SCHOOL

Provides year round education services to children with autism and associated disorders, ages 3-22. Approved as a non-public school by the Texas Education Agency, services are delivered in small classroom settings with low staff to student ratios. In addition, a nurse, physician, psychologist, and speech therapist serve as consultants to the facility.

Through collaboration with school districts, Avondale House receives students who are referred because they present significant interfering behaviors in their classrooms and the school district efforts to meet their developmental, educational, and behavioral needs have been unsuccessful. This semester, the students have been referred from 11 school districts.

When a student is enrolled in our school, their needs are assessed and an Individual Educational Plan (IEP) with goals and objectives designed to meet their own developmental and educational needs is developed. Children learn to communicate by speaking, using sign language or by using picture symbols or cards. They are helped to establish eye contact and to follow directions. Some participate in cooperative play and all participate in carefully planned field trips. The curriculum implemented is Learning in the Functional Environment

The school is accredited as a non-graded special education school by the National Private Schools Accreditation Alliance. Call (713) 993-9544 for additional information.

RESIDENTIAL

Provides residential services to individuals’ ages 4-35, with a diagnosis of autism or pervasive developmental disorder, whose disability dictate that they live apart from their families. Services are delivered in community settings, in homes of no more than six individuals. At least two staff members are on duty at all times to provide the training and supervision essential to each resident’s development. Medical care is provided by the individual’s primary care physician and monitored by both a consultant physician and nurse.

In each residence, the focus of training is on self-help and daily living skills, social development and behavioral control. The residents participate in recreational programs in natural settings.

The Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services and the Texas Department of Human Services license the residential programs.

DAY HABILITATION

Provides training in skills of daily living to young adults with autism or pervasive developmental disorder, who have minimal likelihood of gainful employment. The program is offered on our school campus and includes training program participants to attend to task, follow simple directions, to work cooperatively on assembly line projects, and to complete individual work assignments. Daily living skills training includes such activities as setting the table for meals, making a bed, folding and hanging clothes, and using a microwave.