Services and Support
"More than 300 undergraduates work with students at The Campus School every year to help us deliver personalized student services and therapies."
Our array of therapies accommodates our students’ range of unique needs, helping them thrive inside and outside the classroom. With the expertise of our outstanding therapists and using assistive technology, we satisfy individual education plans in small groups, large groups and one-on-one.
Our three physical therapists work closely with students to build a foundation of motor skills to improve their function in the classroom, at home and in the community. Using alternative position equipment, students experience their world in different ways.
In addition to direct therapy, we also help families procure specialized equipment through a monthly wheelchair clinic and biweekly orthotics clinics.
Our occupational therapists work as part of a transdisciplinary team and focus on developing functioning in four key ability areas: fine-motor, visual/sensory-motor, self-care and oral-motor. Our primary objective is to enhance or enable the participation of each student within their individual educational program.
Guided by the principles of sensory motor integration, occupational therapists train all staff and collaborate when appropriate with outside medical and educational professionals to enhance student well-being and educational development.
To facilitate the full expression of each student, we employ a total communication approach—from vocalizations to gestures, sign language and aided forms. An individualized communication system is embedded into each student’s daily routine, at school and at home, to promote communication in all aspects of their lives.
Using augmentative communication tools such as picture symbols, objects, digital photographs, iPads, Tobi’s, PODDs, and personal communication devices, students can participate in educational and leisure activities, socialize with staff and friends and communicate wants and needs.
Visual understanding and deaf/blind education are part of every student’s day, delivered in all activities. With the help of a Teacher of the Visually Impaired (TVI), students with visual impairments participate in vibrant activities. The TVI trains staff on visual impairment issues, develops and oversees small group instruction, consults in all classrooms and works directly with some students.
Music is a powerful medium and research shows that it plays a unique and important role in helping our students develop communication, social, motor and education skills. Rhythms and melodies can motivate and prompt some students in a way that language alone simply cannot.
Through the use of assistive technology, Campus School music therapy sessions let students choose songs or instruments to play. The music inspires social and emotional engagement, self-expression and learning.
To empower independence and decision-making, Campus School students begin transition skills classes at age fourteen. These skills—built through diverse programming focused on personal management, household chores, age-appropriate leisure activities and community service—give students more control over daily activities and enhance their quality of adult life. Our transition skills classroom includes a wheelchair-accessible kitchen and washer/dryer.
With three full-time registered nurses on staff, a licensed nurse practitioner providing ongoing consultation and a nutritionist, the Campus School works to maintain students' health and comfort so they can have successful, uninterrupted school days. Our nurses develop the health care policies and procedures for the school and train and supervise staff on complex health care areas such as feeding, seizure disorders, respiratory issues and other necessary health care interventions.
Functional literacy is the curriculum of choice in most school settings. With EagleEyes technology, our students with little to no expressive language can access a computer and, by moving their eyes, communicate.
Camera Mouse is a program utilized at the Campus School and beyond that allows an individual to control the computer mouse pointer without having to use eye gaze or one's hand to "click." For more than 20 years it has been a part of the Campus School curriculum and has helped hundreds of individuals become active participants in leisure and academic activities.
Best of all? These tools help expose previously unknown capabilities in some of our students.
The Campus School remains forever grateful to the late Professor James Gips—who came up with the technology for Eagle Eyes with BC colleagues Peter Olivieri and Joseph Tecce, and who developed the original idea for Camera Mouse with then-BC colleague Margrit Betke—for his compassion and lifelong dedication to our students.
The social worker is an integral member of the transdisciplinary team, providing ongoing dialogue between home and school, and a link for families in need of community services. By attending screenings, IEP meetings and transition meetings, and being available to all staff for consultation about student and family issues, our social worker (LICSW) and school psychologist enable all team members to provide responsive services and all students to reach their full potential. They also support the transition coordinator with guardianship issues, supervises PULSE students—a BC undergraduate program centered on service—and much, much more.