Pathways Strategic Teaching Center to Relocate Facilities

For Pathways Strategic Teaching Center, a branch of the J. Arthur Trudeau Memorial Center, it’s all about giving individual and focused attention to each of their 40 autistic students. Because they hope to grow, expand, and bring more students in, it’s time to relocate their facilities from Warwick to a much larger building in Coventry.

“This new facility is three times the size of what we’ve had in Warwick,” says Andrea Chait, directory of Pathways Strategic Learning Center. “We have a one-to-one student to staff ratio and we are looking to expand and be able to offer our program to around 20 more students.”

The new facility has large classrooms for the different age groups and each room has chairs and tables for each student and teacher so they can work one-on-one. Besides the classrooms, there is a sensory room with water, sand tables and crash mats as well as a large multi-purpose room that will be used as a gymnasium for physical education activities. Behind the main building are two large playgrounds, a basketball court and a sandy area where swings will be installed.

The teaching center offers its program to students ages three to 21 and acts as a private school with very intense and individualized teaching and treatment programs for the 40 students that currently attend. Hours of instruction are Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Chait says that their program is very comprehensive and all of their teaching methods are evidence based and come from the field of applied behavioral analysis.

“The methods that we use to teach with are all proven to work and we never use experimental methods,” Chait said. “We are always willing to bring in experts to help, especially with the adolescent and adult programing.”

Brian McGovern, a behavior specialist from the center, spoke of the unique needs that each of their students has.

“It’s often said that ‘if you’ve met one child with autism, you’ve met one child with autism,’ which is very true because each kid is so different and has such different needs; we can never make generalization about our kids,” McGovern said. “Once we determine their needs, we assess and observe them before we intervene and then we write up a plan for their learning schedule called a individualized education plan; we keep a record of what we do so we know if it doesn’t work we can modify our methods with that child.”

Because the J. Arthur Trudeau Memorial Center is a non-profit, Chait says the teaching program is all about the students.

“We do everything it takes to teach our students what they need to learn to enhance their lives,” said Chait.

For more information about Pathways Strategic Teaching Center, there will be an open house at their new Coventry facility at 75 Centre of New England Boulevard on Thursday, August 4 from 4 to 6 p.m.