Hamilton College and the New England Center for Children jointly sponsor a semester-long program at the Southborough, Mass., facility, in which Hamilton students interested in applied psychology and education can gain practical experience in special education and its applications, working intensively with children diagnosed with autism and other developmental disorders.
The program includes both didactic course work and supervised practicum experience. Students return to Hamilton with a full semester's course credit: two practicum credits and two credits for courses at Northeastern University or Simmons College in topics such as Applied Behavior Analysis, Programmed Learning, and the Biological Bases of Mental Retardation.
The New England Center for Children is an award-winning program serving about 200 students from 18 months through young adulthood, who have been diagnosed with autism or other developmental disorders. NECC provides a variety of services, ranging from individualized instruction focusing on social and basic skills to traditional elementary and secondary school classes. Instructional techniques are firmly based on empirical research on conditioning and learning.
Instructors are carefully supervised as they learn to collect data to describe each student's behavior so that progress can be documented and analyzed, and learn to apply the principles of operant conditioning in this newly-renovated, state-of-the-art instructional setting.
Not only a school for children with autism, NECC is also an internationally recognized center for professional training in psychology and special education. It is a primary site for the Masters in Applied Behavior Analysis students from Northeastern University's Department of Counseling Psychology. Simmons College students in the graduate program in Intensive Special Needs also receive coursework and supervised teaching experience at NECC. All courses are offered by the psychologists at the Center, all of whom have extensive background in applied behavior analysis.
Finally, NECC supports many ongoing research projects focused on the education of children with autism. The director of research has a joint appointment with the Shriver Mental Retardation Research Center, and all of the PhD psychologists have active research programs.
