New Haven Independent

Angel is obviously a little young for high school. However, he’s exactly the right age to be evaluated by the New Haven Public School’s Early Childhood Assessment Team (ECAT), which is housed in a small suite of offices, like a charming rabbit warren out of a Beatrix Potter story, which is all but hidden at the end of a slight slope just off the high school’s Water Street parking lot.

While it might be unobtrusive, ECAT’s headquarters is one of the busiest in the NHPS system. And for parents, such as Ahuatzin, of children who at a young age have evinced delayed development in reading or motor skills, or speech, it is also their essential and critical first stop as the kids transition into the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) system’s Head Start or other pre-K programs.

Here, on Wednesday morning, Kathleen Civitello (on the left) and Mariana Figueroa hung out the especially welcome sign for a forum to acquaint parents with how their children can be evaluated for eligibility for what used to be called special education services. They’re now simply referred to as support services for children with specialized requirements or deficits.

“The kids in question,” said Civitello, who has been with ECAT for 12 years, “most often hear about us and come to us from a state program called Birth to Three. Birth to Three, just like it sounds, identifies kids, often through the hospitals where they’re born or from pediatricians or day care or other referrals. These kids who are not speaking or moving or growing or behaving at an appropriate developmental pace. These kids then receive appropriate assistance or therapy provided by Birth to Three, and usually given at home.”

How that continues on in the public school setting is what ECAT is about.

Angel, for example, understands everything, but he doesn’t speak much, according to his mother — even though he has a twin younger sister and brother, Sharlyn and Jairo. So he is already receiving speech therapy through the state program. In order for that to continue at the pre-K stage, which is three years old, and within the NHPS system, ECAT does a thorough evaluation. The evaluation always utilizes a team approach, in order to see if Angel will be eligible. If so, the ECAT staff tailor a program that will serve him best. Of the approximately 500 to 600 referrals to ECAT every year, Civitello said, about 75 percent are deemed eligible and receive services.

The two “biggies,” according to Civitello, that is, are developmental delays (fine or large motor skills, cognition, and behavior problems); and speech and language impairment (the child is not speaking appropriately for the age or has articulation problems).

“In addition,” she said, “we are seeing a lot more kids diagnosed with autism, probably because there’s an increased awareness of it in the community, and among doctors.”

Here’s the way Planning and Placement Team (PPT) evaluation works: While today was only a getting-to-know-you visit, in the coming weeks or months Angel will return and play, often in a group of other kids also in for the assessment. For approximately one to three hours he’ll be observed by a team, and often a bilingual one, consisting of a social worker, a special education teacher, a psychologist a speech therapist, an occupational therapist, and a nurse, or some combination of the above.

They’re usually down working at kid level, and these days increasingly in Spanish. Some 50 percent or more of referrals are Spanish-speakers, although a recent family had a Russian-speaking dad and French speaking mom, but ECAT managed. While there are hundreds of PPT meetings annually, today, in the more relaxed forum, both teams broke away from their duties to pose for the official ECAT team photo (left to right, first row: Wanda Morena, special education teacher; Diana Rully, evaluator; Carole Passareli, nurse; Milvia Concas, school psychologist; Sue Williams, social worker. And in the back row: Janet Quinones, speech therapist; Laura Evangelist, occupational therapist; Marianna Figueroa, and Coleen Bannon, special ed teacher).

Lisa Squires (second from left), who lives on Fitch Street, was at the forum on behalf of her son DeVonnte Davis (not pictured). He was, at this hour, with a friend, where he was receiving speech and occupational therapy mandated through Birth to Three. “In the beginning I was involved with Birth to Three,” she said, “and then we stopped. But my son didn’t’ walk until he was 21 months, so I became concerned.” Squires re-involved herself when she noticed that her son was having difficulty with steps. “His legs seemed weaker than they should. There’s some muscular dystrophy in our family - my brother came down with it when he was eight,” she said, “and so I am very concerned.”

At the ECAT parent forum, Squires had a chance to talk with various representatives of pre-K programs - to her right, Damaris Rodriguez of NHPS Head Start, and, to Squires’ left Yahaira Alvarado and Aida Gonzales of Lulac, a private Head Start-like program with two centers, one on Cedar Street and one on James, near Amistad Academy. Depending on the results of DeVonnte’s PPT, he might be referred to one of these programs, where his physical, speech, and other therapies can be continued.

The Head Start programs work very closely with ECAT, and the federal requirement that at least 10% of the places be held for kids like Angelo or DeVonnte makes the referral process smooth, easy, and welcoming for the families.

A reporter asked one member of the ECAT team, Laura Evangelist, what “occupational therapy” meant for a small child. “If you think of a kid’s school as his work site, how he’s able to function there is important. Is he able to hold his tools, his crayon or pencil, for example? Can he easily get to the water fountain if he needs a drink? And perhaps he needs a specialized chair.”

“We check all these things,” added nurse Passarelli, “and in some cases, as you know, the medical needs can be serious.”

The goal, according to all these professionals, is to provide the least restrictive regime of services possible, but depending on need, that could range from someone personally assisting a child, to another alternative being a class with all kids with special needs, to inclusion in a regular class, with services, like speech therapy simply augmenting

After that initial PPT, parents are brought back to discuss the plan, and the resulting final action plan — that is, what is to be provided, and which pre-K setting the child is to go to in order to receive it — becomes the child’s IEP, or individual evaluation plan. There’s a re-evaluation every year, and there are success stories, with, as the child grows, declining level of services being required. Civitello added that some kids do exit the program altogether.

But today would be only the very beginning for Gabriela Ahuatzin and her family. Angel and the twins really hit it off at the ECAT center, and would return. The family, however, was not being allowed to walk back home. While Diana Rully was being silly with the twin, Marianna Figueroa and Kathy Civitello were calling, and providing, for a cab to take the family back to Howard Avenue.

For more information about ECAT, call 946-2020 or email Civitello here.