POTENTIAL DEVELOPMENT

Since 1953, the Potential Development Program Inc. has been providing services to children in our community with developmental delays. Under the leadership of Ms. Christine Kline, the Agency was originally incorporated as the United Cerebral Palsy Association. Striving to accommodate the changing needs of the community and a decline in the need to provide services to children with cerebral palsy and physical disabilities, the Agency began to focus on helping children with developmental delays, ... particularly speech and language delays, and children with challenging behaviors. In 1976 the Agency was reincorporated and renamed “Potential Development Program Inc.” to better define the current programs and services. Not long after, Potential Development (PD) staff saw an increasing number of children coming to the program with Autism Spectrum Disorder. To best meet the needs of these students, staff members participated in an intensive training program that concentrated on early intervention methods to help preschool-age children. As the preschool in Youngstown grew so did the need for services in Trumbull County. Therefore, PD began a partnership with the Children’s Rehabilitation Center to open a classroom for Trumbull County preschool-age children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. As the number of children being diagnosed with Autism continued to increase, PD staff realized that parents were intentionally holding their children back from kindergarten because the students were having difficulty transitioning into the public school system. To fill this gap in services, the Potential Development Program School of Autism, a non-public charter school, was opened in September 2001. At the time, the goal was to work with children in kindergarten through third grade, but parents began asking the agency to add classrooms to accommodate students through 8th grade. In response, PD gradually expanded services as the student body aged.More