Our Mission

For individuals with Autism, it is not possible to participate fully in group activities designed for typical children and adults. Whether it be academic or recreational, people with ASD do not have the attention and regulation to attend social groups that are not specifically designed for their needs. All too often our kids are over stimulated by social environments and are not able to regulate and enjoy the smallest of pleasures. Unfortunately, we are truly a marginalized group. Most people do not understand that even a small trip to the grocery store can end in a tantrum. Every parent wants their child with Autism to have the same opportunities and experiences as other kids.

We want our kids to be able to enjoy recreational group activities in a supportive environment with people who get it. We all secretly hope that our child has a special gift or talent like we hear about on TV -- maybe he's a Savant for piano, or will become a competitive swimmer..We just won't know until we try. Autism parents want these recreational programs. Sadly, town-run sports camps and local YMCAs are just not the right fit. For most people the weekends are a time to cherish with family outings or enjoy a family movie night. For parents with kids on the spectrum, we understand that the weekend can sometimes mean hours of unstructured time that needs to be padded and scheduled. Flower Petals Adaptive Dance Company is a dance program focused on students with special needs, mainly autism, in Greenwich, CT. 

Our adaptive dance classes fill the needs of all of the participants in our program. 

Our parents deserve at least one hour of respite on the weekends. We offer 1-hour dance classes so that they parents can meet up and socialize with the parents who are in the same boat that they are. Secondly, we are serving our volunteers, who are all high school students from Fairfield CO. Our volunteers are hands on, one on one, physically and emotionally connecting with our special needs kids. This is a deeply rewarding experience for our girls who may have not experienced working with a person with special needs. It's very humbling and life changing when you see another human who may not have the the ability to speak, but with whom you can connect with through music, dance, and positive energy. Of course, we are a special needs dance school. Most of the participants have Autism and are non-verbal. 

Every Sunday, we offer four dance classes. Beginning Dance, Classical Ballet/Contemporary, Zumba/HipHop, and our new Toddler Movement class. The mission of Flower Petals Adaptive Dance Company is to provide a safe space for all to dance and move. Each Sunday, students are matched 1-on-1 with volunteers and are led through a movement class by a teacher with music. It is a place where all actions, reactions, and feelings are celebrated. One parent recently told me that Flower Petals is the only program outside of school that her autistic daughter can participate in. Parents are able to feel confident that when they drop their children off that, they are safe to explore dance while being truly themselves. The stress of school and life are gone for a brief time on Sunday mornings. There is joy in the room. Both parents and students leave smiling every week. We have a showcase for parents twice a year in which we celebrate our community. 

We do not want to parents to feel like they can't come to class because we are just another service to pay for. We do not want to be a line item in a family's budge and put them in a position where they feel the need to cut activities from their child's life because they can't afford it. We want to keep costs down for our families. 

Families with Autistic children already pay so much in services. The going rate for a Speech Therapist is $220.00 Per hour, OT is $175.00, ABA is $100.00 per hour, not to mention families with Autistic Children, have the extra burden of having to hire a Caregiver for the rest of their life. We ask for $15.00 per class per child which is not enough to cover our studio costs. We feel that every parent should be able to contribute a few  dollars, and that goes to pay our one professional dance instructor. 

We offer a professional well-run class with help from therapist consultants who can create intervention and strategies for stability and success. If we have more professional help - therapists in the room, the parents feel more relaxed and are not called into the studio because their child is having behaviors. It is our experience that The parents feel more relaxed and able to exhale and not be on guard when there is a trained adult teacher in the room. Our Volunteers are great, but they are also only 15 - 17 years of age and we feel that we do need to have experienced teachers leading the classes. For this, we need to pay for quality leadership. 

This year we are elated to introduce Simone Assboeck, a professional very experienced Zumba Hip Hop Dance Instructor. (Please see her Bio under About US) We are an all Inclusive dance Studio where everyone can be free and express themselves without Judgement. We could state the obvious facts, that the benefits to dance include Overall physical fitness, with Improvements in flexibility, strength, and motor skills. We could say that it's going to increase in confidence and self-esteem and provide an outlet for creativity and imagination and serve as a stress release. But Honestly, that's the low hanging fruit. What we really want is to provide a structured Space and Time Every week where the parents and caregivers have the opportunity to share and bond, where the kids get to relax and release and the volunteers get to bond with children over the very common denominator of moving your body to music. We would like to see this Dance as a vehicle for support, information exchange and fellowship. The lack of support for special needs families is a persistent challenge and we hope to continue to build a community of support for our families. 

Most of our children are non-verbal. They do not speak and they have sensory concerns, meaning that they are neurologically wired differently and that they sense and feel things in a heightened degree than the typical person. Examples of this could be The music is too loud, the lights are too bright, there are too many kids in the classroom, they don’t want to be touched, they want hugs, they don’t want anyone around them. There are variety of environmental factors that can set these kids off and cause “Behaviors” meaning erratic running, hitting, biting, crying, falling on the floor. It is important to secure funding to hire an ABA Therapist to address these types of behaviors with the volunteers so that they can be trained to de escalate  situations when they arise.