The NEST and Horizon programs are two Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) programs available in New York City public schools in Districts 1-32. The primary goal of both programs is to provide academic and behavioral supports to students from kindergarten to 12th grade who have an ASD diagnosis. The programs have different class structures, curricula, means of instruction, and means of providing social/emotional supports. The NEST program structure is an “Integrated Co-Teaching” (ICT) class where students are educated with age-appropriate peers in the general education classroom. ICT provides access to the general education curriculum and specially designed instruction to meet the students’ individual needs. This setting provides a general education teacher and a special education teacher, and 40% of the students have IEPs while 60% do not. The Horizon program, on the other hand, is an 8-1-1 classroom setting, with eight students, one special education teacher and one or more supplementary school personnel.

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