Overview of Our Educational Approach
Not Every Child Learns the Same Way.
This is especially true for children with ASD. At The Helix School, we tailor our curriculum to each individual’s unique learning style and developmental level. We also build on each person's special interests to foster engagement and motivation. We believe that harnessing strengths is as important as targeting deficits—and that the best learning occurs in the context of strong relationships. We achieve this through a dynamic team of experienced providers, all of whom have made this work their life’s passion.
We work with the whole child. Cognitive, language, social-emotional, and sensory-motor systems need to function together to help students reach their full potential. We teach in small-group formats that support individual needs while allowing participation in larger groups as students become increasingly social.
Our Integrated Curriculum includes speech and language, emotional regulation, sensory-motor skills in occupational therapy, life skills, math, language arts, science, social studies, art, drama and music. Our teachers work on objectives in each key developmental and academic area, taking advantage of natural opportunities to incorporate goals into every activity. Generalization is a primary goal, ensuring that a child is able to meet a skill in multiple environments and with different communication partners before that goal is considered fully achieved.
All departments meet consistently to collaborate and foster the generalization of teaching strategies and learning.
Six Measurable Benchmarks:
As a foundation for all learning, we teach our students to:
Develop self-awareness of their bodies, movements, feelings, and needs.
Self-regulate their behavior so they can function and socialize successfully.
Process language so they can communicate effectively throughout their lives.
Generalize what they learn so they can accelerate their progress and thrive in a wide range of daily situations.
Advocate effectively for themselves, so they can obtain the information and support they need, when they need it, regardless of the situation.
Learn life skills and ways to navigate their community.
Integrated Curriculum
The Uniqueness of Our Program Lies in How Highly Integrated We Are.
We Are:
Flexible enough to be responsive to each student's enthusiasm and developmental levels;
Relationship-based for maximum effectiveness;
Carefully balanced between academic and social-emotional emphasis to serve the whole child;
Integrated across disciplines, with a high level of cross-staff collaboration, so learning is generalized and constantly reinforced throughout the day;
Staffed with highly trained people who share a growth mindset focused on the strengths of students, families, and staff;
Empowering for students, training them to advocate for themselves;
Rooted in the most up-to-date research and best practices for our unique population;
Dynamic and always improving.
Executive Functioning & Independence
At The Helix School, we know that Executive Functioning and Independent Living Skills go Hand in Hand.
Many schools for children with ASD have a singular focus on either academics or life skills. At the Helix School, we believe that if our students are going to have a fulfilling future, they need skill acquisition on both fronts. It is a well-known fact that students on the spectrum, regardless of their cognitive level, struggle with executive functioning— following multiple-step directions, prioritizing tasks, and generating a plan. This can negatively impact their ability to navigate the community, attain employment and care for themselves. Therefore the Helix School has a rigorous Life Skills and Executive Functioning Program.
Following a recipe to a prepare meal, creating and sticking to a budget, navigating restaurants and grocery stores, practicing self-care, and looking after their environment are just some of the areas targeted in The Helix School's daily life skills classes. We use research-based curriculum for executive functioning to promote student’s visual working memory and independence when completing tasks that involve multiple steps.
Being in close proximity to CVS, Whole Foods, the Mill Valley Post Office, Rite Aid and the Mill Valley Farmers market means that our students regularly receive real world practice accessing their community.
The Helix School provides students with on-site jobs where they not only cultivate vocational skills but also gain a sense of agency and purpose by making an important contribution to their school. One such example is The Helix School Deli, where students learn how to shop independently, take orders, and prepare and deliver sandwiches to peers and staff. We also placed a student in an internship with a music studio. Pictured here you can see our students selling coasters they made at the Mill Valley Farmer's Market. Over time the Life Skills and Executive Functioning Program lends itself to a robust transitional plan that includes community employment in each student’s field of interest.
Social & Emotional Therapy
Social and Emotional Therapy
Emotional Regulation
When we think about challenging behaviors in autism, we realize that they are often the result of a child being overwhelmed by demands and unable to navigate the big feelings that arise in the face of the situation. When we observe a behavior at The Helix School, we use it as an opportunity to find out what the child is attempting to communicate. We investigate it on every level (emotional, sensory, cognitive) to get to the root, so that we may truly address what is going on for the child.
At The Helix School, we foster in our students a sense of curiosity about their feelings and an eagerness to understand their emotional inner lives. We can't expect students to communicate about feelings if we don’t nurture this capacity within them. Through mindfulness, CBT, psycho-ed, and creative therapies, students gain not only self- awareness but also a robust sense of self with which to navigate difficult feelings and advocate for their needs. Emotional Regulation is infused into every classroom, and we also offer group, dyad and individual therapy.
Play Therapy
The social deficits and sensory challenges that occur in childen with ASD make it difficult for them engage in lively play with peers their age. It is for this reason that children on the spectrum are often found playing alone and glued to a tech device by the time they reach their teens.
Play is an essential aspect of child development, as it paves the way for social capacities and symbolic thinking. Perspective taking, social reciprocity, problem solving, reading social cues, and developing empathy are just some of the milestones built upon the foundation of play.
At The Helix School, we use a combination of DIR/Floortime®, drama therapy, and music to meet students at their development level and draw upon their unique interests. By accessing a sense of joy and freedom of expression, our students reach important social emotional milestones as they develop a budding desire and a newfound capacity for friendships.
Occupational & Speech Therapy
Awakening Minds, Empowering Futures
The Occupational Therapy Program
What is different with The Helix School Occupational Therapy program? The OT program at THS is developed to build a strong foundation from which our students can grow physically, emotionally, socially and academically. Our program differs from the traditional school OT model that teaches functional skills such as handwriting, pencil grasp and providing fidgets to pay attention. At THS, we developed a unique school program that follows the school’s model to work from the roots upward, and is in line with our belief that function must start from a strong neurosensory foundation.
This foundation harnesses emotional regulation and gets our brains awake and ready to learn. Rhythmic activities are overlaid for their impact on respiration, heart beat, and the cadences of moving, walking and speech. Each component is vital to reduce anxiety and feel safe, improving our students ability to engage socially, playfully and academically. This exciting model allows us to draw upon groundbreaking work from of some of the leading minds of neurosensory development.
Our model bridges lessons learned in OT to all aspects of their day at Helix:
We teach our students how to “connect our brains and bodies to be awake and ready to work!”
Direct (1:1) therapy sessions improve neurosensory development and teach functional skills for our students to take on the social, academic and motor demands of their day.
1:1 meetings with teachers allows collaboration to target specific areas of challenges
Classrooms push-in enables on the spot suggestions based on what is unfolding for each individual student.
We hold a strong belief in the education process and maintain ongoing continuing education that is up to date in the field of neurosensory development to fuse this information into our treatments and bring it back to our team with teacher and staff in-services and parent education.
"Primitive reflex development is the foundation to lifelong development. Reflexes are deeply rooted in the maturation of sensory processing and brain development. Everything we do from early developmental milestones, speech skills, ocular, posture and motor skills, academic/cognitive abilities, and social/emotional development is dependent upon the reflexes expressing themselves according to our unique genetic code to ultimately become integrated to higher level brain function that is intentional. When these reflexes aren't fully matured, challenges arise, making participation in higher level intentional activities more effort driven because the nervous system has to work to override the automatic reflex. This is not only tiring for the individual but ultimately impedes focused attention and learning. Research in the area of primitive reflexes shows that specific reflexes relate to specific areas of functional skill and learning. Identifying and integrating reflexes that have not been fully expressed help to build a strong foundation from which these later developmental skills can then be built upon with more ease and with faster learning trajectories."
- Karen Murphy, Occupational Therapist
The Speech Therapy Program
The Speech and Language Program is an integral part of the program. We use effective strategies to serve the needs of the students at Helix. The Speech Language Pathologists are responsible for evaluation, direct treatment, teacher and parent training as it pertains to communication, and social skills development.
We use the SCERTS Assessment Process (SAP) as well as a wide variety of other formal and informal assessments to obtain a baseline of the student’s functional communication and social-emotional abilities. We recognize and follow the research
that emotional regulation and social communication should be worked on in tandem when supporting children with ASD. Language, social communication, and emotional regulation goals are developed based on the SAP. Goals targeted may include initiation, reciprocity, understanding and expressing emotions and arousal, reading nonverbal social cues, conversation skills, improving articulation, sentence expansion, use of a variety of grammatical markers and descriptive words, etc. Speech and Language teaching strategies and approaches are infused throughout everything that the kids do across each school day.
Transition
A Transition Program that is Solely Focused on Preparing Your 18-22 Year-Old to Fly
What makes the Helix program unique?
The Program Director and Teacher has spent the last decade as Special Educator for older teens and young adults and has devoted her career to helping her students work towards independence. We use evidence based curriculum to teach independent living skills and social-emotional well being.
Our program is ONLY for 18-22 year olds. We believe that the focus of this age group is vastly different than the focus of younger, high school age students. Our young adults are working on independent living skills and vocational skills that most high school students are simply not ready for and they are more focused on classroom based activities.
Our 18-22 year olds are being exposed to vocational opportunities that can lead to full or part time employment. Their classroom is the community, where they are learning everything from how to utilize pubic transportation independently to exploring their leisure interests to opening themselves up to vocational possibilities and on-the-job training.
