Oak Park elementary schools will offer a verbal behavior Applied Behavioral Analysis program for students with special needs in the fall, special services director Steve Castle said at last week’s District 97 board meeting.
Castle said the decision to add the program was advised by legal counsel, who said that if it were not offered, in certain cases parents would be entitled to send their students to special schools, at a cost to the district much greater than the program.
“It could be extremely expensive,” Castle told the board.
Dr. Anne Maxwell, a consultant and ABA specialist, will help the district establish the program, and the district hired a teacher with ABA training to lead the program.
The eight or nine students identified for the program will receive ABA training in half-day sessions, where they will receive one-on-one “discrete trial therapy.” The remainder of the day is spent in other settings, depending on each child’s Individual Education Plan.
The program will be located at Holmes Elementary School.
Parents at Oak Park and River Forest High School have pushed for years for a verbal behavior ABA program. Special Education director Linda Cada said teachers and administrators at OPRF have received the same training Dist. 97 will undergo, and that ABA techniques are found throughout its curriculum.
“We feel pretty confident we are presenting a good program, as always,” Cada said.
Terry Burke, one of the parents calling for verbal behavior ABA at OPRF, said the school’s representatives have received very little training in the method, and that the school uses an outdated form of ABA.
?#34;Drew Carter