MOUNT VERNON – Mount Vernon area parents of children with autism now have another educational option for their youngsters: The Rays of Hope Autism Intervention Center, located on North Gay Street. The center opened its doors earlier this month.
Monica Hunnicut, director, was motivated to open the facility by her 3-year-old grandson, Logan, who suffers from autism. She said she got discouraged by the lengthy waiting lists for intervention services and contracted with Piece by Piece and Step by Step therapy centers to launch a treatment center in Mount Vernon.
Hunnicut said that in the short time Logan has been enrolled in the center there has been a marked change in him and the other children.
“It’s really amazing how these kids are turning around already, and we’ve just begun. To me, this is overwhelming and exciting from a parent point of view. Every child seems so happy to come here. It’s awesome. ... This is a dream come true for me — to be able to help families and help these kids reach their potential. I’m here to help these children overcome their disability and be productive citizens.”
Hunnicut named the center Rays of Hope after the rays of sunshine on a summer day because, she said, “they warm you and make you feel so good,” and her dream is the center will do the same for autistic children and their families.
The center’s staff uses Applied Behavior Analysis therapy and is supervised by board-certified behavior analysts, one of whom is Kristen Wilcock. “What we do here,” she said, “is provide an alternative to public school placement for these kids. Everything we do is based on ABA, the only intervention that has been empirically validated to have significant results with children with autism. ... For children, if you get them young enough, and they get two to three years of intensive treatment, 47 percent of those kids can be completely mainstreamed without supports and you would not be able to tell them apart from their peers.”
Wilcock speaks from experience. Her own autistic son, now 8, started out needing one-on-one support and, after intensive ABA intervention is totally mainstreamed in a typical classroom with no additional supports.
One advantage of center-based ABA services, Wilcock said, is that it lets parents, who may have been teaching their children at home, go back to work. Another is the social component; children learn to interact appropriately with other, non-family, children and adults.
“You have to gain control of behaviors and gain compliance before you can work on [academic] skill acquisition,” she said. “Our first goal here is to get kids as young as we can to start their interventions so, hopefully, we can get them mainstreamed, back into a typical community placement.”
Current students range in age from 3 to 8, but the center will serve children through the age of 21.
Staff ratios at Rays of Hope are adjusted according to the needs of the children. Some start with one-to-one arrangements and others with two children to one staff person, with the objective of easing the children into small group learning situations.
The facilities at Rays of Hope include a fenced play area, art, music and multi-sensory rooms, lunch room, classroom, library and game room.
Funding for Rays of Hope is provided through the Autism Scholarship Program which allows the Ohio Department of Education to pay a scholarship on behalf of a qualified child with autism. The scholarship gives parents a choice of sending that child to a special education program not necessarily operated by the local school system. To be eligible for the program, the child must have a current multifactored evaluation which states that the child is eligible for services under the category of autism, and must have a current Individualized Education Program. The IEP must be written by the school district of residence. The parent may then apply for participation in the Autism Scholarship Program through the Ohio Department of Education’s Office for Exceptional Children. Rays of Hope staff will assist parents or guardians with the paperwork process.
After the child begins participation in the Autism Scholarship Program, the Ohio Department of Education, Office of School Finance will deduct funding from the school district of residence every three months in an amount equal to the amount of funding distributed to the parents or intervention center.
Wilcock said redistributing the money doesn’t really result in a net loss to the school district. “In the long run,” she said, “research shows that if you provide this treatment to young children, you will actually save the taxpayers over $2 million over the course of that child’s life. That’s because you’re able to reduce supports both in the public schools and later on in vocational or living supports. I actually think it saves the districts money. It’s just a matter of, is that money now or is that money spread out over the course of that child’s 21 years the school district is responsible.”
Hunnicut said the center hopes to work collaboratively with the public schools, both when the children attend Rays of Hope and when they transition into public school classrooms.
“We’re all here for the same reason,” she said, “to help kids. It’s a win-win for the whole community.”
