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What Makes Our Program Unique?
We Teach Children to Love Learning & Have Positive Learning Experiences
- Ultimately, most parents want their children to be happy, independent, and productive members of society. This is why giving children back their self-esteem is of utmost importance to our program. Staff provides a plethora of positive behavioral support throughout the day and we also have specific classes on self-esteem. Because we understand and teach to your child’s learning style, this naturally brings out the students love of learning and fosters self-esteem.
Excellent Communication
- From our weekly phone conferences to frequent email, our families are always in good communication. Communication occurs in many ways at the School for Accelerated Learning:
- Email or phone calls anytime with teacher or directors
- Weekly phone conferences with your child’s teacher
- Weekly curriculum and weekly progress reports found on your child's webpage
- Bi-weekly parent training in your home
- Bi-monthly events for families held at our Day School
- Twice a year we send home your child’s academic achievements based upon the Massachusetts State Educational Curriculum (called “Frameworks”
- Quarterly IEP progress reports
- Yearly (or more frequent) IEP meetings
Parents Partner
- We partner with parents to help their child achieve goals. We understand that the children we serve are YOUR children, not ours. We have an open door policy where your family can visit anytime they want - no appointments needed. We provide ongoing communication, training, and support not just to your child, but to your whole family.
Low Student-to-Teacher Ratio
- We offer a low student-to-teacher ratio of 2:1 and all instruction is provided in small groups with a maximum of 8 students.
Individualized Education
- Some of our children have duel exceptionalities displaying uneven academic profiles (highly gifted in some areas and needing help in others). We meet students where they are by teaching them on whatever academic grade level they are challenged by. For example, a 6th grade student may be taking 10th grade biology, 5th grade Math, and 6th grade History and English. By providing students with academic challenges in their areas of strength, we see increased comprehension, decreased frustration, and decreased acing out behavior due to boredom. Because we are a year-round program, students have the opportunity to catch up in areas that are more challenging for them.
Complete Education
- We understand the true needs of our students, which is why we offer intensive training in "non-traditional" areas such as interpersonal communication, social skills, organization, attention, self-esteem, sensory processing, technology, and many other individual areas of need.
Year-Round Programming
- Our students require structure year round and therefore our program runs for 12 months. From September – June, our students partake in our traditional academic year schedule. In the summertime, students put on their “camp” t-shirts and generalize their skills in the community. During the summer, our program affords students the opportunity to interact with mainstreamed students (who have lesser disabilities) and generalize their social skills. Students continue with the traditional SAL structure in their classrooms, but spend 2 days per week on field trips and 1 day per week swimming. The other 2 days are spent at school engaged in a modified therapeutic and academic curriculum. Because consistency is of utmost importance, our staff are employed year round and do not have summers off.
Daily Therapeutic Activities
- Students participate in:
- Daily social skills training with our Speech Therapist
- Daily sensory integration / coping skills with our Occupational Therapist (can we have a “roll over” for the words sensory integration and coping skills?)
- Daily Executive Functioning training and weekly formal lessons
- Daily training in self-esteem and weekly formal lessons
- Weekly therapeutic groups in emotions management
- Weekly Art therapy
- Weekly music therapy
- Weekly daily living skills lesson
Data Driven Programs
- Although the smiles on our students and families faces show our success, we insist upon empirical data for confirmation. By tracking and analyzing regular data on academic and social skills, we are able to finely tune your child's individualized curriculum so s/he can have the most effective programming possible. We know how precious time is; thus, should an issue arise, we are immediately aware of it and quickly implement a solution.
Using Positive Incentives & Behavior Plans
- Our behavior plans are ideal because we focus on EARLY INTERVENTION before the child becomes escalated. All people have early warning signs that s/he might be becoming dysregulated, agitated, frustrated, or experiencing a heightened emotional state.
- Our plans are ideal because:
- They focus on keeping students regulated throughout the day through in-class and out of class breaks
- If a student is feeling less regulated, we teach students coping skills they can use to regain regulation.
- They use positive reinforcement (instead of negative)
Executive Functioning Deficits Addressed
- Our curriculum is designed to address executive functioning deficits.
We Teach Using Multiple Modalities
- So many of our students learn best in multiple modalities. Therefore lessons are taught using verbal, visual, and kinesthetic (hand's-on) methods of teaching.
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