Anova Center for Education (ACE School)

As part of Anova’s ongoing commitment to provide the highest quality educational services to the local community we have founded the Anova Center for Education – The A C E School. The Ace School currently operates campuses in Santa Rosa and American Canyon, California. We are certified by the California Department of Education as a Nonpublic / Nonsectarian School (NPS). In addition to our school based educational services, ACE is a comprehensive treatment center providing a wide range of treatment options to the community. (see Diagnostic & Therapy Services)

The Anova Center for Education is pioneering the use of a specialized and intensive type of multidisciplinary treatment of students with a variety of neurodevelopmental impairments, primarily Asperger's Disorder, High Functioning Autism and Nonverbal Learning Disability. Our program is designed to serve children and adolescents in grades Kindergarten through 12th grade with an academic program that is highly individualized but meets state standards and uses state adopted text. The pupils at the ACE School have all been unsuccessful learning in public school environments due to serious behavioral and/or social/emotional challenges. Although most of our students are cognitively intact and quite expressive verbally, they are frustrated by learning disabilities, sensory processing deficits, pragmatic language delays and emotional challenges such as anxiety or depression. In addition to these conditions, our students each present with profound impairments in Social Cognition (or 'Theory of Mind') that limit their ability to "take the perspective" of others in social situations. The combination of a bright and verbally expressive child with difficulties in sensory processing and social cognition often leads to serious emotional and/or behavioral problems, particularly around school environments. All of our students have IEP's and are referred by local school districts that are unable to serve them from within their own resources. Our goal is to treat these pupils intensively for the shortest amount of time necessary before assisting with their successful return to a public school environment. We refer to our educational and therapeutic model as the Anova Method of Education.

The Anova Method

The Anova Method of Education is anchored by a multidisciplinary treatment model that involves the frequent and direct use of Speech and Language Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Psychotherapy and other support services in clinic and classroom environments. Our professional therapists are employed directly by Anova (not subcontracted) and work from the classrooms and specially designed clinic space to seamlessly integrate their services into the entire school curriculum. The ACE School curriculum relies on state of the art computer technology including specialized hardware and software throughout the school campus. We also integrate the principles and practices of Applied Behavior Analysis into every facet of our program by training our staff in Functional Analysis Assesment technology and Positive Behavior Intervention strategies, which are incorporated into our school-wide and individualized behavior programs. We are a data driven program that designs measurable and observable goals for our students, based on formal assessment, and then continually revises these goals according to student progress. The following pages offer a more detailed orientation to the ACE School program and the fundamentals of the Anova Method of Education.

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