Our Head of School, Gail Faithful, and teachers, Karen Johnson and Merrilee Bridgeman, have 31 years of combined experience teaching students with Asperger's, High Functioning Autism and similar Social and Communication challenges.
In our experience, each child is unique and a student does not need a diagnosis to attend The Epiphany School. The commonality of our students is that they move through the social world a little differently and benefit from having social and communication skills directly taught throughout the school day. Therefore, in addition to a strong academic focus, our students are actively engaged in discussion, modeling, corrected practice and a variety of activities which explain and teach a hierarchy of social and communication skills. This hierarchy of approximately 100 skills is the foundation of our social and communication curriculum.
These skills are taught each afternoon during our "Friends and Feelings" class and they are also addressed in teachable moments during the entire school day. It is through this consistent and targeted intervention that a student becomes more proficient. We see the results of skills that are absorbed and not just smoothed onto the surface. As one student shared, "I can make a friend, but it was always hard for me to keep a friend. I never knew I was breaking the rules for keeping a friend."
The focus of The Epiphany School is to maintain strong academics and to teach social skills daily so that in an average of two years, a student can return to a more mainstream school setting. Epiphany is a place where children thrive, not just survive.
While there is no "cure" for Asperger’s, we would argue that there does not need to be one. We agree with Tony Attwood's reflection; "I consider that children and adults with Asperger’s Syndrome have a different, not defective, way of thinking."
We strongly believe that through the acquisition of social and communication skills, a student's academic and interpersonal experiences can be significantly improved. Simply put, a child's life is more enjoyable when he or she child can communicate more effectively and enjoy social interactions.