Autistic students mainstreamed

May 10, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

By MISTI CRANE

Columbus Dispatch

COLUMBUS

Rebecca Morrison had no blueprint and plenty of people quick to second-guess her dream.

She wanted to see what would happen if she took a typical school environment and taught children who are on the autism spectrum alongside children without disabilities.

That’s done, to a degree, in classrooms all over the country. But Morrison, who’d spent 14 years in the public sector before going back to school for her doctorate, didn’t want just one or two children with autism in class. She also didn’t want them to be singled out for one-on-one lessons.

It is her conviction that the disorder is rooted in a lack of social competency. If you can teach good behavior, through constant and appropriate reminders about social expectations, you pave the way to broader learning, she believes.

Ideally, that should happen from an early age and include a lot of exposure to children who are developing typically, she said.

Morrison started Oakstone Academy a decade ago and has watched it grow to serve more than 500 children in preschool through 12th grade at multiple buildings in Columbus and Westerville.

There’s always a waiting list. And there are a lot of parents happy to tell stories of children transforming. They commend Morrison and the staff she carefully chooses and grooms. At times, you can walk into a class and be unable to tell the difference between the “typically developing” peers and the children who have autism.

Now, a philanthropist from Florida is raising $18 million to open a similar school there in 2013.

About 40 percent of Oakstone’s students fall somewhere on the spectrum. The rest are siblings, the children of staff members, or from families who wanted a private-school atmosphere without the cost.

Parents of students without autism pay $500 a year in fees. Standard tuition for children on the spectrum runs from $26,500 to $28,500, much of which is subsidized.

There is one teacher for every six students. In most other schools, teachers are responsible for closer to 20 children.

The behavior expected of students is embedded in the curriculum, plastered on the walls and reinforced constantly.