Park district's Camp Sundance makes strides with special needs program
The mother of a 12-year-old boy with Asperger's Syndrome is praising the Mount Prospect Park District for its recent efforts to include special needs children like her son in its programming, particularly summer camps.
This is the third year that Joanne Prifti-Nicholas sent her son to Camp Sundance at Lions Park, which is aimed at children entering fifth, sixth and seventh grades. And while Prifti-Nicholas readily admits that the first year he was in the camp was a disaster, she says that she has been working closely with the park district ever since. This past summer her son had an excellent experience.
"I believe in bringing my concerns to people in authority when they are concerns that are legitimate and supported by law," Prifti-Nicholas said.
So when her son, who suffers from a mild form of autism, was expelled from camp that first year after a counselor mistook his autism for bad behavior, Prifti-Nicholas went to bat for her son. She brought in representatives from the Northwest Special Recreation Association and the Northwest Suburban Special Education Organization and convinced the park district officials that they needed to train their counselors to handle special needs children.
"Autism and Asperger's are expressive language and social disorders and the key for these children is to be with normally developing children who model normal behavior," Prifti-Nicholas explained. "But kids with disabilities continue to stumble and fall and you need to support them over and over again."
Mainstreaming children like her son is possible, Prifti-Nicholas maintains, when the staff is well trained and supported by aides from the NWSRA who teach skills to the general camp counselors every day through example.
Camp went so well this summer, she says, that when her son's aide went on two separate one-week vacations, the general camp counselors were able to step up and handle things on their own.
"A lot of people worked very hard and I just want to let the parents of other special needs kids know that the Mount Prospect Park District is getting it right," she explained.
And that is going to become more and more important, Prifti-Nicholas concludes, with statistics showing that one in every 150 children born today will suffer from autism.
Donate old musical instruments:ŒBaird and Warner Real Estate has once again partnered with the Mount Prospect Lions Club and the Mount Prospect Community Relations Commission to collect used musical instruments for music programs at various Mount Prospect schools.
The effort will continue through Labor Day to collect instruments which are just collecting dust in people's closets, attics and basements and put them to work again, helping needy children learn to perform.
Donations may be dropped off at Baird and Warner, 426 W. Northwest Hwy. or any Sunday morning to the Lions Club members at the Farmer's Market in the train station parking lot. Call (847) 259-1855 for information.
Rescue dogs:ŒThe Mount Prospect Public Library, 10 S. Emerson St., will offer a program from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, in which dog handler Patti Gibson of Illinois-Wisconsin Search and Rescue Dogs will use her dog, Josie Wales, to teach children how to avoid getting lost, how to remain comfortable if they do get lost and what they can do in order to be found more quickly. To register, call (847) 253-5675 or log onto www.mppl.org/events.