close

School seeks support to help kids with autism

4 min read

The statistics are frightening, and they are getting worse. For the last few years, experts estimated that 1 in 163 children would be born autistic.

Today that figure is 1 in 150. And last week, a prominent medical journal released a study of families with autistic children who had exceptionally high divorce rates because of the stress.

Earlier this year, Dr. Renee Terrasi opened the Peace By Pice Learning Center in North Fort Myers to serve children and families effected by autism, using Applied Behavior Analysis or ABA.

“It’s a science of how you teach, the type of treatment I do,” she said.

“You hear of all kinds of different treatments for autism, but this is the only scientifically proven intervention to help these children.”

Terrasi said she researched the method extensively, not only for professional but for personal reasons. She had her masters degree in special education and was going on for her doctorate when she had a foster child who had autism.

“I learned quickly how hard it is as a parent to get any services for these kids,” she said.

The idea for her school came from her foster child’s school experiences.

“He had no language, and it’s a fight for a lot of parents to get the children the services they need in the public schools, and it shouldn’t have to be,” she said.

She said public schools are not required to use ABA, which she strongly believes in so she opened her private school and serves as director.

“This is the only private school for kids like this from Naples to Sarasota,” she said.

She started the school with her own money, as a non-profit corporation that provides specialized educational services for children and youth with autism and related disorders.

“It’s not just for autistic children,” she said.

Programs are designed to meet the unique educational needs of each student in the development of communication, social, behavioral, academic and life skills necessary to live a productive and independent life.

“We are a year-round school,” she said. “Our extended school year setting facilitates the students need for ongoing education and therapy. Too often all is lost over the summer break and Peace By Piece is committed to engaging our students year round.”

“One of my top priorities is to provide families with a plethora of support and education,” Terrasi said. “We attempt to accomplish this by prioritizing parents’ needs, working collaboratively to ensure their child’s success, as well as providing them with complimentary respite care once a month. This group will provide the opportunity for parents of special needs children to come together and provide each other with support, information and an empathetic ear.”

ABA therapy and other support programs are expensive, she said. After opening the school with her own money, she said she also tried to keep tuition low. It’s $25,000 where similar schools charge $35,000, and the school is a McKay Scholarship Provider where some children get financial aid.

She is hoping to get community support to help with high overhead to be able to offer more services and scholarships.

“We could use help with donations, volunteers, or if someone had a building available to help with rent or even Internet it would help,” she said.

She said she would welcome any type of volunteer to be able to serve more families and children.

She encourages parents of autistic children to apply McKay Scholarship.

“Applying for the scholarship is kind of like a safety net,” she said. “It’s there if you need it but if you find that you don’t you haven’t lost anything.” You can keep your child in their current placement, she said, but if at some point this year you become dissatisfied, you have already completed the required steps in order to use the scholarship.

To be considered for the scholarship, the student must have an Individual Educational Plan (IEP), must be entering grades K-12 and must have been spent the prior school year in attendance at a Florida public school.

Applying is very simple and very quick, she said, taking only about two minutes and can be done online at www.floridaschoolchoice.org.

She is now launching a new program, working with Autistic Service Dogs of America, soon getting a special dog to be part of her school. Terrasi actually studied animals and autism, mainly with research on dolphins.

“Children and animals are my two favorite populations,” she said.

Peace By Piece Learning Center is located at 965 Pondella Rd. in North Fort Myers. For more information, call Terrasi at 652-4323 or go to the school’s Web site, peacebypieceinc.com.