Astudent stands by the steps of a pre-Revolutionary War plantation home, on the campus of Oakland School, waiting to meet his new teacher. The expression on his dejected face is reminiscent of a person who's been beaten down by life. Ironically, the boy, who happens to be Learning Disabled (LD), is only 9 years old.

"Before a child comes here, they've probably failed repeatedly somewhere else," said Carol Williams, Oakland's director. "A lot of our kids have not been previously diagnosed as having a learning disability, so they never received any services while in public school."

But it is possible for special needs children, often cruelly labeled "the dumb kids" by peers, to unlock their potential through specialized schools that find out how each child learns.

Oakland School, located on 450 acres in Keswick, Va., offers coed boarding and day school to 85 students. The school specializes in teaching reading to children ages 7 to 14 with dyslexia and other learning disabilities.

According to the National Center for Learning Disabilities, more than 80 percent of students with LD struggle in reading.

"Most of our kids have intelligence levels that, once they have the key to break the code of reading, then the comprehension end of it just follows," Williams said. "Every child has a different curriculum. And it doesn't matter if he or she isn't working up to par in his grade. Our students work at a level where they can be successful."

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An in-depth, high-quality student assessment is essential to building a solid foundation for kids with special needs. While some schools send students out for a battery of evaluations, most supplement with individualized testing of their own.

"Our intake process is more like an interview process," said Sheila Green, director of the Metropolitan Day School of AES Inc. "We do a lot of educational and social assessments to determine a student's needs and abilities, taking into consideration the whole child, including how events outside of school may have impacted them."

Metropolitan Day School is licensed to serve grades K-12 in the areas of emotional disturbance (ED), learning disability (LD) and other health impairment (OHI). It has 70 students.

"The most important thing that must be done with our students is to provide consistency and structure in the educational environment, as our students have extreme behavioral needs," Green said.

One behavioral disorder that the school offers treatment for is oppositional defiant disorder or ODD, which is characterized by frequent hostile and deviant behavior that persists for more than six months.

"We measure the success of our students through their grades and how they are achieving in our Behavior Management Program," Green said. "When students carry over appropriate social behavior, it carries over into solid academic progress."

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Autism is another developmental disorder that takes a child away from the world.

At the Spiritos School for Autism Spectrum Disorder and De-velopmental Delay, emphasis is on breaking tasks into basic components to build skills "from the ground up."

"Our school provides an intense level of 'one-on-one' engagement and intervention in an atmosphere of love and acceptance," said Janet Lachowsky, director and founder of Spiritos School, whose enrollment is limited to 10 students per year. "It's important to remember that autistic children are also children. We like hugging our kids."

Half of the children are brought by school systems and the other half by parents. Teachers are mindful to give students the message that they're in a pleasant and reinforcing environment.

"If they don't see their teachers as a main reinforcer, they won't want to learn from them," Lachowsky said. "Autistic children don't learn from the natural environment like other kids, so you have to first find what's meaningful to them."

According to experts in the field, autism and autism-spectrum disorders are on the rise. It is estimated that roughly one out of every 150 children suffers from the disorder.

"If a child is faced with challenges and isn't diagnosed early, they may develop negative behaviors as a means to address their challenges," said Bruce Cauthen, vice president of public relations for St. Joseph's Villa, whose three day schools have a total of 71 students and work collectively with special-needs children ages 5 to 22. "Autistic children aren't born with the need to beat their head against a wall, for example, when they want to communicate something."

St. Joseph's Villa has a formal partnership with Commonwealth Autism Service to help children address communication needs, and jointly operates the Sarah Dooley Center for Autism, which opened in 2006.

Because many of their children have pronounced issues, special emphasis is placed on teaching life and leisure skills.

"The school system may pay for a child to get one-on-one treatment at the Sarah Dooley Center, but when they turn 22 that child 'ages out' of the school system," Cauthen said. "So part of our education program teaches children how to do simple tasks like their own laundry, putting dishes away and making their own bed."

St. Joseph's Villa plans to add classrooms specifically set up for children diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, which expresses itself in a social or anti-social behavior and is more common in boys.

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Elk Hill Farms has two day schools designed to help at-risk children, especially those who are emotionally disturbed.

"At Harambee Day School, 25 children, ages 11 to 18, work on personal issues as well as educational challenges, so they hopefully can return to the public school system," said Michael C. Farley, executive director of Elk Hill Farm Inc. "Harambee is Swahili for 'hold together for the common good,'" Farley said.

The Harambee Day School offers "strength-based" programming to help kids identify their strengths and weaknesses in holistic ways. The Adventure Challenge Program takes kids on back-packing trips to learn positive risk-taking skills six times a year. The Education-for-Employment Program gives students who aren't planning to attend college an opportunity to explore trade-school options.

"We offer Dog Obedience School in the summer, where the kids and dogs go through a formal certified program headed by a certified dog obedience trainer," said Farley, whose staff provides the pets. "Our kids really respond well to animals."

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The John D. Wood School, on the campus of the Virginia Home for Boys and Girls, addresses the needs of students with LD, ED and OHI. The school has been in operation for 33 years and is known for helping children with attention deficit disorder.

"Our motto is, 'The higher our expectations, the more favorable the outcome,'" said Charles Shipp, principal. "Students know that they have disabilities and many are on medication for those disabilities. But our message to our 37 students is that the way to overcome this is by putting forth the best effort they possibly can."

Built in 2007, the new school is proud of its Resource Room, where students can receive help with academics and behavior.

"We're a type of 'school within a school' because we're fortunate to have teachers who have special education and regular education degrees," Shipp said. "So when students, in grades six to 12, come to us in the middle of the school year our teachers are able to help them so they don't lose a lot of ground educationally."

According to Shipp, Wood has graduated all its seniors for nine consecutive years and 99.5 percent of students have passed the SOLs. "We enjoy what we're doing, in educating these children, because they are getting a second chance at life," he said.