Particpant Profile:

What do we look for in our admissions process?

With love, our program was designed to meet the precise needs of well-regulated neurodiverse children with autism, level 1, ADHD, learning differences, and anxiety.

With two-plus decades of experience supporting neurodiverse children, we discovered the social-emotional needs that most benefit from our special program and those that don’t respond as well to our approach.

Our admissions assessment also helps us thoughtfully place your child in a group with children with similar levels of social ability for maximum comfort and success.

The Camp Pegasus-Art of Friendship Program works beautifully for, and recommends admission for children who:

• Are behaviorally independent (not requiring 1:1 support at school)

• Possess at least low average or higher intellectual functioning (to benefit from our cognitive-based social and coping skills lessons)

• Utilize their words (expressive language) to advocate for their needs to adults

• Are developing and practicing social language with peers

• Demonstrate safe behavior (i.e. no physical aggression, destruction of property, elopement, or shutting down)

• Have sufficient self-regulation to remain in activities when frustrated

• Can return to an activity after a brief calming-break If upset or overwhelmed from a sensory standpoint,

• Consistently follow classroom routines and do not regularly argue or refuse to cooperate

• Independently perform self-care activities such as toileting, cleaning themselves, hand-washing, and feeding.

The program does not successfully support and does not recommend admission for children who:

• Have not yet developed language ability

• Possess very low or extremely low intellectual functioning (because of the cognitive nature of the social and coping skills lessons)

• Are not potty-trained or unable to feed themselves independently.

  or, in the past three months:

• Bullied others

• Demonstrated physical aggression (hitting, kicking, pushing, biting) or threatened to do so

• Engaged in destruction of property (throwing, dumping or breaking materials, or toppling furniture)

• Eloped (ran or wandered away from supervision or the group)

• Scared other children with screaming, cursing, or threatening behavior

• Showed a need to over-control themselves or their environment with argumentative, oppositional-defiant, or refusal behavior