Children with autism learn beside St. Clement students |
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Written by LAURIE STEVENS BERTKE, Chronicle Writer
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Friday, 06 February 2009 01:00 |
TOLEDO—Seeing how eagerly he raises his hand in class to answer questions today, it is hard to believe 7-year-old Terry Jagodzinski was nonverbal just a few short years ago.
In fact, Terry’s progress as a student in the School for Autistically Impaired Learners (SAIL) at Toledo St. Clement, a Catholic elementary school, has been nothing short of a miracle to his mother, Kimberlee Jagodzinski.
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| SAIL instructor Dacia Bolden assists Ethan Hamernick, a student in the
SAIL program at Toledo St. Clement, as he works beside Madison Terry, a
St. Clement student, in Kim Inglis’ second-grade classroom. (Chronicle
photo by Laurie Stevens Bertke) |
When she and her husband, Patrick, enrolled Terry in SAIL at age 3, he did not speak, and like many children with autism, had difficulty making eye contact with others. "He wasn’t really aware of what other people were doing around him," says Mrs. Jagodzinski.
With the individualized, one-on-one developmental instruction he receives from SAIL, a private provider of services to children diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorders, Terry was able to learn to talk, to read and write and otherwise interact with the world around him.
Now through a unique partnership between SAIL and St. Clement, he spends his school days learning in a classroom beside typical second-grade students.
"Academically, he’s right with his peers in everything he’s doing," says Mrs. Jagodzinski. "It’s just amazing to see him now."
This is the third year SAIL has rented three classrooms inside St. Clement School, and Mrs. Jagodzinski believes Terry would never have made such progress without that opportunity to learn in an integrated environment.
Marion Boss, executive director of SAIL, says parents of children in the year-round program want inclusion more than anything else. "Typical children are our best teachers," she explains.
At ages as young as 2 or 3, children diagnosed with autism can begin working one-on-one with a SAIL instructor to learn the behaviors they need to master before they join other students in the classrooms at St. Clement. "Until our children can do those things, we don’t send them, because we’d be setting them up for failure," explains Dr. Boss. "And we want them to succeed."
When a child like Terry is ready to mainstream into St. Clement classrooms, a SAIL instructor still accompanies him or her to provide support.
And according to several teachers, SAIL students can also count on plenty of encouragement from their peers at St. Clement.
"The other students really go out of their way to help the SAIL students feel included," says Brannon Gore, floor supervisor for SAIL.
Dr. Boss, who has seen major transformations occur in Terry and other SAIL students in the program at St. Clement, notes it’s a myth that children with autism are mentally retarded or slow learners. "Once our kids get on their feet, they fly — because they’re so bright and capable," she says.
Students in SAIL are not officially on the roster as St. Clement students since they attend SAIL through the Ohio Autism Scholarship Program, but St. Clement principal Patti Irons says they are still very much a part of the Catholic school community. They wear the same uniforms, eat lunch in the cafeteria with St. Clement students, and participate in computer, music, art and physical education classes. Their birthdays are included in morning announcements and their pictures are in the school yearbook.
SAIL children are also welcome to participate in the spiritual life activities of St. Clement, and many of them regularly attend the school Masses.
"That’s all-inclusive," says Mrs. Irons. "Church is a part of who we are, so of course that has to be a part of who they are if they’re included with us, because it’s what we do."
About half of the 12 students in SAIL this year come from Catholic families, but Dr. Boss says the parish ambiance and Christ-based teaching found at St. Clement is "very sought after by all my families."
Mrs. Jagodzinski considers it a blessing to be able to send her son to a program in Catholic school, since she and her husband are Catholic school graduates and their daughter attended Toledo St. Catherine of Siena, their parish school.
"We just appreciate everything St. Clement has done for the SAIL program," says Mrs. Jagodzinski. "It’s just an amazing journey watching our son develop into the person he’s becoming."
The partnership with SAIL also benefits students at St. Clement by helping them become "caring and compassionate kids," Mrs. Irons says.
"It just teaches them about diversity, it teaches them [that] everybody isn’t the same in our world and yet we’re all brothers and sisters in Christ," she says. "If they’re learning that about the kids that they’re shoulder to shoulder with, where’s that going to carry forward in their lives?"
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 31 March 2009 15:14 |
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