CCIU's Special Education Preschool program helps young children overcome developmental delays

“My husband always laughs at me, because I tell him what I do at work and it always involves playing and singing and I always tell him how much fun it is.“

Schmidt’s days at Bradford Height Elementary School in the Downgingtown may be full of fun, but that fun is tempered by the fact that she recognizes herself as a teacher at a very crucial point in her students’ lives.

“Young children, especially those with disabilities, often need to work on their social-emotional skills and interacting with one another,” said Schmidt.

The class she runs is geared toward helping children, three to five years old with developmental delays, to learn how to function in everyday situations, as well as to work on the development of physical attributes.

“Children develop gross motor skills first, and if they are able to successfully develop them it helps later in life when it comes to nearly everything else,” Schmidt explained. “We implement things like sitting in a circle, crafts, singing, dramatic play and literacy activities. And during the summer, we have the kids ride bikes and play in a swimming pool.”

The children in the program have an array of disabilities, from autism to hearing and vision impairments, to speech and language difficulties. As such, many of the children in the program see a therapist as well as taking part in the everyday classroom activities.

“We have an array of therapists that the kids might see based on their needs. We have a speech and language therapist, an occupational or fine motor therapist, a physical or gross motor therapist, and both hearing and vision therapists.”

Bernadette Lynch, a speech and language therapist working out of Bradford Heights Elementary has been part of the Preschool Special Education program almost since the beginning.

“When it first started out, the law was just put in to include children under the age of five for special education because people realized the earlier you get the kids the better the results,” said Lynch.

“There were only two classes at first, one in Downingtown and one in Phoenixville, and now there are so many classes and so many people its just great.”

Schmidt’s class is one of 27 others that provide services to preschoolers throughout Chester County.

“We run classes out of so many different places,” said Preschool Special Education Supervisor Sharyn Ball. “We use schools, we use the Downingtown Education Center, and we even use churches.”

As stated in the Preschool Special Education Services pamphlet, children are eligible for enrollment in the class if they need “specially designed instruction in at least one of the following areas; communication development, physical development, cognitive development, social-emotional development and adaptive development.”

“The process for enrollment begins with a referral, usually from a parent, then a screening process in possible developmental delays, the results of which will determine the child’s area or areas of need and their eligibility for placement in a program or therapy or both,” said Ball.

The screening and preschool services to children diagnosed with a developmental delay are free to parents regardless of income.

“We run our program year round, and we run it on a stretch calendar which means that per Pennsylvania State mandate the kids don’t ever take more than a three-week break,” said Ball.

“This is part of Pennsylvania’s Act 212 which states that because children change so rapidly during the preschool age, students, especially those with disabilities, are more likely to regress with more than a three week break.”

And so, armed with teaching tools such as play-doh, building blocks, puzzles, games, a playhouse, and even a water table, teachers such as Lois Schmidt spend each day helping young children with disabilities and developmental delays, in the hope that the effort expended now, will allow them to reach their full potential in the future.

“Our main goal is to get these kids to love school from an early age,” said Schmidt. “We get the parents involved in every facet of the class, because they’re the student’s natural teachers. We just want to involve everyone in helping these kids to learn to love playing, and to learn to love school.”