Center-Based Programs

Individualized pre-academic and academic programs include intensive, individualized sessions that alternate with small-group activities that teach children to relate to classmates and participate in social situations. Each child's schedule of learning activities is especially designed to meet his or her needs, but all programs emphasize language development and social interaction.

While all programs are individualized, Shema Kolainu also bases instruction on the science of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA).

Curriculum is individualized for each child based on their needs and criterion-referenced assessment in order to identify individual learner goals. Because all intervention activities are data based, teachers, therapists, and parents directly observe daily performance and collect data to provide objective feedback and ongoing evaluations of the effects of each intervention. On the basis of this data, individualized programs are revised or redesigned as needed to ensure each student's continued progress.

Scientifically designed, scripted lessons guide teachers to meet the learner's needs. Lessons are developed hierarchically to assure that each student's goals are functional and that generalization of skills will occur. We offer many applications that provide the foundation for increasingly complex learning.

We offer the following therapies:

Physical Therapy

Occupational Therapy

Speech Therapy

Speech Therapy is another very important component of the Shema Kolainu - Hear Our Voices program.

Our speech department is staffed with professionals that are well versed in alternative and augmentative communication. The purpose of speech-language therapy is to enhance intentional communication via expression of ideas, obtaining desires, sharing information, and interpersonal interaction. Language is the means by which communication is achieved.

Components of language include: understanding/verbal expression, facial/manual gestures, tone of voice, and body orientation.

Art therapy is a form of communication development that allows children with ASD to express themselves.

Art Therapy: learning skills through creative expression

In Tzippy Silberman’s art therapy classroom, students do not have to color inside the lines. In fact, they are encouraged not to. At Shema-Kolainu Hear our Voices School, children work in small groups as well as one on one to create instructive works of art.

Students might work in traditional watercolor like you would expect, but they also break the mold by making plaster masks, building wire sculptures, and using mixed media for starters.

The program is tailored to areas where students need improving. For many, creating art with others is a social activity that requires communication. A fun group activity is puppet making, which facilitates play with the child’s peers.

“Art increases socialization and helps the kids express themselves.”

There is also an emotional connection to art for some of the children. They sometimes use art to calm down while channeling their energy on something enjoyable. The children even learn to label their emotions through their art, making pictures to describe how sadness, anger, or joy feels to them.

“Non-verbal kids use different devices to communicate wants or needs,” says Gili Rechany, operations director at Shema Kolainu. “They do not have a way to express feeling or emotion. Art therapy allows the child to explore their environment. The kids can communicate things they are really scared of or things they love. It is a concern because some of the kids cannot tell us what motivates them. Some of the kids love art therapy so much because they feel a sense of security. Art is a form of communication.”

They also experiment with different textures.

Students have created attractive works of art by mixing different colors of chalk with water, creating a paste that can be dabbed on with a brush. Students can also mix mediums, like paint and crinkled paper or popsicle sticks to create a collage. This builds their sensory integration.

Ms. Silberman saw a child come out of his shell recently through a sort of transformative art project. The boy began drawing circles on a sheet of paper at different speeds- fast and slow. Then, he crumpled the paper and made a ball from it. He then used the ball to play a game with his teacher as they tossed the ball back and forth. This game helped build the social skills of the child.

Making an art project can also help an autistic child foster a unique identity through their creations. Since some children enjoy playing with toy cars, for instance, they can actually dip the little cars in paint and drag them across the canvas to create rainbow tracks.

“They use their interests to actualize their sense of self.”

Music Therapy

Music therapy is an important part of the curriculum here at Shema Kolainu. It provides treatment in a non-threatening setting between people and/or individuals and their environment, facilitating relationships, learning, self expression, and communication.

It helps to capture and maintain a child's attention and proves to be highly motivating for them.

Music therapy can stimulate kids in positive ways that increase their social participation, and enable those without verbal language to communicate and express themselves using instruments.

Since music is processed in both hemispheres of the brain, it can also assist in the development of verbal communication, as well as speech and language skills.

Please see the “Notice of Potential Disclosure of Student Records” and “Objection to Disclosure of Student Information and Records Form” related to an ongoing lawsuit in the Southern District, M.G. et al. v. N.Y. City Department of Education et al., No. 13-CV-4639.

The Notice defines the groups of students who may be covered by the Notice, the types of records which may be disclosed, whom they may be disclosed to (i.e., counsel for the parties, their experts and the Court), and how parents may object to the disclosure of their child’s records.

The Notice and Objection Form can also be found at HERE as well as virtual links to translations of the Notice and Objection Form in Spanish, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, Korean, Russian and Urdu. Translations themselves can be found HERE.

Click Here to fill out our intake form

Students receive instruction in the following areas:

Communication and Verbal Behavior

Cognitive and Academic Skills

Social Skills

Emotional and Affective Behavior

Self-sufficiency

Physical and Motor Development

Play Skills and Leisure Time Planning

Adaptive Physical Education

Contact Shema Kolainu - Hear Our Voices Today! 1-718-686-9600

SKHOV provides a learner-driven approach to education within a 6:1:3 ratio.

Because all interventions are individualized and data based, teachers, therapists, and parents observe daily performance, coordinate efforts, make data based decisions about the ongoing effects of each intervention and create quality programs for each student. Based on the feedback, individualized programs are revised or redesigned to assure the child's continued progress. We use a scientific approach to teaching to help students achieve goals.

Shema Kolainu's programs are accredited and certified by the New York State Department of Education and the New York City Department of Education. Children may be referred by parents, local school districts, other child advocates or human service agencies.

For more information contact:
Tel: (718) 686-9600 or Fax: (718) 686-6161
email: referrals@skhov.org