Helping Hands Spells Love
Founded in 1981, the Helping Hands School is a private, non-profit preschool for two-to-five-year-olds with special needs. The school is located on 60 acres of farmland in the southern Saratoga County town of Clifton Park, New York. The school aims to foster readiness skills and help developmentally disabled preschoolers prepare for public school.
Center-Based: Children with handicapping conditions between the ages of two and
five can attend a two-and-one-half-hour special education class on our campus during the
school year and a six-week summer program.
Itinerant Teacher Services: Children who need some form of therapy receive help
from a teacher in their home, daycare center, nursery school, or at Helping Hands.
Early Intervention Program: Developmentally delayed children from birth to age
three receive a comprehensive program of educational and therapeutic services.
Integrated Preschool Classes: These classes are located in community nursery
schools. Children with special needs participate in nursery education classes with
typically developing peers and receive the support they need to be successful.
Comprehensive Evaluations: Children suspected of having a developmental delay or
handicapping condition can come to Helping Hands for an evaluation to help parents
determine the extent of the delay and the type of helped needed.
Special Education Itinerant Teacher (SEIT): Children who need one-on-one
or small group instruction will work with a special education teacher. Instruction
may be on-site, at home, on in other community-based settings like nursery schools
or daycare centers.
All service are provided at no cost to parents and children.
The curriculum at Helping Hands is tailored to meet the individul needs of each child
and encourages the developmental growth of children with special needs. Since the language
of children with developmental delays is limited, and their cognitive skills (like
counting and color identification) are delayed, we provide many structured, yet fun,
experiences that will teach communications skills and stimulate the aquisition of learning
concepts. The school creates an environment in which children can move at their own pace.
At Helping Hands, services are individualized to meet the specific needs of each child.
Our program is designed so that the staff works closely with both the student and the
family. We encourage parents to become even stonger advocates for their children.
There are two systems: one for newborns through three years of age and the second for
children aged three to five.
Infants through age three receive services that are paid for by the State Department of
Health and the county in which the children live. If you suspect your child has special
needs, then you should call the County Department of Health's Early Intervention Program.
Children ages three to five receive services paid for by both the New York State Education
Department and the county in which the child lives. Each school district in New York State
has a Committee on Preschool Special Education which administers the program for each
child. The chairperson of that committee organizes an evaluation. From this assessmentof a
child's skills, a report is created from which discusses the child's strenths and
weaknesses. The Committee on Preschool Special Education uses this multidisciplinary
evaluation to develop specific recommendations that meet the child's individual needs.
A child's early years (birth through age five) form the foundation for future learning. If a gap in learning occurs (a child isn't ready to learn) then future learning is affected. We try to make the "gaps" in learning as small as possible because learning is "developmentally integrated" which means one thing affects another.
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