Elementary School Age

Services for children ages 5 to 11 years old

School Age Program

Our school age program is a 12-month, full day program, from 8:30 am to 2:00 pm, Monday through Friday. Our program is resource-rich environment with a low staff to student ratio in order to provide the necessary support each child needs. We have five classrooms that are 6:1:3 and one classroom that is an 8:1:2. This means that there are six students, one teacher, and three aides for each room in most of our rooms and eight students, one teacher, and two aides in one of our classrooms that serves our oldest students. Students are mplaced in our school age program when a student’s Committee for Special Education at the school district has determined we are the best setting to meet the individual child’s needs at that time.

The school age program at ICD is considered an immersive program because all of our staff are trained to implement each child’s skill building activities and learning or developmental goals. Many of the children we serve have delays or difficulty in the areas of communication (including speech, language, and social communication), social development, and learning from a standard classroom environment. The reason an immersive approach is important is that we want the skills your child is learning to happen in many settings and situations, including in the presence of many different people, to allow him or her to be fully independent. After all, our goal is to help children build the skills they need to eventually return to programs hosted in their home school district when they are ready. To do so, we have to ensure that the skills we have taught belong to the child and are not a product of our school setting alone.

Our program is also data-based, meaning that we carefully and frequently monitor your child’s progress on their educational and therapeutic goals. Your child’s progress is reviewed on an ongoing basis allowing for changes to activities, instructional procedures or interventions that will benefit your child’s development and learning in a timely way. Related services available in our program include speech therapy, occupational therapy, family services, and physical therapy (contracted with an outside therapy team).

We focus on developing your child’s:

• Social and relationship development
• Emotional awareness and expression
• Language & communication
• Friendships and peer relationships
• Family relationships
• Independence
• Pre-academic and academic skills
• Physical health and wellbeing
• Self-regulation and coping skills
• Daily living skills
• Hygiene and self-care

Our Approach

We promote your child’s development by providing a warm and supportive setting that focuses on ways we can partner with you to build skills to best prepare your child for a bright future. We use evidence-based teaching strategies so that your child receives state of the art instruction by all staff at ICD. Family involvement and support are prioritized at ICD because we know that when a family is thriving so is the child.

In addition to providing team-based instructional supports for all students, we embed special classroom-wide group instructional sessions on communication, motor, adaptive, pre-academic, and social skills throughout the day. Students also participate in adaptive physical education classes daily for at least 30 minutes to encourage healthy habits and active lifestyles. Our model makes it unnecessary for students to also receive high frequencies of related services (speech, OT, PT). Our licensed related service providers are an integral part of the interdisciplinary team and consult with classroom teams as a starting point for services. This means that expert consultation is built into what we do and is accessible to all students enrolled in our programs.

For more information about our service model, please click here: Understanding the Service Model of the Children's Unit for Treatment and Evaluation at the Institute for Child Development

We strive, together, to provide the best opportunities for your child to be healthy, happy, and ready to succeed at home, school, and within their community.

If you have questions about our program or are interested in setting up a tour, please call us at 607-777-2829 and or email us at icd@binghamton.edu.