Autism Center Moves To New Headquarters
Wheeling's Augusta Levy Learning Center, the first and only intensive autism treatment program in the Ohio Valley, will celebrate a move to more spacious quarters in the former Sacred Heart Church in North Wheeling with a grand opening at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 26. The public is invited to attend.
Kathy Shapell, founder and executive cirector, said the program is expanding to meet the ever-increasing need of Ohio Valley families for autism education.
"We are overwhelmed by the enormous number of children who need services because they can't get them anywhere else," Shapell said. "This new space will allow us to expand our program to serve more children."
Autism is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder that affects a child's ability to understand and communicate language, to interact socially and to learn as their peers do. The incidence rate for autism has reached epidemic proportions, now affecting one in every 150 children, yet educational programs have not grown to keep up with the immense need.
The Levy Center has experienced success right from its start. It held its first graduation in 2006. Manuel Miller began attending a regular preschool after only a year of intensive therapy at the center. Manuel, who had been diagnosed with autism in 2005, could not tolerate a typical classroom without uncontrollable tantrums. He also did not use language. Today, Manuel is indistinguishable from his first grade classmates.
"This school is a blessing to our family," said Manuel's mother, Jessica Stradwick, who now is a therapist at the Levy Center. "Manuel is a different child now thanks to the expertise of the center. They live by the philosophy that best practices yield the best results, and Manuel and the other students are proof of that."
Other parents echo Stradwick's words. Fran Adams, the mother of a child at the Levy Center says, "If you want to see a miracle, listen to my son sing happily or ask for something he needs or wants. The Levy Center has given me the best gift I could ever hope to have and that is my child's voice, smile and attention."
Experts estimate that autism costs the United States $35 billion annually. Shapell said the cost of treating autism could be reduced by two-thirds with early intervention.
Shapell opened the Augusta Levy Learning Center in 2005. The center originally located in space donated by Wheeling's Zion Lutheran Church, which embraced the autism crisis as part of its mission. The Levy Center outgrew the space after only a year.
"As the only evidence-based autism program in the region, we've been bursting at the seams while searching for a larger, more suitable space," Shapell said. "We have more than 100 children on our waiting list and get new inquiries weekly from all over West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania." The move to the former Health Right offices in the old Sacred Heart Church at 99 N Main St. in Wheeling will enable the center to double its enrollment.
The move was accomplished thanks to a partnership with Wheeling Housing Authority, which owns the Sacred Heart building.
Shapell said the new location is ideal in many respects, especially because each student at the Levy Center has a curriculum based on his or her needs and abilities and receives at least the recommended 30-40 hours a week of intensive, one-to-one instruction.
"Because of the small examining rooms left by Health Right, we did not have to tear down or put up any walls," she said. "This new space will allow the center to serve more students and to better serve current students, with individual therapy rooms, a sensory room, and a 'mock' school room to help prepare students to transition from one-to-one learning to a classroom."
The Levy Center uses Applied Behavior Analysis, a systematic approach to teaching small, measurable units of behavior, from relatively simple responses like making eye contact to spontaneous communication and social interaction.
Using methods pioneered and proven by Dr. O. Ivar Lovaas of UCLA and his colleagues, the Levy Center aims to transform the lives of children with autism while enhancing the language, social, academic and independent living skills of its students through a year-round, intensive, one-on-one therapeutic program.
Through the use of these research-based methods, the Augusta Levy Learning Center achieves breakthrough progress for its students, while serving as a resource for area school districts in West Virginia and Ohio. "Educating children with autism effectively is an immense challenge," Shapell said.
Although it requires commitment, great skill, and parent involvement, the enter is able to centralize those skills so that it can partner with area school districts in meeting this challenge.
"Our ultimate goal is to enable its students to return to more typical classroom settings in their home school districts," she said. "In the three years since the school opened, one-third of our students have achieved this goal, while all of our students have made significant progress."
A unique component of the program is parent involvement. Parents are considered the most essential part of the child's educational team and are trained by Lovaas consultants to work alongside the child's therapists and to implement programs in the home. This critical component is essential to establishing a true evidence-based program.
The center is named for Augusta K. Levy, a longtime teacher who epitomized skill and commitment needed to teach children that previously had been labeled as unteachable.
