Teacher Christine Kunkel kicks off each day with a morning meeting that finds her shaking her arms, patting her stomach and pretending to swim.
The meeting participants — 3- and 4-year-olds at the Watson Institute’s LEAP preschool in Sharpsburg — follow suit, singing and dancing on a colorful mat near a big-screen TV.
“We’re all gonna move and groove,” Kunkel tells her students, who giggle and mimic each other clapping and swaying.
Emulation is the aim of the LEAP preschool program — the only one in Allegheny County designed to promote inclusion by using typically developing students as models for social behavior and communication skills for students with autism.
The initiative is nationally recognized not only for helping autistic children thrive but also for equipping their peers with leadership and empathy.
“This is a wonderful program for our peer models and gives them an opportunity to learn about different abilities,” said Kunkel of Valencia. “They will carry that with them forever.”
The Watson Institute, established in 1917, operates with a mission to help special-needs children reach their full potential. It is the legacy of David Thompson Watson, a Pittsburgh businessman and well-known international attorney who counted Andrew Carnegie, Henry Phipps and Henry Clay Frick among his clients.
Watson’s “Sunny Hill” summer estate in Sewickley was the original home of the institute, which through the decades has grown to also include branches in East Liberty and Bridgeville.
Of the locations, the LEAP preschool is unique. Situated in the former red brick Sharpsburg High School along Linden Avenue, the program is marking 30 years in the borough.
Kelly Beck, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, said the Watson program meets the ultimate goal in children’s education to have as much inclusivity as possible.
“This program is ideal,” Beck said. “This will have tremendous effects for the autistic students and their typically developing peers as well.”
Friendships, she said, are critical to all children’s development.
Isolation can lead to mental health disparities as they get older; limiting opportunities is problematic, Beck said.
“I think people are often surprised to find that 15% to 20% of children have some sort of developmental disability,” Beck said. “The earlier we embrace this model, the better.”
Preschool program director Samantha Generalovich said people are taking note.
She has collaborated with administrators across the country, traveling to Oregon and New Jersey to help replicate Watson’s curriculum.
Each of the five preschool classrooms is brimming with colors, textures, sounds and sensory tools that can calm or focus users. Lessons are hands-on and inquiry-based, ranging from learning the days of the week to the colors of an animal’s fur.
Students attend class five days a week and 11 months a year to prevent summer slide.
Kunkel is joined by an array of specialty teachers, including physical and occupational therapists and speech and language pathologists.
“The curriculum is a structured routine that helps kids with IEPs but also those who are neurotypical in that they develop leadership and empathy,” Generalovich said.
Classes typically have eight model peers paired with four autistic students.
Octavian Papariella, 4, often spends time learning and playing with classmate Lorenzo Chick, also 4.
“We like to play blocks,” Octavian said. “I like to remind my friend to bring his talker (a tablet used to communicate).”
Kunkel said peer modeling is the key component.
“When I see our peer models doing things on their own, like helping a fellow student, it’s an aha moment,” she said. “A lot of times our kiddos on the spectrum respond better to their peers than they do to us.”
Tai Papariella, Octavian’s mom, is a former teacher who said the benefits of enrolling him as a peer model at LEAP have trickled down to home.
“I was excited by the curriculum as it truly encompasses the whole child,” she said. “I am impressed with the skills my son has developed throughout the school year. His social skills transfer beyond the classroom — he shows friends outside of school how to do things or asks if they need help.”
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Papariella said her son demonstrates patience with his brothers and has a new level of understanding when helping his older brother, who has autism. He has learned that some children may need something different than he does, Papariella said.
“He applies that to his own brother and even people he sees in the community,” she said.
The Sharpsburg school draws students from the Fox Chapel Area as well as across Allegheny, Westmoreland and Butler counties. The facility includes an outdoor playground and indoor gross-motor room as well.
Beck, a faculty participant in Pitt’s Autism Center of Excellence, contributed to the Schools Unified in Neurodiversity project focused on fostering school experiences for autistic children.
“My hope is that society and schools are embracing the notion that autistic children have different strengths,” Beck said.
Largely, children do a better job at that, she said.
“If you were to ask the kids in the class about it, they’d probably say, ‘This is my friend,’ and feel nothing other than that.”