Inspiration
I became so invested in this experience that I soon decided to go to graduate school in counseling; I wanted to work in this field professionally. In addition, I was concerned about where Graham would go to school as he got older. Who would understand what we were trying to do? Who would both tolerate his oddities and use his unusual passions to fuel his desire to relate to and communicate with others? In fact, I did become an LPC in Georgia and did begin working with families to help them learn how to “do floortime” with their children. And as Graham grew into his teen years, I knew that there needed to be a school that helped adolescents to grow into thinking, feeling, self-reflective individuals, in spite of their sensory-regulatory problems, and their language, auditory, visual-spatial, and motor system processing challenges. This was the genesis of the program now called The Community School in Decatur, Georgia.
The Community School works with a small group of teenagers, all on the autistic spectrum. We are one of only a few schools in the country that bases its approach and its curriculum on the DIR Model. Almost every part of the school week is laden with affect-based engagement and interaction for every student. What we have seen is that all the students get better at skills that actually enable them to move ahead in school. They get better at thinking, at analyzing, at comparing points of view, and at expressing their ideas. This is what every parent hopes for—and it’s what motivates and inspires me every day.
