ASD mommas- preschool

Rdmaggie

How did you know what options were right for your child? I'm really struggling with this. We had our first transition meeting today, which was mostly paperwork and setting up evals through the district. Our options are as follows: Our local school district inclusion preschool, 12 students 8 on IEPs, 1 teach, 1 aide, 2.5 hours a day 4 days a week or a neighboring districts TEACCH program, same time frame, same days of the week, no transportation but lower teacher to student ratio (I think they said currently its 4 students 1 teach, 1 aide). We also have the option of taking the Autism Scholarship and applying the 20,000 towards a private preschool. There is a ABA center about 20 miles from us, I believe their preschool is 6 hours 3 days a week. I just have NO idea whats best for her, what will make the most difference. I've asked our current EI provider numerous times and she is tight lipped. Shes states she cannot endorse any specific therapy, or location, only present them and let us decide. DD has some nice skill sets, knows colors, abcs, numbers etc. however she has zero interest in interacting with anyone on any level unless it is a preferred interest, and even then shes likely to wander off mid way through. i.e. she can finish a puzzle if shes sitting in her highchair, but if she were just sitting at a table she'd probably run off and sing songs or reenact scenes from Sesame Street. She is capable of doing many things, but it can be like pulling teeth to get her to do them (she doesn't really tantrum she just stares off in to space or starts singing to avoid doing things if she can't get away). She is crafty at times, will tell us she needs to potty just to get out of the highchair, or some other small "fib" in order to get what she really wants. When I spoke with the district today I explained that one of my main concerns for her is her lack of social communicaion, or desire to communicate and that I would like her to be in an enviroment where that could be facilitated as (like many autism kiddos) she doesn't model after her peers. They just kind of shrugged. Would putting her in a more structured enviroment like TEACCH help to provide her with the skills she needs to possibly mainstream one day, or is that more skill driven? The district reps I met with today said in TEACCH the only socializing she'd get would be on the playground when they mixed her with "typical" kids and that it would not be facilitated interactions. Should I look into the ABA preschool in hopes that they will offer social skills and attempt to facilitate more peer interaction? I'm beyond frusterated with this. I know ieps can be rewritten and I know that we can change our minds about preschools if the first half doesn't go well (she starts in Jan), but I would love some kind of starting point. Maybe I'm asking the wrong questions...How did you know what was right for your child? Is this all trial and error?

MirandaHobbes

Wow, it sounds like you have a lot of good options at least! That is a good problem to have. My district has been equally tight-lipped about recommendations. Our developmental pedi, however, has been excellent, and steered us into our inclusion preschool. I would start there. Good luck!

Rdmaggie

Our developmental pedi told us to ASK our EI coordinator/provider for their input on what choice would best fit DD's needs since they have more experience and knowledge of her, thats part of what irritates me.

mommy0411

We are just beginning the transition process and I already feel incredibly overwhelmed. At least you have some great options! Good luck getting everything figured out!

LALASEPT05

It is so difficult to try and navigate the different options and figure out how to allocate the hours in the day to get the most benefit for your kids. We are in this process also. The county offered DS an integrated preschool as well. 16 kids total and 8 with IEP's. I believe there are two teachers and then the therapists that come into and out of the room. Therapy sessions are mostly pushed in and done in the classroom. My DS also has some really nice skills in terms of imaginatary play, social interaction, and academic type skills. His weakest area seems to be group interaction and compliance. For example in larger groups he just seems to have difficulty focusing, understanding the group dynamic and heirarchy enough to sort of follow along and participate in things like circle time, story time, arts and crafts and waiting in line.

Since the preschool was not an option for the summer we found an ABA program in our neighborhood. Basically its a one on one preschool program where he spends time one on one in ABA therapy but there are also other kids at the center and there are group activities worked in as well as facilitation of social interaction, trips into the community, and social skills groups. He has been going there this summer and progress has been amazing. We hope to up his hours spent there in the fall. I wish we had a ASD scholarship program but this is basically all on us. For me the inclusion preschool at this point is still too large of a group. My DS really needs more one on one prompting in a group setting. Our county also was not including any ABA therapy saying that it was 'too restrictive' so that is another reason we looked elsewhere. Our feeling was that we wanted him to receive that type of therapy to see how it would work for him. We're still negotiating with our county but our preference at this point is too keep him in his current program. To Auntie's point we feel like the more progress he can make this year the closer he is to being able to go to a typical preschool.

Good luck deciding!

lite-bright

I think the single biggest influence on our preschool choice was visiting the classrooms. Granted, some of the research I was doing was pre-dx, and I was ruling things in or out based on what I knew about her personality (Montessori was out, Tools of the Mind sounded great) but when we go to the point of a recommendation for her IEP, I felt very comfortable with it once I was able to spend a bit of time in the classroom and could really see how it would benefit DD1. 

I would lean toward ABA, from what you've listed. I would try to avoid unsupported interaction with typical peers, with what you've described. Either she's going to ignore everyone or the interactions are much more likely to be negative than positive, IMO -- neither of which do her any good. 

In our case, starting out at a relatively high level of service (ESY, then class led by SpEd teacher) gave DD1 the foundation she needed to move toward a mainstream classroom. So I'm a big fan of starting out with as many or more supports than you *think* they need, then taking those away; as opposed to starting them out at a very challenging level and then adding extra supports when they struggle. 

Rdmaggie

You have no idea how much I appreciate the time each one of you took to answer my question/s. This really does help to give me some direction in which to move. Auntie - I love the "bootcamp" analogy, and yes, we are in OH. Thank you for pointing out that we are fortunate, sometimes in the chaos that all of this has brought I forget that not everyone has access to the same resources. LiteBrite your statement about scaling down services later if needed rather than throwing her into a challenging situation and then having to add them really spoke to me. DH is on board with checking out the ABA centers. I spoke with one today and arranged to visit next week. I'm starting to get the feeling that at least for the next year or so this might be her best option (maybe longer, who knows). It helps tremendously to hear from other parents and folks who have been down this road, or at least have a great understanding of it and are willing to share their knowledge, thank you again.