April is Autism Awareness Month, a time to focus on the contributions and diversity in the autism community. It is also a time to spotlight the caregivers who provide specialized care to those with neurodivergent conditions. One Alabama preschool is offering specialized care to children with autism.
Youngsters are celebrating One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish Day at Archway Academy. It’s a new preschool in Northport near Tuscaloosa that focuses on children ages two and a half to five with autism and other neurodivergent conditions. Archway Academy is the first facility of its kind in the Tuscaloosa area designed to help families with this need.
“We drove to Birmingham for years for resources, because Tuscaloosa really didn't have much for them,” said Doctor Shan Archibald, the school’s director. She explains that she wanted to give families in Tuscaloosa with autistic preschoolers the specialized care that she traveled to Birmingham when she was raising her children.
“So, we drove there for years, and they were diagnosed as level three autistic, which means they needed maximum support. And with years of driving up there, getting those resources when they went into kindergarten, they were categorized as level one. So, the things that we drove to Birmingham for, I wanted to bring them to Tuscaloosa,” she said.
Archibald says opening a school was something she had always wished to do but was uncertain she could ever make it a reality.
“This was all a dream, you know, I didn't really think that it would even come into fruition,” said Archibald. “Coming here every day, it just feels surreal that is actually here, and we're doing well.”
In addition to raising her own children, Archibald is trained as a psychiatric mental health care doctor, and she believes that combination of experiences fits right into mission of Archway Academy.
“I studied autism at the doctoral level in the preschool setting, so years of just seeing how autism work things that you know will benefit children autism, which is early detection, diagnosis and intervention,” she added. “And as a mother, I live it every day. So it's not something someone told me I studied it, but I also live it.”
Archibald says along with a lack of preschool space for children with autism, there’s also a long waiting list for screening, diagnosis, and early intervention. She says the Tuscaloosa community has expressed a great deal of gratitude to her and her staff.
“I got a lot of thank yous,” she observed. “I've received calls from staff at the UA. I've received calls from other places that offer autism therapy, so everybody has welcomed me with open arms here.”
Archibald also written a book detailing her experiences with autism, from her medical education to her motherly perseverance living out the unique challenges of raising autistic children. Navigating the World of Autism was written to provide families with autistic children guidance and hope, according to its author.
“I wrote that book because when I when my kids were diagnosed with autism, I really I felt like I was out in the middle of an ocean swimming alone. I wrote the book to share my story and also encourage people to uplift them, but also it's utilized as a guidebook,” she said.
2026 was also a year of change on how the State of Alabama handles the needs of families with autistic children. A new state law went into effect this year that changed the old system that paid for early autism intervention to a fee for service program. Critics say this is forcing some rural service providers to cut staff. Also, the licensing of behavior analysts has shifted to the Alabama Department of Mental Health.
Gail Seemann is a licensed professional counselor who has specialized in giving therapy to clients on the autism spectrum since 2011. Here is what she said when asked what the biggest challenge for the educational development of autistic children was…
“The biggest challenge, I think, is understanding,” Seeman said. “Because I think it's very difficult to fully grasp what this neurological difference means and what the capacity is of the children or the adult that you are trying to communicate with when you don't understand their internal experience.”
Seemann also says that this lack of understanding goes both ways. She says that the population of her clients on the spectrum does not understand those without autism either.
“This population struggles to understand that other people don't see the world the way that they do, so they don't tell you about it. And so even teachers, I think often, will not grasp that the child is not being oppositional. They are overwhelmed.”
As part of Autism Awareness Month, a ZOOM conference was held that focused on how journalists should handle mental health and autism coverage in the age of disinformation. The speaker was Corinne Purtill, a science and health reporter for the LA Times. She says there’s a saying that is common in the field of autism…
“You know the saying you'll hear a lot is,” said Purtill. “If met one person with autism, then you've only met one person with autism, which means that there's, you know, there's not a ton of things that you can say are absolutely true for all autistic people.”
Purtill agrees with Gail Seeman’s about the lack of understanding between the neurodivergent and neurotypical communities. Because our daily environments are not organized in an autistic friendly manner, Purtill says we need to step back and try to understand what these individuals are experiencing.
“I think with a lot, as with a lot of things in life, is just, you know, having patience, you know, and grace for one another, understanding that a lot of people are experiencing things on the inside that are not immediately apparent when you're looking at it from the outside,” she said.
Neurodivergence is a fancy word that is used frequently by medical professionals. Although neurodivergence can be complex and a little complicated, Dr. Archibald says she has a way to simplify things…
“Because with autistic children, they think differently,” she noted. “So that's why it's neurodivergent. That's why it's called that, because their brain is wired differently. They might, you know, melt down just because they want the toy that another kid is holding.”
Seemann goes into further detail as to what causes the meltdowns Archibald describes.
“They are in meltdown because of sensory overload, because of intellectual overload, because of just being in a space with a lot of different chaotic type things happening.”
Unique conditions and behaviors like these are what creates a need for specialized educational care for autistic children. Archibald says it also takes a person that has a lot of compassion, patience and empathy to administer such care.
“I'm all about helping people. I have a servant's heart. It's something that I really love to do. I was called to do it. “I have three children with disabilities, so I get it. I just want to be able to support people and just give them hope.”
Archibald says that Archway Academy is licensed to have thirty-one children, but they only have 16 children who are currently registered.
