Project Title: Combating Autism in Red Hook with Early Intervention Programs
BASIS Advisor: Jo Goldfarb
Internship Location: Office of Assistant Speaker of the New York State Assembly Felix Ortiz
Onsite Mentor: Karen Broughton, Chief-of-Staff
Imagine not being able to interact and communicate with people or complete tasks that children your age are able to complete. With autism on the rise, many under-served neighborhoods unlike wealthier ones such as Park Slope continue to lack the necessary information needed to seek and get treatment. Red Hook is just one of the many under-served communities lacking in needed resources. The critical window to receive therapy for autism treatment is between the ages of 2 to 5. Lacking the awareness to get those treatments harms a child’s chances at significantly improving. This project will work to bring awareness to the available resources and help to make certain therapies more available. This will hopefully give many children access to treatments and therapies that they deserve.
My Posts
Week 10: Wrapping everything up
The past 10 weeks have flown by and now the Senior Project is coming to an end. The past 10 weeks I have been working on collecting information that would be needed to help bring early intervention resources to Red Hook. Being only a high school senior, it would be very difficult for me to […]
Week 9: Online resources
It is hard to believe that the senior project is almost at an end. With only one blog post left, I have began working on ways to collect my research and make it into a more presentable form. In early September I began working on a website that would allow families to have easy access […]
Week 8: Creating a plan
This past week, I have been working on what I believe is the most important thing that should be brought to Red Hook in the short term. Though it cannot happen overnight, I think that there should be a program similar to Extreme Kids but for children between the ages of 2 and 5. I […]
Week 7: What does the future hold…
As we know the coronavirus has completely transformed the way we look at society in a matter of weeks. Though eventually people will be able to return more or less back to normal, there will be some time when humans will have to take extra cautionary actions. This past week I spoke to a few […]
Week 6: Focus moving foward
Over the past few weeks I have been looking at various Early Intervention service providers around New York City. Each one that I looked at offered parents options that include one on one therapy in the comfort of their own home and the ability to bring in their children for services in the office. In […]
Week 5: Services during a pandemic
Many have been impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic. In a time when people should be social distancing, many every day in person activities have been put on hold. One major thing that has been affected during this time, is ABA services that children with autism receive. Usually ABA therapy is in person and one on […]
Week 4: Comparing what I have so far
Welcome back to another week. This past week I compared the two programs that I have looked at so far: one in the Bronx and one in Queens. Looking at these two programs, I saw that they are pretty similar in what they offer. These programs provide a child with both the opportunity to come […]
Week 3: Another Program
In the last blog, I talked about a program that provides an array of early intervention services to residents in the Bronx. Moving away from the Bronx, this past week I began looking at programs in other boroughs. One program that I found was Little Wonders. This program is located in Queens. Similar to the […]
Week 2: Exploring What’s Available
This week I was doing online research about programs and services offered in the Bronx. While conducting research, one interesting program that I came across was the Mccarton Foundation. This program has a location in the Bronx and in Manhattan. The center in the Bronx, offers a variety of early intervention programs such as ABA […]
Week 1: Getting Things Started
Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog. This past week I have been gathering information about what resources are available in Red Hook. In February, I visited Extreme Kids, a program for children with various disabilities, in Red Hook and met with the head of the program. This program was brought to Red Hook […]
Introduction
Hello, and welcome to the first of many blogs. Roughly two years ago, my then two year old cousin was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Luckily his family was quickly able to get him the various early intervention therapies offered. Over the past two years, I spent a significant amount of time with him teaching […]