Psychology Department Facilities for Children

The Psychology Department is fortunate to have two well-established facilities serving children in the broader community. Undergraduate students in Psychology have the opportunity to work as assistants at both the Thorne School and the Child Study Institute. These facilities also serve as sites for some Praxis courses in the department.

The Phebe Anna Thorne School is located on the ground floor of West House. The Thorne School serves typically developing children in its traditional program and preschoolers with special needs in its Language Enrichment Preschool Program. Graduate students and undergraduates work as classroom assistants in the Thorne School. Additionally, undergraduate and graduate students sometimes use Thorne children as research participants, and several undergraduate courses have observational or experimental projects in the Thorne School each year.

In the Fall of 2004, Bryn Mawr College and the Thorne School opened a kindergarten center on the campus of neighboring Haverford College.  The Bryn Mawr Thorne Kindergarten Center is located in a 19th century farmhouse on the Haverford campus that was recently renovated as well as doubled in size.  The renovation was made possible by a generous donation from Dr. and Mrs. Rocco Motto, as well as by gifts from many other generous donors.  The Kindergarten Center houses two programs.  One kindergarten class, directed by Marilyn Motto Henkelman, is an extension of the Thorne Nursery School program.  The other program, directed by Nancy Rassiga, is an extension of the Thorne Language Enrichment Preschool Program.  Both programs provide developmentally appropriate activities to enhance the skills that make children enthusiastic, successful learners and to help children refine the social skills that help them to understand and deal with their own and other's behaviors.  In addition, the Language Enrichment Kindergarten incorporates in the curriculum skills that have been identified as helping to minimize the risk factors for learning and reading in children with identified speech and language delays.

The Child Study Institute occupies a building in the near vicinity of West House. This newly renovated building serves as an important training facility for Psychology's graduate program. Graduate students work at CSI as psychology trainees, where they gain supervised experience in assessment, therapy, educational consultation, and educational remediation. Some undergraduates work as classroom assistants in CSI group programs.