Next Open House:
Thursday, May 23 at 9:30 AM
School Closing Dates: May 24-May 27. Happy Memorial Day!
Early Dismissal Date: May 17 - Students dismissed at 1 PM
Parent Coffee:
Monday, May 13 at 9:30 AM
Peter's Joke of the Month:
Q - How can you tell the ocean is friendly?
A - Because it waves!
Greta's YouTube Recommendation:
They Might Be Giants music videos
Brayden's Music Recommendations:
Tim McGraw, Metallica
JC's iPad App Recommendations:
Jack's Food Recommendation:
Bell & Evans Gluten-Free Chicken Nuggets
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Welcome, New BAC Staff!
 | | Liz Cardenas |
 | | Taylor Gonzalez |
 | | Lesly Palacio |
Staff Birthdays:
April 21 - Deborah Lewis
May 11 - Kate McAvoy
Happy birthday to our instructors!
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Staff Profile: 5 Things You Didn't Know About Deborah Lewis
Deborah Lewis has been working at BAC for three years. She is a behavioral instructor and coordinator of the BAC Friends program. Here are five things you didn't know about Deborah!
- She has a background in art therapy that she uses in the BAC Friends program, facilitating appropriate socialization through art projects. - Two of her hobbies include aerial yoga and fabric flying. - She has a four-year-old nice and a two-year-old nephew she often visits. - She's a runner and will be participating in a 10k for charity in a few weeks. - She's a healthy eater and will eat just about anything with peanut butter! |
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| All Things Seem Possible in May at BAC! |
Greetings!
Welcome to May! The weather is finally nice again, allowing us to get outside for some sun and fun. For our students, this starts with horseback riding at Gallop NYC in Prospect Park! This week, our students are on their fourth trip to Gallop, and if you have been checking our Facebook page, you have seen for yourself how much fun this outing is for them.
We also have some very exciting news: we are moving! That's right, we are moving to a larger facility that will allow us to offer more activities to our current students, expand the student body, and offer additional programs to the autism community. We are (of course!) staying in Brooklyn. Our new building, which is owned by the Helen Keller Foundation, houses a number of programs for people with developmental differences. We at BAC are very proud to be forging new relationships with people who have an intimate understanding of the rapidly growing need to provide appropriate education and treatment to our learners.
This past month, two new students started programs here. We welcome Sky, Michael, and their families to BAC!
There are two months left before summer and we will keep you apprised of our upcoming events as we plan for the 2013-2014 year. Thank you for your continued interest and support in BAC, and feel free to spread the word about our school to people in the autism community.
Sincerely,
Ray Cepeda
Executive Director
Brooklyn Autism Center
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The Friends Factor: A Letter from Our Founding Parent
by Sydnee Jorgl
Having a child with Autism is a great adventure full of manic highs, gut-wrenching lows, and lots of back and forth. For me, the constant I have always clung to get me through the unpredictability of my life is my group of friends, who have watched my saga for the past 10 years and have created a cocoon of stable, nonjudgmental support around me. Read more.
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Parent's Corner: Progress, Regress, and Re-Progress
by Melissa Fitzpatrick
As parents, we get to witness the many amazing things that our children accomplish, beginning with something as simple as holding their head up, to giggling, sitting up, crawling, pointing (God willing...)
Perhaps one of the benefits of raising an autistic child is that we see progress over and over - that is, we see one milestone reached, then perhaps lost, and then met again. Read more.
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Parent's Corner: Our Furry Frequent Flyer
by Liz Kurtzman
Learn how one of our parents trained their beloved dog Snoopy to become a service dog! Read more.
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"Autistic? What Does That Mean?"
by Theresa Basile
Explaining autism as an adult is a challenge. Explaining autism as a nine-year-old to other nine-year-olds is almost impossible. Read more.
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Student Highlights
Sky is a natural athlete and musician - he loves to swing on the swing, sing songs, and play the drums!...DS went horseback riding at Gallop NYC for the first time and LOVED it - the staff said he was a natural!...T graduated to a bigger horse at Gallop named Tonka and also discovered that he can play Angry Birds on the Smart Board!...ID had a birthday party and we celebrated with a cake and a tiara!...Michael has been at BAC for only two weeks and he already knows everyone's name and says hi every time he comes in!...AS is becoming quite the foodie and enjoys peanut butter with pretzels and carrots - her favorite treat is cookies!...Peter has been enjoying more activities with his typically developing peers. He made some new friends at the afterschool BAC Friends program!...JC has been saving and counting his money to buy new apps for his iPad!...Jack is still exercising like an Olympian and loves to run, run, run!...Brayden is a budding author and wrote a short story about Metallica!...Greta loves to watch Arthur and other videos on YouTube!...Ian is achieving more and more each day in his revised program and really sharpening his singing and dancing skills (he's a natural!)
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Welcome, New BAC Staff!
We have two new behavioral instructors at BAC. Join us in giving a warm welcome to Liz Cardenas and Taylor Gonzalez!
Liz holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brooklyn College in speech and speech language pathology. She has done research in bilingual comprehension of young children and language acquisition of children in Haitian orphanages. She is currently enrolled in the Advanced Certificate Program in Autism Spectrum Disorders at Brooklyn College.
Taylor has her Bachelors of Science in Family Science with a concentration in Special Education from the University of Maryland. She has worked with children on the autism spectrum at the Developmental Disabilities Institute, an intermediate school on Long Island. She also volunteers with the Huntington Youth to Camp Initiative, a program that helps send underprivileged teens to summer camp.
We would also like to formally introduce our longterm substitute behavioral instructor, Lesly Palacio. Lesly is completing her Bachelors in Psychology at St. Francis College. While earning her degree, Lesly is researching as an intern at Columbia University-New York State Psychiatric Institute for the Child Psychiatric Epidemiology Group. Her experience at the Brooklyn Autism Center has further buttressed her interest in Cognitive Neuroscience.
We are thrilled to have Liz, Taylor, and Lesly as part of our BAC staff!
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BAC Goes to YAI
Our executive director, Ray Cepeda, is delivering a lecture at the YAI Conference at the Hilton New York on "Curriculum Development and Flowcharting" for children with autism. Stop by our table from May 6-May 9! For more information, visit YAI's website.
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