Camp Sequoia to help children with social cognitive difficulties learn how to make and keep friends

The typical day at Camp Sequoia on the Hill School campus in Pottstown is notable for what is absent.

There are no TVs or video games that lead some children to huddle by themselves in corners. There are no cellphones or laptops to take them away from their peers.

Instead, the children are attending the experimental overnight camp to learn confidence and to improve their social skills - all in an atmosphere of summer fun.

"It's good for campers who need help with building independence or [overcoming] social-skills problems. I wouldn't recommend it to kids who are close to their families and always want to stay with them," says Eli Werbach, 9, of Villanova.

Children like Eli may be diagnosed with difficulty learning, attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity, or mild Asperger's syndrome. Some may be autistic or anxious.

Because they're bright and high-functioning, they don't fit in at traditional camps or those aimed at children with more serious impediments, says Sequoia director Ryan Wexelblatt.

"These kids present as normal. Their social cognitive deficits are hidden. What you find is that, when they go to [traditional] camps, they spend all their time with the counselors," Wexelblatt says. "They don't grow."

So, too, the experience of living in a cabin in the woods may be too stimulating and anxiety-provoking for some.

Wexelblatt and his staff of 22 counselors install their charges, ages 8 to 18, in a small-college setting, where campers live together in same-gender dorms and eat in a common dining hall. Quickly, they learn to make friends.

Seventy campers signed up for the first three weeks in July, and 50 for the second three weeks, which ends Saturday. Wexelblatt hopes to get American Camp Association accreditation in 2012.

The ratio of campers to counselors is 3-1. Using a technique known as "Social Thinking," the staffers teach campers the difference between acceptable and unacceptable behaviors.

They learn to put themselves in another person's place, how to recognize social cues, and how to hold up their end of a friendship.

It's a hit with the campers, who welcome the strict routine as well as the gentle prodding from omnipresent staff.

"We love it," says Alex Berman, 10, of Blue Bell. "Ryan made a great camp."

Ari Kelhoffer, 10, from Long Island, has become Alex's buddy through the program. They help one another adjust to camp life.

Social Thinking was developed in the late 1990s by the speech pathologist Michelle Garcia Winner, who saw the need for a special focus on smart students with social and communication needs.

Winner conducts workshops at her clinic in San Jose, Calif. She acknowledges on her website that critics question why the technique hasn't gotten serious study.

She responds: "Because we are building the plane while we are flying it. The kids are here now."

Wexelblatt, 39, of Narberth, holds a bachelor's degree in communications from Temple University and a master's degree in clinical social work from Bryn Mawr College's School of Social Work.

A single father of a boy with learning issues, Wexelblatt worked in the past at Hilltop Prep School in Rosemont as director of the school's summer day camp for special children.

He used that experience and Winner's technique to build Camp Sequoia's rigidly structured regimen of activities.

The campers enjoy nature, arts and ceramics, cooking, audio production, movie making. They get to swim, wrestle, play soccer, football, and dodgeball, and do martial arts.

Such individual attention isn't cheap; tuition for a three-week session is $4,450, and $8,900 for six weeks. Most pay full freight.

There to collect her child after an extended stay, Ethel Steindl of Palm Beach, Fla., watched daughter Natalie, 11, finish her ceramics project, a box to hold secrets.

Looking at Natalie's face, downcast at the thought of leaving camp, Steindl smiled.

"She had a phenomenal summer," the young mother said. "She doesn't want to go home."