Bankbridge Development Center
Reported by Hayato Mine from Pyramid Consultant of Japan
１． What is the Bankbridge Development Center?
Bankbridge Development Center is the school attending students with
special needs including autism or pervasive developmental disorders. The
building is located on the Gloucester County in New Jersey founded in 1994.
It was opened by Dr. Andrew Bondy, a world-renowned leader in education
and research, Ms. Lori Frost, Meg, current principal, and more and the
number of students was 3 peoples when the school was opened. Currently, it
has 185 students, age 3 to 21 years. The population in New Jersey is about 8
million, and there are about 1 hundred school areas. Each school area has
the program of special needs, but sometimes, each county also has it
independently. This school is one of it, and many students who have special
needs attend to there from around counties because this school provides
excellent educational program. One of the major roles of this school is
teaching important and helpful skills as developmentally-appropriate, and
making it available for coming back to school of their neighborhood. In fact,
there are students that they came back school of their neighborhood and are
also going on to college.
２． About the classroom and the stuff
The physical plant is very wide. It is divided into 2 areas, A wing and B
wing. In A wing, there are preschool students the age from 3 to 7. And in B,
there are elementally, junior high, and high school students.
It is grouped classes by age basically, but it is sometimes grouped by
developmental skill level depending on lessons. The number of students in a
class is about 8 peoples now. There are 1 major teacher and 2
paraprofessionals of each class. Furthermore, it is decided by state
institution that additional teacher takes charge of students who have a lot of
behavior problems or need medical care.
School teacher, speech therapist, occupational therapist, physical therapist,
and social worker work on a full-time basis in this school. All of stuff
member are about 120 people. All stuffs receive stuff-training very hard
because they provide high-quality teaching for their students.
Course hours are usually from 8:45am～2:45pm and from Monday to
Friday. The number of school days during a year is 200 days.
３． About the classes and the lessons
There is a play area, study area, group area, and more in the classroom.
Because teachers move the classroom setting closer to real lives place, they
keep to a minimum physical structure (e.g. using lower partition, making
better use of the wall etc.). There are only set up desks and chairs but no
partition in high school class.
structure of preschool classroom
All students are provided to individually visual schedule so that they can
act having a clear vision. It comes in a variety of forms (e.g. picture only,
picture and words, words only etc.). Teachers don’t give students a cue of
checking a schedule and they teach for students that finishing the work or
activity is the natural cue of checking a schedule. So, teachers teach from
behind by physical prompt for children that have not acquired the skill yet.
They don’t use verbal prompt kind of disturbing independently action.
individually visual schedule and visual direction
All students are provided various visual communication systems for
expressive and understanding it. In understanding communication system
that is not visual schedule, there are various visual picture cards that show
several prohibited matter (NO BITE! etc.). And in expressive communication
system, there are visual choice boards for selecting favorite activity and some
students use the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS). Some
students that can communicate functionally using speech language don’t use
PECS.
There is the activity in the schedule that
“Wait on a line”. This activity is done because
students need to learn waiting and teachers
sometimes need to adjust the time for
classroom administration. When students
move out from the room, students need to
wait other students by sitting chairs and
when all students gather around, they will
do.
There is the room used by speech
therapy, occupational therapy, and
physical therapy. Each student can
receive the professional therapy on the
basis of IEP. This picture shows squeeze
machine developed by Dr. Temple
Grandin in the therapy room. The price
of it is about 3 or 4 hundred thousand
yen.
Teaching contents are made by each age and developmental grade in
functional activities. Lesson plan of each student is made upon the each
student’s teaching goal decided in the meeting of IEP and it is stored in a
binder. In each classroom, examples of lesson plans divided by domain are
prepared, and teachers use it selecting close to student’s goal and arranging.
There is a data collection system each class, and teachers collect date 2 or
3 times a week about behavior goals. The purpose is making sure of
progress status and whether to change the procedure.
The activity and contents of work are changed for seasons. Because the
time of visiting was just a Halloween on October, students created things and
did the vocabulary learning about a Halloween.
exhibited objects about a Halloween
Contents of lessons are specialized for community life and work in the
junior high school and high school. Most impressive lesson is it that students
learning how to go that shops, the name of it, and the functions (the purpose)
by looking the big map. Students go to the local shops once a week and learn
the community life.
the map of the community
the seat of asking physical problems
In high school class, it was done lessons using computer and internet. The
latest audio-visual equipment called “smart board” (like a huge i-pad) can
be controlled by touching and many programs work with the computer.
There are several programs in it (e.g. puzzle, calculation etc.). The many
computers are prepared for learning how to use it in real lives. For
examples, some students learn how to check the time to go to the movie
using the internet.
The message book between school and house is made effective use of
communication. Furthermore, junior high school students need to write
about “what is done” and “how does that make you feel?”
smart board and computer
４． In conclusions
There are 185 students and 120 stuffs in this building, but because of a
huge site and large hallway, I didn’t feel narrowness. In the courtyard,
there are many exercise equipment. Ground surface is not sand but seat,
and it is made an arrangement in safety.
Because several specialist stuffs (OT, PT etc.) cooperate to training and
teaching with teachers, when stuffs make IEP for students, stuffs receive
not only teacher’s idea but also specialist’s idea and they can make it for
each student multilaterally.
And, method of teaching based on ABA called Pyramid approach to
Education developed by Dr. Andrew Bondy is taken in throughout the
teaching and using on training and teaching for students. Stuffs are
consulted by Dr. Bondy or Ms. Frost periodically and try to up the teaching
skills.
Because the final goal in this school is coming back of their neighborhood
school, I felt that it is emphasized on learning skills needed real community
lives and school lives (learning to follow linguistic instruction, learning to
wait a line, and physical structure assumed more usual lives).