Dr. Gerry Costa Interviewed by Dianne Doctor of My9/WWOR-TV on Virtual Learning for Students with Special Needs
Posted in: College News and Events
Dr. Gerry Costa, Director of the Center for Autism and Early Childhood Mental Health, was recently interviewed by Dianne Doctor of My9/WWOR-TV regarding the impact of remote learning on special needs children and advice for their parents.
Dr. Costa stated: “I think we are still learning about this. This is a real shift in our knowledge about what are the modalities of learning. I think…had this conversation had been happening in January and we were talking about how to best help children with special needs, I think everyone in the field would say ‘Oh absolutely, face-to-face learning and individualized attention to their individual needs is…critical.’ I think if I had to give a short answer, I would say: ‘It can work. It can work. It can be done well.’ And we may even discover there are times there is something about this platform that will even lead to some unintended benefits, like…really having the need for families to be much more engaged and districts being much more supportive of that engagement.”
As founding director of CAECMH, he created programs and services offered by the center, including clinical services with developmental and relational models of assessment and intervention for children with autism and other developmental disabilities; infant, infant-parent (dyadic) and early childhood mental health services; and professional development and consultation programs.