Jenny McCarthy and John Asher 's son Evan was born in May 2002. In the fall of 2004, when he was about 30 months old, Evan suffered a bout of seizures. Subsequently Evan was evaluated for autism at UCLA, and was diagnosed with autism in May of 2005, when he was about 36 months old. Subsequently, according to published reports, he received up to 40 hours a week of behavioral and speech therapy for 12 months or more.
The speech-language therapy was in part with Sarah Clifford Scheflen. Following the reported success of Evan's treatment with Scheflen, in 2007 McCarthy and Scheflen started a limited liability company, Teach2Talk, to produce products for parents to use at home, which appears to have been marketed primarily through the internet.
Teach2talk’s™ produces educational resources for children which target core speech and language, play and social skills using techniques including video modeling. Our products are created by a practicing speech language pathologist based on her clinical experience and her review of the peer–reviewed research of others, but are designed to be used by parents on their own without outside assistance.
In an Ocotober 2007 interview with Allison Kugel (when Evan would have been 5 years, 6 months, or eligible for kindergarten), Jenny said
He’s classified as typical, but he still has auditory processing issues. I still have him in speech [therapy]. But he’s in typical school and completely normal functioning. Once in awhile we’ll talk so quickly and there will be so much information, and he’ll go, “Wait. Can you slow down?” That’s Evan’s thing though (laughs). He’s like, “You’re talking too fast!” And that’s auditory processing, where there is too much information together at once. But all of the autism is gone.
In the fall of 2009, according to an interview in Cookie Magazine, McCarthy
opened a school for autistic children in L.A..
The school's description from its website:
Teach2Talk Academy is an intensive early intervention program for the treatment of preschool aged children from two and a half to six with autism spectrum disorders and other developmental disorders.
Jenny described the school in an interview with Bonnie Siegler at the Living Without website:
The school, called Teach to Talk Academy, is located in the house where I used to live. I got rid of all my furniture and converted each room into a classroom. We have about 30 kids enrolled between the ages of 3 and 6 years old. The school is an intensive treatment center for autistic kids. We’re basically teaching them how to speak, how to go to the bathroom, how to function, how to look their friends in the eyes. We’re treating autism through nutrition, as well. So I’ll be bringing all my nutritional advice to the school. We have a doctor on board who will come in and do the blood work with the kids and have them on a health regimen. The same diet, the same vitamins, the same detoxing…all the things I’ve done with Evan’s recovery. There’ll also be behavior therapy. I consider these kids in the school right now to be one of the luckiest groups around because we have the very best of the best therapists from UCLA, combined with the best doctors in the world to treat autism. I’ve just put them together under one roof—and there it is!
According to several sources, including the KidsLA magazine article quoted below McCarthy's long-term goal was to, with Scheflen, to open a string of schools.
Also, tell us about the Teach2Talk Academy. Why did you start it and what makes it more suitable for kids with autism and other learning disorders? Teach2Talk Academy opened this year and I'm proud to say is an absolute success in terms of the amount of progress children with autism are making. We have children age 2 to 6 and we use a combination of ABA, floor time and other therapies that help the kids progress according to their specific goals. I also teach parents and guide them toward diet/nutritional tips that can help further their progress while at the school. We also have an after school social skills program for ages 3 to 9. Evan attends social skills and it's his favorite part of the week. They learn how to play freeze tag, teamwork and the importance of making a buddy. (http://t2tacademy.com/)
Do you plan on opening more academies, and/or growing it to include older children? We do have a goal to open more schools around the country. If I had Bill Gates' money I would have them in every state. For now, Sherman Oaks is our home. We do plan on increasing with age in terms of social skills group. But our intensive school is only for ages 2 thru 6.
It's also important to note that McCarthy's son Evan, who is now 8 1/2 years old, would have aged out of this school or network of schools. (It hasn't been reported where Evan is attending school today, although he may still be homeschooled.) Later in the KidsLA article, McCarthy attends social skills classes at the Teach2Talk campus.
According to the February 25, 2010 interview in Time Magazine, the Teach2Talk Academy school was located in the Thousand Oaks house that McCarthy owns.
According to an April 9, 2010 article in TV Guide McCarthy has decided to close the school. It's not clear from the reports if the school will close immediately, or if it will close at the end of the planned school year.
"Jenny and her partner at the Academy, Sarah Scheflen, had different visions for the school and made a decision to go their separate ways," McCarthy's rep said in a statement. "Sarah and Jenny really enjoyed their time working at the Academy and feel honored that they were able to provide such high quality early intervention services to so many children with autism and other developmental disabilities."
It's not clear why McCarthy elected to close the school, or what will happen to the Teach2Talk teaching videos enterprise.
Unverified gossip posted several places on the web, including Yahoo Shine:
It was Jenny's pet project — but, according to a source who knew the couple well, the school's demise may even have been an additional strain that contributed to the end of her five-year relationship with 48-year-old Jim Carrey.
"I don't know who broke up with whom, but I know that for a little bit before the school fell apart Jim was going to possibly buy out Jenny's partner so the school would be all Jenny's. Then, next thing I heard, [Jenny] was moving out [from Carrey's house]," an insider told us about the couple's April 4 split . "Jenny McCarthy has had...the worst two months of her life. Her school and her man all vanished in about 60 days."
Given that the school's defined purpose was early intervention for autism, it would have fallen under the North Los Angeles County Regional Center for Developmental Disabilities. Some of the children enrolled in Teach2Talk Academy may have been previously served by California Early Start. Funding for early intervention services for children with autism is complex and confusing.
- Ms. McCarthy and Ms. Scheflen may have failed to secure the appropriate permits to run a school or early-intervention program from either the city of Sherman Oaks or the County of Los Angeles
- The business model for the school may have hinged on securing state, county, or school district funding for some of the students or some fraction of the program, which they were unable to obtain
- The schoool may have been heavily subsidized by Mr. Carrey, a source of funding that disappeared with the end of the McCarthy-Carrey relationship
- Ms. Scheflen may not have endorsed the nutritional /"detoxing" aspects of the program
Sources:
- September 20 2007 People Magazine interview
- October 09 2007 Press release by Allison Kugel: Jenny McCarthy on Healing Her Son’s Autism and Discovering Her Life’s Mission
- May 2009 Shape Magazine article
- August 2009 cover article, Cookie Magazine
- December / January 2010 issue of Living Without Magazine, Bonnie Siegler Interview with Jenny McCarthy
- February 25, 2010 Karl Taro Greenfield: Who is Afraid of Jenny McCarthy
- Teach2Talk -- YouTube Channel
- KidsLA Magazine (publication date unknown)
- April 9 2010 article by Kate Stanhope at TV Guide
- April 12 Yahoo Shine article "Inside Jenny McCarthy's Personal Turmoil"
- California Early Start Program
- California Protection & Advocacy Inc: Early Intervention
So what happens to the poor students at the school who got caught in the crossfire of Jenny and the other Director who did not see eye to eye? Sadly they get tossed aside. Imagine if someone had done this to her and Evan. She'd be swearing all over TV. This woman has created nothing but a mess in the autism community.
Posted by: Carol | Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 06:26 PM
I can see it all now, a new sign that says, "Sorry, closed", over the sign that says "Curing Autism since 2009". Ahahaha!
Posted by: Clay | Monday, April 12, 2010 at 12:15 PM