name when he started at the partnership. He now can write his first and last name as well as his phone number on poster board paper. Because he has limited verbal ability, the goal is for Tony to be able to write his name, phone number and address on letter-sized paper if he should get lost in the community.

“Those progressions that we take for granted don’t come as naturally with autism spectrum students,” Cammuso said.

The staff also created ways to immerse the two partnership students with Martin’s nearly 800-student population and the outside world.

Mainstream students volunteer to come to the self-contained classrooms twice a week. They play games and complete community service projects together. Sometimes, they just Hula-Hoop.

One day last month, Issiah and Tony waited as patiently as they could for such a visit. Issiah helped with their mid-afternoon activity: Making bird feeders. He set the table with fruit and nut bird feed, honey and the pine cones that he and Tony collected outside early that morning.

When Shelby Grilo, Jessica Bartlett and Robbin Teixeira arrived, Tony began to rock back and forth — a signal that he’s “enjoying himself,” Flori said — and Issiah smiled, showing all his teeth.

“Everyone grab a pine cone,” King instructed. Jessica took two, one for Tony and another for herself.

Jessica, 14, helped Tony wipe off the extra honey and signed “all done.” The eighth grader learned sign language more than a year ago because her grandmother is deaf.

“I like helping students who don’t go out always,” Jessica said. “… It makes me feel good to help them with new experiences.”

Joey Antonio’s father, Gary Antonio, took a leap of faith when he allowed his autistic son to transfer out of Northern Rhode Island Collaborative, in Pawtucket, where he did well, and into Martin.

The 14-year-old interacts easily with new people, but has a terrible time with change from his daily routine. Yet his father was trying to blend families with his fiancée, Lisa Pomfret, whose 12-year-old son, Dylan Perry, attends Martin.

“It’s been tremendous for his socialization,” Pomfret said, “because he’s surrounded by kids he knew” from Orlo Avenue Elementary School, which he attended before school officials decided he needed the resources of an out-of-district school.

Joey is thriving at the city middle school. He reads newspaper circulars. He is able to talk about what he wants and recognizes personal space. His doctor reduced his medication and “flare ups” are fewer. He is also getting better with grooming and personal hygiene.

He integrated first with the cafeteria, then field trips and assemblies. At a schoolwide celebration of pi early in the year, the long mathematical value that is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, Joey demonstrated his impressive ability to remember even the smallest detail. He got on stage and rattled off more than 100 digits from memory. Other unique talents include telling people the day of the week they were born if they tell him their birth date and zip codes if they state their address.

He also began attending Pam Riel’s seventh grade social studies class — 20 minutes at first, but now the entire 45 minutes. King, the Bradley teacher and behavior specialist, comes with him.

Joey’s desk looks like all the other student desks, but has rubber bands around its legs so Joey can bounce his legs and reduce stress rather than get up and disrupt the class.

As Riel’s class reviewed war-torn Afghanistan, Joey shouted out sentences when it was his time to read aloud. He didn’t struggle over the words, but didn’t pause at the end of sentences.

Not one student flinched or laughed as Joey read four paragraphs. Then student Kassidy Maciel, whom Joey first met at Orlo, worked with him on an assignment.

He recently was named the most improved student in Riel’s class and was rewarded with a trip to a Pawsox game.

“I’m very proud of him,” says his father.

Said Pomfret, his fiancée, “It is a phenomenal program … . And what’s nice is when you have that special needs child, you always have that fear of if they’re going to be OK. We don’t have that fear with him there. We know he’s going to be OK.”