+ GOALS

Our goal is to ensure each student leaves NEARI with:

• Increased self-regulation capacity
• Improved relationship skills
• Improved life, educational and/or work-related skills, including learning readiness, reading, executive functioning, and community access skills
• A commitment to making a positive impact in the wider world
• The ability to create nourishing personal routines and advocate for self around learning strengths, goals, and communication needs

Our staff does not have a preconceived idea of what will work with an individual student to achieve mastery–rather, we have an experienced and dedicated teaching team with a wide range of assessments, techniques, and creative approaches from which to draw. Staff members are constantly searching for the best tools and teaching methods for each student, and they use those tools to help guide instructional practices.

For example, over the years, NEARI has developed NEARI’s Layered Reading Model. This Model views readers as emerging, intermediate, or advanced and supports ongoing assessment and remediation designed to address not only cognitive reading disabilities but underlying neuro-development deficits and learning style differences that affect reading capacity. This results in the use of a wide variety of reading programs tailored to each student’s reading needs. Some of our reading assessments programs include: Reading Reflex and Phonographix, Orton Gillingham, The Davis Method, ABCedarian, Telian Mnemonic Reading Program, Fontas and Pinnell, Words Their Way, More Powerful Reading (Levy), Lindamood Bell, Wilson Reading System, The TNT Reading System, AIMSWEB, Sonday System, Dyslexia Program Teaching, and Language! (Jane Fell Greene)

+ values

NEARI supports the following values in all its programs:

Staff-Centered Leadership: The best education and treatment services for NEARI students occur when leaders view individual staff members’ professional and programmatic needs and perspectives as central to the work.

Authentic Relationships: The cornerstone of effective growth and development of all students is boundaried yet intimate relationships. For students to become adults who can relate genuinely and appropriately, they need mentors who: a) hold unconditional positive regard for the students in their care, b) demonstrate/model positive and authentic relationship skills, and c) are able to address and contain maladaptive behaviors while maintaining their professional boundaries.

Strengths and Evidenced Based Learning: NEARI believes in individualized programs of education, treatment, and intervention, and so all staff – not just the teachers – must understand students’ individual strengths, learning readiness levels, talents, cognitive capacities, learning styles, social and cultural issues, and preferred ways of both communicating and dealing with stress. Learning environments need to be inquiry-based, multimodal, trauma-sensitive, and focused on promoting relaxed alertness, orchestrated immersion, and active processing. NEARI’s education and treatment programs are based on the application of research regarding best practices in the fields of study related to all aspects of NEARI’s target populations and model of instruction discussed above.

Centrality of Self-regulation: External control of behavior is not difficult. The challenge is to teach each student how to self-regulate through behavioral support, not external behavioral control. This means teaching a feelings language, social pragmatics, acting out prevention strategies, and alternative and appropriate ways to handle frustration and the difficulties inherent in daily life.

Diversity Equity and Inclusion: NEARI strives to be an inclusive place for everyone. We are dedicated to ensuring that everyone has access to equal opportunities and every culture is respected. We believe that safety is one of the most important aspects of a student's ability to regulate and learn. NEARI supports students to be their authentic selves and reduces risks of physical and emotional harm.