Beacon Day School... For Students with Autism and Related Disorders

Integrative Educational Care – The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts

Think back when you were in school. Each learning day was divided amongst several subjects—language arts, math, social studies, science. A certain amount of the instructional day was devoted to each one, on its own. You were presented with facts, methods, rules, operations—but only in the context of that one subject. Traditional models of education are not effective for students with autism and related disorders. These students have challenges with communication, adaptive behavior, social skills, and self-regulation, all of which need to be generalized to home, school and the community. In recent years, however, the model of integrated education has proven to be very effective in helping students take control of their own learning—at traditional schools as well as here at "Beacon Day School". Using an innovative model such as integrative education enhances learning, not only academically, but is also critical to social-emotional and motor development.

What is integrated education?

It is an exciting model for teaching that focuses on many different subjects and goes beyond the traditional classroom that uses textbooks to teach student concepts and ways of doing things. There is a greater emphasis on projects and relationships among concepts, and offers a more relevant way of educating students. Beacon Day School uses a variety of educational experiences to enhance learning, such as community-based instruction, art and music. Integrated education focuses on all the facets that connect and influence the world of the student, enhancing learning opportunities through:

Cognition (attention, memory, language, visual/spatial functioning, reasoning and coping strategies)
Academic achievement
Adaptive behavior
Social skills
Health

An integrative educational approach supports brain behavior relationships. The brain and body are a good example of integration. In order to communicate effectively, the brain needs to take in information, process that information and then create a response. Therefore, integrating the acquisition and application of information facilitates the student’s ability to generalize in other settings and learning opportunities, including the home and community.

It focuses on the whole student and the surrounding spheres of influence within the context of the student’s home, school and community. According to Humphreys, Post and Ellis (1981, pp.11), integrated educational care is “one in which [students] broadly explore knowledge in various subjects related to certain aspects of their environment." In this sense, learning and teaching are seen in a holistic view that is interactive.

How does integrated education work?

Within its framework, there are many levels of integration. It is a broad-based concept or theme that goes across two or more subject areas to facilitate generalization. It can include implementing cross-curriculum objectives (e.g. math with nature or life science with technology) providing meaningful learning experiences that develop skills and knowledge, while leading to an understanding of their applications. This kind of integrated education allows students to broadly explore knowledge in various subjects relating to certain aspects of their environment.

Let’s use cooking as an example: choosing a recipe (reading), making a list of ingredients needed (writing), going to the grocery store to purchase them (math), measuring the ingredients (math), following the recipe (organization and sequencing). And of course, they get to enjoy the meal!

Integrated educational care also includes the faculty (and often times includes the staff) working together as teams in the planning and execution of the cross-curriculum model. They ground their plans in Beacon’s curriculum framework and mission. Key to this team effort is the Beacon Day School faculty and staff’s:

love of teaching
ability to demonstrate interpersonal skills
creativity and innovativeness
experience in having taught several subjects
technological skills

As planning takes place, the goal is to establish links with the world outside of Beacon Day School. The teachers believe that students need to understand how the experience is useful beyond the immediate classroom experience. They have sufficient autonomy to shape and modify the curriculum according to their students’ needs. This autonomy allows them also to design a classroom atmosphere that encourages inquiry and exploration, revealing to the student the interconnectedness and interrelationships among subjects--students are motivated as they discover these connections. The teachers’ teamwork and sharing across subjects are paramount to enhancing student learning through practical experience. They also incorporate into the curriculum a variety of assessments to determine what students know and can do. Their efforts result in an enriched and rewarding experience for the students here at "Beacon Day School".