Special Education & Autism Expertise - The Children's Guild

Special Education & Autism Expertise

Special Education & Autism Expertise

Since our inception in 1953, The Children’s Guild has been a leader and pioneer in special education including working with children on the autism spectrum.

One of our founders, Dr. Leo Kanner, was not only the founder of Child Psychiatry, but he also made the first diagnosis of childhood autism and prescribed the first methods of intervention. Throughout our history, The Children’s Guild has served children on the autism spectrum, primarily through educational programs. However, we realize that today autism and knowledge about autism is continuously evolving and so we, as an organization, are also changing in order to seek the most effective ways to work with students on the autism spectrum and their families.

Using an innovative philosophy known as Transformation Education, The Children’s Guild has applied its model to special education and general education schools as well as residential care programs whose outcomes substantially bettered U.S. national averages for those services and eclipsed the outcomes of most other providers in the nation. The Children’s Guild operates schools serving students with significant behavioral and academic issues including emotional disturbance, autism across the spectrum, developmental disabilities, and any combination of those disabilities. These schools continue to exceed the national averages for return-to-public-school rate.

Through our experience, combined with our educational approach and our training modalities, we have trained and consulted on special education, mental health, practical application of neuroscience to education, child welfare and management. In addition, we have certified trainers for many organizations and school systems so that they can teach their own staff how to use the knowledge, tools, and systems we have created.

The Janet and Frank Kelly Autism Center at our special education schools, is based on our innovative Transformation Education philosophy and provides services to children and youth on the autism spectrum from age 5 through age 22 in the Baltimore-Washington corridor.