In the Neighborhood
An inclusive experience Bring on the Spectrum in Colonie gives neurodiverse young people and their families a place to be themselves
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veryone needs a place to just hang out and be themselves. For some, that place is harder to find than others. Bring on the Spectrum, or BOTS, offers that place for those that may not readily fit in with the mainstream. “I think Lisa’s intention with BOTS is to make it inclusible, which is my word and means ‘suitable for inclusion,’” said Diane Guendel, a special education teacher with the Shenendehowa School District who specializes in using board and other games as a type of therapy. “Too often it is up to our kids to become suitable for inclusion, and I think that is backwards. I think we need to create the spaces and the activities and the opportunities for them, and that is what she has done.” BOTS is the brainchild of Lisa Audi, who converted a vacant space on Fuller Road into a sensory gym and community center for children and adults who are on the autism spectrum. But “spectrum” here does have a broader definition. “The word spectrum is in our title and people tend to relate it to autism but we relate it to the
RIGHT: Lisa and Carabelle Audi at BOTS. FAR RIGHT: Diane Guendel, (center) a special education teacher with the Shenendehowa School District, plays a board game at BOTS Photos by Jim FraNCO
14 Family Now — April 2022
spectrum of diagnosis, so it could be any intellectual or developmental disability,” Audi said. “The spectrum of ages that we can have here. Sometimes, when you think of a sensory gym you think of a young kid’s play gym, but this is more than that. This is meant to see the young children through the spectrum of their lives and the spectrum of diversity and inclusion.” Sensory gyms are by not new or unique and include equipment “designed to provide vestibular and proprioceptive input,” according to an article in Autism Parenting Magazine. In other words, the activities in the sensory gym — like swings, slides, air hockey, inner tube trampolines safe climbing apparatus — help with “fine and gross motor skills and improve balance, movement and spatial orientation.”
“There are gyms for us, adults have places to go, but there isn’t anywhere for kids, especially kids on the spectrum, where he can be loud or stimming and it’s OK and that’s the key thing. Everyone is welcome.” “It’s great so far. It is somewhere we can go and get out of the house for a little while and she loves it,” said Melissa Angeles as she watched her daughter Selena play on a swing set. “There isn’t much around for them. There is Dave and Busters but it’s too busy and too crazy and too crowded with kids and this place is a little more low-key and it’s better for her.”
Jim Franco
“There isn’t anything else like it where we can bring them. There are outdoor playgrounds but when the weather is [bad], the couch becomes the bouncy tire and there is nowhere else to take them,” said Lisa Shapiro, who was watching her 13-yearold son Jacob enjoying a swing.
More than a gym There were sensory gyms in Ballston Spa and Latham but both closed, so Audi saw a need. Her vision, though, was to offer more than a sensory gym, and the space on Fuller Road also includes a large community room that plays host to programs like art and yoga classes, and there is a mom who is a beautician and wants to start a hair styling and make up class. “I said ‘great.’ We are open to all ideas. This is not my community space. It is the community’s
space. If people have ideas, like mom the hair dresser, we want to hear them,” she said. “When we were out blossoming this idea, we wanted it to be more than a sensory gym and that is where the idea for the community space came about, to include social, recreational and lifestyle activities and that can be anything from art to yoga to Zumba. Really to anything.” On Sunday, Guendel was hosting board games in the community room and Emily Barbara was teaching an art class, instructing children and adults on how to paint a rainbow arched over grassy, green hills. The space on Fuller Road has a number of smaller rooms as well including a “sensory room,” which is darkened and has different lights and stimulus where children can go if they do get over stimulated by the activities “It’s a place where you can calm yourself when you get a little over stimulated and we are very appreciative of Price Chopper’s Golub Foundation for sponsoring it,” Audi said. BOTS does not get any direct governmental funding but some families are able to access fees through the state Office for People with Developmental Disabilities.
