Formulating a Plan

For people with autism, the world can be a complex and scary place. Recent news, films, and literature reflect the growing interest in autism, while at the same time, point to how much there is still to understand.

Providing caring, safe, educational environments for children and adults with autism where they can learn and be productive is becoming more prevalent and imperative for our communities. The new Debra Ann November Wing of the Lerner School for Autism at the Cleveland Clinic Children's Hospital is a benchmark facility for the programming and design of an environment specifically for people with autism, from infants to early adulthood. The 24,000-square-foot, single-story building expresses a strong modernist simplicity and clarity of purpose, with a forward-thinking image that supports one of the country's premier healthcare institutions and its leadership in the pedagogy and treatment of autism.

Cleveland Clinic's Center for Autism is innovative in its integration of a clinical and educational facility within a hospital setting, and in the design of its environment to support behavioral and sensory progress. As such, it serves as a model for how healthcare and community organizations can respond to the growing demand for and understanding of this highly specialized, experiential field of practice, and as a model for how to program and design environments for people with autism-a learning process even as such facilities are being built.

Located on the Shaker Heights campus as part of the Cleveland Clinic Children's Hospital for Rehabilitation, the $8 million project is designed by Cleveland-based healthcare architects and engineers Westlake Reed Leskosky. Director of the Cleveland Clinic's Center for Autism, Leslie V. Sinclair, MA/BCBA, speaks passionately about the need for centers of excellence: “We truly believe that children with autism deserve to learn at the optimum level. We are understanding what it takes to educate people with autism well, and we see the outcome of children who do not get the intensive intervention they need when they are young-they are disabled for the rest of their lives. The need to provide top-notch programs and facilities is clear, and the risk in not doing this is huge.”

The Center for Autism breaks new ground, as Sinclair emphasizes: “Our center is unique in two key respects. Most other programs focus on only one modality-medical, research, or education. Here we have woven a clinical educational facility in a healthcare setting. This is a maverick notion-bringing clinical intervention, medication, and education for people with autism all under one roof. Secondly, we are innovative in the creation of an environment designed specifically to support behavioral and sensory progress.

“We draw upon the clinical staff of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and as a nonpublic, private charter school, are linked with both the Ohio Department of Education and the Joint Commission for Healthcare Accreditation. Thus, our school is compliant with two sets of regulations. The whole idea of our program braiding both standards together is truly different. We are proving that it can be done. We are moving clinical design forward,” continues Sinclair, who is directly responsible for the Center-based programs, outreach, research, and development.