VIDEO: Luke Mammel—a student in the Standard 9 Transition Concentration at Y.A.L.E.’s Cherry Hill Campus—loves music and loves to perform. He dreams of one day becoming a professional musician and children’s entertainer, so the staff set out to find him an audience.

One morning this January at St. Andrew’s preschool in Cherry Hill, an enthusiastic crowd of young children and their teachers welcomed Luke and his guitar. He sang and played for the children for about 30 minutes each at two performances, covering favorites such as “Puff the Magic Dragon” and “There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.”

The transition team at Cherry Hill launched Alumni Night several years ago, when they identified the need for current students to connect with peers about the often difficult and confusing path to college, employment, and independent living, and the transportation required to make it all happen! Alumni Night underscores The Y.A.L.E. School’s commitment to providing transition guidance that does not end when a student graduates. It is a valuable forum for students to learn from one another about the next phase in life—searching for a job or college, dating and relationships, getting an apartment, or learning to drive.

Most of Y.A.L.E’s graduates attend area community colleges and many live independently. In fact, for graduates whose transition objectives identified college as a goal, over 95% have enrolled in college courses. Because these students face many academic, residential and social challenges as they pursue their dream of college, the team at Y.A.L.E. is exploring ways to better support students after they have graduated from Y.A.L.E.

This year, nearly 100 guests came to Alumni Night, planned by Y.A.L.E’s Standard 9 students. A student DJ played favorite musical selections, students arranged for food and refreshments to be served, and used an iPhone app to check in guests who had RSVPd. Guests reunited with friends and teachers, played Nintendo Wii games, and danced and talked.

While students hung out, parents, guardians, and Y.A.L.E staff gathered for a presentation by Dr. Nancy J. Patrick, Associate Professor of Special Education and Director of the Graduate Program in Education at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania. Dr. Patrick is the author of Social Skills for Teenagers and Adults with Asperger Syndrome: A Practical Guide to Day-to-day Life. During her presentation, she discussed transition issues and emphasized the need for parents to adapt to their changing parental roles during the turbulent years for young adults with disabilities. Dr. Patrick invited parents to become mentors and guidance counselors—while at the same time adjusting their expectations to realize that it may take much longer for their children to arrive at desired outcomes than it would for a typical young person.

Alumni Night 2012 was a success, both in terms of fun and entertainment and for social interaction and learning for our students and alumni. With the exponential growth of the Standard 9 Transition Concentration over the last several years, Alumni Night is sure to expand even more in the years ahead.

As a girl, Goossens traveled extensively and experienced an unconventional international education. Once in the U.S., as a high school student, her father and others encouraged her to pursue a medical career.

“The only two certainties I had at the time were that I wanted to be in a helping profession and wanted to work with children,” recalled Goossens. She began her college experience at Barnard University in New York as a pre-med student, with the expectation that she would become a pediatrician.

While at Barnard, Dr. Goossens took her first psychology course with a professor who she said changed her life. Simultaneously, she began working summers at a small, innovative private school in Connecticut for children with autism.

“The school did not follow the traditional theories and insisted on looking beyond what was expected,” recalled Goossens. As a result of these two influences, she changed her major and transferred to Bard College to pursue a degree in psychology. There, an advisor who shared her interest in autism worked with her on research and a thesis building on the pioneering work of Dr. Bernard Rimland, founder and director of San Diego’s Autism Research Institute. She went on to Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, where she completed a master’s degree in child psychology, a doctorate in human development, and, along the way, obtained a certificate in school psychology—helping to set her course.

Dr. Goossens appreciates her good fortune and privilege to work in settings that welcomed her hands-on approach, as well as her desire to work with students, parents, and teachers in a collaborative, creative way. She has worked as an evaluator at the Child Study Institute at Bryn Mawr, a school psychologist at a Montessori School, and has headed the psychology team at the Bancroft School. It was there, in the early 1990s, that she first worked with students who had been given the diagnosis of Asperger’s.

Later, Dr. Goossens accepted a position with New Jersey’s Pitman School District, where she worked for more than seven years. There, forward-thinking school leadership allowed her to create innovative interventions for students, provide training and direct support to teachers, develop appropriate transition plans for students returning to district from specialized settings, as well as work with students with Asperger’s and similar profiles within the kindergarten through eighth-grade classes.

“Those years gave me invaluable insight into the workings of a public school, the manner in which inclusion works or does not work, the reality our students face in such environments, as well as the issues faced by parents, child study teams and administrators,” said Dr. Goossens.

Then, in September of 2000, Dr. Goossens joined The Y.A.L.E. School at a time when their program for students with Asperger’s was in its infancy. She now oversees clinical and educational services for roughly 50 students in six classrooms housed in public schools in Medford and Mansfield Township. She is a sought-after speaker at conferences and workshops, and lectures at colleges.
“I love public speaking,” said Goossens, “but nothing is as rewarding as the day-to-day impact I can have on students: teaching social skill groups, working with teachers, providing staff development sessions, or simply being in the classroom. Our kids teach me something new every day.”

As you bustle about getting ready for the holidays, imagine for a moment being a child with autism: the stranger with a white beard and a red fur coat is terrifying, new foods present a sensory overload, music is too loud, lights are too bright, and riding in the car or traveling a new route can provoke a tantrum.

While the holidays can be a challenging time of year for anyone, it can be especially hard for a child with autism. The students at The Y.A.L.E School’s Voorhees campus receive year-round instruction designed to prepare them to navigate some of these stressors.

New Foods

With so many new and tasty foods on menus these days, dietary restrictions and food sensitivities can make the holidays particularly difficult for a child on the spectrum, including Samantha. Sam would jump from her seat and run to eat other students’ food during lunch, or would tantrum when she wanted to eat something that her dietary restrictions didn’t allow.

Our staff used a waiting program—referred to in the teaching literature as “differential reinforcement of other behaviors,” or DRO—to help her gradually learn to increase the length of time she could wait for food, and to help her tolerate being around foods she could not have. In the beginning, Sam could wait only ten seconds, but now she is comfortable waiting two minutes before receiving a desired food. The skill makes a real difference in Samantha’s life because she also uses it at home—making dinner and holiday get-togethers less stressful for everyone.

Long Rides and Changes in Routine

Seven-year-old Nikoli used to have a difficult time on long car rides—a holiday ritual for many families. To help him and his parents, The Y.A.L.E School took teaching ‘on the road’—literally—providing direct instruction in the car. Staff rewarded Nikoli for appropriate behaviors, and over time, the car rides became longer and longer. Once he learned the skill, staff showed his parents how to use the strategy. Nikoli now uses a token board when he goes out, which serves as a visual reminder to help motivate him during longer holiday car rides.

Social and Sensory Overload

For some students, the sounds and sights of the winter holidays can be jarring. To help students become more accustomed to the all of the Santas, menorahs, flashing lights, candles, and loud music they may encounter, teachers at Y.A.L.E. start early in the year. During morning meeting, the teacher may show pictures or a video, or may introduce holiday-themed items into daily instruction to help de-sensitize students. Teachers play holiday music during recess to help prepare students for the music they may hear in the car or at the mall. For some students, it can be difficult to adjust to unfamiliar people coming into their home or classroom. The Y.A.L.E School’s Voorhees campus hosts holiday events throughout the year, including a Halloween walk and Thanksgiving feast, to help students adjust and become more accustomed to new faces and changes in routine.

A Team Approach

Y.A.L.E. teachers collaborate with board-certified behavior analysts, the school principal, and especially parents to develop strategies to help students navigate the holiday season and secure a toolbox of skills to help them in the future. “These life skills—riding in the car, waiting at mealtime and tolerating change—need to be used at home, so our teachers have frequent contact with parents,” said Ann Davidson, Director at the Voorhees campus. “We help them through parent training, education and support, and they in turn, help us gain more insight and understanding of issues they face, not just during the holiday season, but all year long.”

This year, the young adults in our Standard 9 concentration worked in conjunction with student services at Camden County College (CCC), collecting more than 50 coats to be distributed to different charities in South Jersey.

“It felt good to help those who need coats, especially in the wintertime,” said Zach Wiltshire, a Standard 9 student.

Food Drive

For the eighth straight year, students at The Y.A.L.E. School’s Cherry Hill campus collected food to benefit the Food Bank of South Jersey—this year, amassing more than 551 pounds of food. “We chose the Food Bank of South Jersey because it benefits a lot of our kids,” said organizer Sue Angelucci, a teaching assistant in Ms. Anna Bouvier’s classroom.

Standard 9 students got involved too, hosting a pretzel sale that raised money to buy groceries for the food bank. The lesson cut across the curriculum when students boosted their buying power through “extreme couponing”—cutting out coupons to assist them in their grocery shopping.

A Year-Round Effort

Service learning is part of each student’s IEP, and does not end when the winter holidays are over. In the past, Y.A.L.E. students have picked up trash at Palmyra Cove Nature Park; traveled to the Cathedral Kitchen in Camden with packets of place settings and canned food; raised money for Father Chuck’s Challenge, a Catholic-based charity that builds weatherproof homes for Nicaraguans; made cards and care packages for chemotherapy patients at the University of Pennsylvania’s cancer center; raised money for the American Cancer Society, Alex’s Lemonade Stand and The American Red Cross earthquake relief effort in Japan; supported TerraCycle, a recycling company that gives money from recycled items to charity; and collected candy wrappers and other items, also to raise money.

John Barnard, an accomplished clinician and educator, joins the Y.A.L.E. School team with almost 20 years of experience working with individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities in both home-based and center-based instructional environments.

A frequent presenter at professional conferences, Mr. Barnard has experience with the individualized and comprehensive curriculum sequencing that guides the early intensive behavioral intervention model for young children with autism. Recently, Mr. Barnard has focused his clinical efforts on supporting school-aged students in inclusive, center-based, and community-based placements, and now looks forward to bringing his insight to Y.A.L.E.’s autism campuses in Audubon and Hamilton Township.

Barnard earned a Masters of Science in Education in Curriculum, Instruction, and Technology in Education/Applied Behavior Analysis from Temple University. He has studied with and worked alongside many respected professionals in the field, and has provided ongoing training and consultation to instructional teams and families across the country.

In addition to being a clinician, he is also an educator: He is certified by the New Jersey Department of Education as a Teacher of the Handicapped. A part-time adjunct faculty member at Rowan University, Mr. Barnard provides instruction in Applied Behavior Analysis at both the graduate and undergraduate level.

Robison, whose books include the memoir “Look Me In The Eye” and his latest work, “Be Different: Adventures of a Free Range Aspergian” came to New Jersey as part of two events sponsored by The Y.A.L.E. School: one for the public held in cooperation with Camden County College’s Center for Civic Leadership and Responsibility and PACT, and a second event for students at The Y.A.L.E. School’s Cherry Hill campus.

During the presentation at Camden County College, Robison spoke to an engrossed audience of people of all ages and backgrounds about his unique life and experiences as an individual with Asperger’s. Later, he signed copies of his books, and spoke with the guests.

The following morning, Robison addressed a packed auditorium of Y.A.L.E. students and staff members, sharing anecdotes about his personal journey. He offered advice and guidance to our young “Aspergians” about how to cope with being different, use their unique talents and interests to succeed in life, and embrace their eccentricities. He offered an insider’s perspective on growing up a “geek,” and eventually finding his place within the community and raising a family along the way (Robison is the father of a college-aged son who is on the spectrum).

Later that morning, Robison met with 12 students from our Car Club (one of Y.A.L.E’s social skills clubs). He talked with them about his car restoration business, describing his love of classic Range Rovers and of his first car, a VW Beetle he named “The Pig Maimer.” He shared stories of repairing engines, restoring vintage Porsches, and showed them photographs from his travels. Students listened intently to Robison’s advice to follow their interests and to work hard at finding their niche. They asked many questions and were encouraged by his straightforward and pragmatic belief that one can define success in many different ways.

Robison followed an unusual path to prosperity as an entrepreneur, author, musician, mechanic, sound engineer, electronics designer, adjunct professor and public speaker. Robison has alternately designed and built special-effects guitars for and toured with the rock band KISS, pioneered concert sound equipment for Pink Floyd, and designed early electronic games and video game systems for Milton Bradley. Recently, he joined the science and treatment boards of Autism Speaks and is an active participant on Wrong Planet, an online community for people with Asperger’s. He also owns and operates a busy vintage automobile restoration and detailing shop in his hometown of Amherst, Massachusetts.

Parents are often dismayed by the idea that their children with Asperger’s may not follow a traditional road of school, college, career, marriage, family. Robison’s work with our students helped them to realize that their differences can empower them to live the lives they wish to lead and be happy, even if it takes them longer to reach that destination.

“I loved that he was so genuine and honest,” said Stephanie Slater, principal of the Y.A.L.E. Cherry Hill Upper School. “He was very practical and didn’t sugarcoat his words with our students. He urged our kids to be realistic about their futures and not to use their Asperger’s as an excuse to avoid challenging themselves.”

Robison recommends “Aspergians” find real-world applications for their individual interests, make positive connections with like-minded peers, learn when to keep quiet and blend in when necessary, and practice and perfect their talents no matter what they may be.

“Y.A.L.E. School is committed to helping our students use self-determination and self-advocacy to realize their full potential,” said Y.A.L.E. Standard 9 Concentration coordinator Margaret Chapman, who helped organize both events.

“We were thrilled to welcome John to our campus to meet with our kids and talk to them about the value of ‘being different,’” added Chapman. “John’s message is about learning to get along in the world and find a niche, without leaving behind the strengths, insights and perspectives that come with Asperger’s. It is a very powerful message. He is a great mentor for our students.”