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School is specially suited for autistic students
The Vindicator
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Ann Ferguson helps Brendan Baird and Justin Clark with a visual exercise at The Potential Development Center, designed to give easily distracted autistic children a structured environment.
The Vindicator
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Ethan Niemczura works with Legos at The Potential Development Center on Youngstown’s South Side.
The Vindicator
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Kody Bennett and Ann Ferguson work on a visual exercise at The Potential Development Center on Indianola Avenue in Youngstown.
By Robert Guttersohn
YOUNGSTOWN
The Potential Development School of Autism on the Southeast Side is a single-story building fitted for the unique 55 students it educates.
With hallway floors lined with tape telling students where to go and dividers between desks, the school is structured to give easily distracted autistic children the best opportunity at an education — an education that may not be possible at a public school.
“Instead of getting an appropriate education, their socials skills or their anxieties are holding them back,” said Marilyn Fielding, its director. “We, here, are trained to deal with those kinds of things.”
One important aspect of their education is sensory breaks, or mini-recesses, autistic students frequently need between lessons.
“I can’t tell you how that’s turned around some of our kids,” Fielding said.
A large sensory-break area for the students at the 880 E. Indianola Ave. school, however, is incomplete. A jungle gym occupies half of a playground while the other half is filled with mounds of dirt.
When preparing the ground, workers dug down and discovered water flowing downhill from an old hospital next door. They were forced to lay pipe which diverted the water but also shot up the cost of construction.
“So that was extra money that we weren’t counting on,” she said.
The project now costs more than $40,000, and the school has paid only half.
To help complete the project, the school is competing nationally for votes with hundreds of other organizations for a top 15 position and a $10,000 Pepsi Refresh grant. Recently, the school was in 17th place.
Readers can vote at refresheverything.com. Click on current leaders and find the school under the $10K tab.
“We have children from the whole spectrum of autism,” Fielding said. “We have the very high- functioning Asperger kids, who are close to grade level. And we have the extremely nonverbal, way-below-grade-level kids.”
Because each child has different needs, teachers explore what method works to calm the students before the lessons begin.
Jenna Narducci, one of the school’s 11 special- education teachers, said she likes to play soft music for the students at the beginning of the day.
“We try to start the morning off a little bit lower in stress,” she said.
For others, she said they’ll swing or apply deep pressure to the head or hands.
Bert Ehrenberg, who has taught at the school for just over a year, said there is a bond formed between the teacher and an autistic student.
“They need you,” he said.
He finds reward in seeing the student’s progress socially and academically.
For Narducci, that reward prevents her from being burned out.
“At the end of the day, looking at them and looking and how much progress they’ve made in a year or in a week or a day, it’s definitely something that keeps you motivated,” Narducci said.