Kristen Gordon is the lead teacher at Little Corner Academy (LCA). She has 10 years of experience working in Baltimore County Public Schools. All ten years she has been a self-contained special education teacher for the Communication and Learning Support program. Kristen has a Master’s Degree from Towson University in Education as a Reading Specialist and a Bachelor’s Degree in Infant/Primary Special Education. She has an advanced professional certificate from the State of Maryland in the following areas; generic special education 1-8, early childhood education preK-3, reading specialist, and early education 1-6 and middle school. In addition, Kristen has received a certificate of achievement for successfully completing Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) Training.

In addition to a primary teacher, the LCA has the support of a team of therapists including speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, music therapists, reading specialists, and psychologist. Our team is comprised of highly qualified therapists committed to providing quality service and treatment. All of our therapists are master level educated, licensed, and actively continuing their educations.

The Little Corner Academy program structure is based on the TEACCH method. It is a highly structured program with a focus on the physical structure of the child’s environment. This means that there are set boundaries in the classroom and they are clearly defined by specific categories (e.g., unpacking, opening, play).

The program follows a structured schedule. Each child is provided an individual schedule to help transition throughout their day using a picture paired with the child’s name and every activity is color coded. At this age, the children take off the colored activity (i.e., their schedule card) and match it to that area’s color. There are clear and well established routines. Each day the children will arrive, unpack, check their schedule, and transition to that assigned activity. This routine and structure helps with consistency and independence. The LCA’s program is based on Pivotal Response Training (PRT) which is play-based, child initiated instruction. The focus is on comprehensive “pivotal” areas such as increasing a child’s motivation to learn, initiating communication, and monitoring their own behaviors. This focus on motivation is crucial because a child who is motivated to monitor their behavior will experience more success. PRT encourages children to improve in the three broad pivotal areas; social interaction initiation, communication, and self-management. We will interact closely with each child, especially child-initiated activities during which they are highly motivated, on academic instruction through counting, colors, numbers, and letters. In addition, modeling and prompts will be used to encourage and ‘teach’ the children skills such as requesting, turn-taking, positive peer interaction, and focus on reciprocal and parallel play. All of these methods of instruction are vital to the structured learning process.