The Auburn Model

The Auburn Model is a unique way of embedding social thinking and learning into our academic curriculum, our teaching and even our assessment. It is designed to help students learn about themselves and their relationships to others and to apply that beyond the classroom and into their everyday lives.

In addition to hiring and training the best educators, our program includes a Social Learning specialist, a Behavior Support specialist, a Curriculum and Instructional Specialist and an Occupational Therapist as part of the daily staff that support our students. This translates to each and every student having a multidisciplinary team available to them and their families at all times. The understanding of how complex and unique our learners are allows us to approach challenges from different angles and from the point of view of many disciplines. The model is a push in model. The student support team works in collaboration to ensure each student has the skills and strategies needed to be available for learning in the classroom.

Additionally, our program has an exceptional Social-Emotional Learning model. Our Social Learning curriculum was designed specifically for our students and is embedded into all academic subject areas. One of the biggest challenges our students have faced when it comes to their Social and Emotional Learning has been the maintenance and generalization of skills. Our model allows us to contrive scenarios as well as to use their natural environment to achieve sustainable success. This includes ongoing staff training to ensure a uniform use of the language and a consistent way to address challenges and to facilitate social interactions.

Our class sizes are designed to be small, with individualized learning plans and a nurturing and personalized learning environment that identifies and develops individual student strengths, talents and interests. It is the goal of every of our staff that throughout students’ experience at Auburn, that they will be able to enter the next step of their education with a “toolbox” to help them be successful academically, socially and emotionally. For this reason, Auburn’s program is consistently teaching and reinforcing the skill of self-advocacy.

Our mission

Our student’s happiness is at the center of our work, and we value it as much as their education success. Our learners are curious, and sometimes that curiosity can be quite narrow; so, part of our work is to constantly stimulate their minds. We want them to become curious about the larger world and other people and that engagement is also at the heart of our work.

During their time at Auburn, our children make the frightening, exhilarating journey from isolation to connection. Slowly, through false starts and setbacks, with constant guidance and support, they begin to construct for themselves the invisible bridges that connect one person to another.