Articles

Building for the Future: The Center for Adolescent and Adult Autism Services Take Shape

By Catherine Purple Cherry, AIA, CAS, LEED, Purposeful Architecture 

When you raise a child with autism, you learn to live in the moment.  You can’t think about the future, especially in the early years.  You find yourself over-whelmed with just trying to figure out the day.  An over time, you might look forward a bit.  Before you worry what will happen when you’re gone.  Literally.  

Every mother or father raising a child worries about their future.  When a child struggles, these worries can be even bigger, if not, simply huge.  I remember my mother worrying about my brother with intellectual disabilities and his future without her.  She worried about her other children too.  And she worried that her other ….

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We’re thrilled to announce that our principal, Cathy Purple Cherry, has been named a 2018 Baltimore Visionary by Baltimore Magazine! Be sure to check out her profile in the February issue and read more here on how she and this group of Baltimore Visionaries are shaping the city’s future—one big idea at a time.

Probably the biggest change we experienced as a family with a special needs son was puberty. With puberty and adolescence came more passive-aggressive behaviors. With age came strength. Now, put the two together, and you have more aggression, whether shown through self-harm or harm to others. The second change involved intentional manipulation of behaviors or reactions but seemingly without any rational thinking. In other words, our son believed if he punched the wall, it would create enough threat that he would maybe win something even though he did not realize that he was losing the battle.

There are several design strategies that can be implemented into K-12 school settings that aid children with special needs to be more successful during their learning years. While there are design guidelines required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) such as ramps, handicapped-accessible bathrooms, and stair railing extensions, there are other non-regulated improvements that greatly increase the ability for children with special needs to learn more successfully.