The EPIC School

Our evidence-based instructional protocols allow us to be outcome-focused in our partnerships with parents. While we often break down complex tasks into more teachable parts, we also work to teach skills in a way that allows for the fastest acquisition with the least response effort, without compromising the integrity of the skill or our interventions. Either way, the intervention process, and any related troubleshooting, is guided solely by data.

EPIC’s Elementary/Middle Program provides an individualized, evidence-based education to children with autism ages 5 to 14-years. As a function of need instruction is provided across multiple skill domains such as communication, academics, self-care, independence, social skills, self-management and safety. Even EPIC’s youngest students participate in degree of community-based instruction (CBI) to establish the prerequisites of more complex skills they will need later on in life.

Some students only stay with EPIC for a short time before they transition systematically back to their home school district. For some, this may mean full-time inclusion with no follow-along by EPIC, but for others it may mean part-time inclusion with support provided by EPIC. In either scenario, EPIC works very closely with the student, family, and sending district to achieve this outcome.

The EPIC School’s Work Based Learning is conducted under the guidelines of the NJ Department of Education’s Work Based Learning program. In the Work Based Learning program, we focus on the acquisition of skills both relevant to a specific job (packaging medical supplies for EMS workers) and generalizable across jobs (rate of production, duration of engagement, quality control, direction following, etc.). EPIC Job Coaches act as liaisons between the community and the students to find the best fit for a student’s skills and the business’s needs. Between ages 16-21, we use multiple internships to determine job preferences and develop experience in an actual workplace, with the goal of gainful employment at a preferred job after graduation from EPIC.

The EPIC School is committed to the use of evidence-based, behavior analytic interventions to improve the lives of our students and their families across multiple instructional domains and instructional environments.  One way EPIC does this is through the provision of instructional intervention outside the classroom and in the student’s typical environment.  Taken collectively, the interventions, protocols and policies guiding such instruction are referred to as Community Based Instruction (CBI).   CBI has been identified as an evidence-based practice (National Secondary Transition Technical Assistance Center, 2017) and is generally regarded as an effective instructional method for the consistent and systematic provision of instruction, in real-life settings, in the skills students will need to live productive, included, and enjoyable adult lives.  CBI is a hands-on process requiring the involvement of parents and other members of the community such as local businesses and community members.  The skills targeted in via CBI are, most often, adaptive behavior skills although the application of academic skills is often included in the process.  The overarching goal of CBI is the development of a repertoire of independent skills tagged to the environments most likely to be accessed by the student in his or her daily life.

The Transition to Adulthood focuses on more than just the development of job skills, extending to skills relevant to community life. Although EPIC’s transition program officially begins at 14 years of age, the instruction finds its roots in the programming for students as young as 7 years old. Because of our focus on applied skills throughout their time with EPIC, our students develop a repertoire of skills necessary to succeed in classroom, the community, and their homes.