Auntie, re: your comment on schools

Sobachka · March 2011

Not to pollute another thread

Auntie, you mentioned that Montessori is nearly always a poor choice for kids with ASD. Could you please elaborate a bit? Is this due to a lack of structure?

DS will qualify for PPCD in the fall but I am doing a trial run with a Christian pre-school starting next week ( twice a week for a few hours) to see how he will do with NT peers (school is not aware of his dx (beyond 'a bit slow and is recieving speech privately' and he is 30 m.o.) The school has classes, scheduled activities, a lot of structure, a small classroom, but very loving and caring staff. I am scared.

I considered Montessori but logistically cannot swing this now. Should I even go this way? Thank you so much!!!!!!

Sobachka · March 2011

Thanks Auntie - makes sense!!! We will see how his pre-school goes....

skittles_123 · March 2011

Hijacking your post. Good luck with the school. My son is in a mainstream pre-school 3 days a week and he has ASD. He is doing very well there-lots of structure and he has his ABA instructors/aides that come see him at least 2-3 hours each of those days.

Is there a reason you aren't sharing his dx? Would they not allow him to attend? It was very helpful for my ds teachers to know. But, I also take him to the pre-school program at my university where I work, so they would have a hard time saying no to us.

Sobachka · March 2011

Hi Skittles! Thanks for your input. What both you and Auntie shared with me makes me very hopeful!!

Not sharing the dx right now because:

- so scared they will kick him out without even trying. It is a great program that is right across the street from our home

- so scared they will treat him differently and request less from him than other kids or to the contrary, not engage him enough

- still a lot of stigma here in the South. Besides I am not from here, and my son looks different (KWIM?). It is not NYC, not very diverse here

Since DS will be in prescool for only 8 hours a week, he will not be recieving any services while there. So I figured I will share the DX on the 'need to know' basis.

DS has just completed an intense swimming program (daily for 2 weeks) in a group of 4 kids with 1 intructor and no parents in a community pool. He did so great! I did not share the dx, and they treated him like other kids, and he did whatever he was told

Do I sound crazy?

skittles_123 · March 2011

I can understand where you are coming from. 8 hours a week, may not be justified enough to tell them unless it is a need to know thing. We did make sure the teachers all knew when we shared his dx, that he was expected to behave and treated just like his peers. And so far that has worked for us/him. So, down the road, if you do need to share, make sure they know this.

The funny thing is, my ds has 3 teachers in his classroom, one of which we learned just a few weeks ago has a grown older brother with high functioning autism, who is quite independent she says. So, you never know, unless you share, you know?

Sobachka · March 2011

Thank you MelPatBat, this is a good perspective. I think I will let him try the pre-school for a couple of days and then talk to the director if things are not going well. You bring up a good point about misbehaving. Aside from ASD my son is very spoiled. He is my only child with a nanny dotting on him and a very guilty mother who sometimes goes overboard

Thanks again!

Sobachka · March 2011

Auntie - this is really hard. I am not sure what to do to support DS best. He is only 2.5 and the overall expectations are low at this age (I hope). I do my best with over 25 hours of therapy a week and I just am really at a loss.

What if he does well? What if he crashes and burns?

lite-bright · March 2011

Just throwing this out there -- do you know what you'll say if a teacher or admin asks if you've had him evaluated?

Even if you don't tell, they may very well figure out that something is up beyond speech issues and ask whether you're addressing that.

My DD1 has been in a very casual, parks & rec toddler class since 20 months -- it's only 90 minutes, twice a week and has very few expectations -- but her quirks are still noticeable enough that one of her teachers has brought them up a few times. Sometimes it was in the context of asking if I had any explanation for some odd behavior, but she also said that they had noticed that DD1 "doesn't process things like the other kids."

I plan on telling them whatever diagnosis we get. For us, that's easy to do because we don't really have anything at stake and DD1 won't be there after May anyway b/c she's aging out of their program. They already know she's being evaluated because they filled out forms to contribute their observations. But in our case, I also figure that if they've brought these things to our attention and helped us realize she needed to be evaluated at this young age, chances are that they'll run across more kids and they should know whether their instincts are right or wrong.

Sobachka · March 2011

All great points. Thank you!

DS was diagnosed at 14 months and with a tremendous amount of therapy has improved since then (I am biased, but still). I did share with the pre-school that he has been at home all this time and is very attached to me and the nanny; he is recieving speech therapy.

Other than that - I want to wait and see. It is the end of the school year. If all is horrible, we will not go back in August.

As for the area - we will have to move once he is going to K as the scholls here are struggling and there are no funds for SN. I bought this house thinking that we will not have kids (I bet God was laughing that day )

I am really concerned about the stigma of ASD. My very close friend, when I shared the newly recieved dx with her, scooped up her twin girls at a playdate in my house and ran out, telling me that she was afraid her girls would 'catch it'.

KaliChick · March 2011

Auntie can more than likely vouche for me on this one.

I own a preschool. We are a decent sized center (70 children per day). We have had ASD children, no doubt. The problem is they either aren't diagnosed or the parent doesn't tell us. For the most part every one of them has ended badly. We've had a few that didn't exhibit severe behavior problems and were mainstreamed well (we just knew we had to work within their means). Others were uncooperative, disruptive or otherwise jeopardized the learning of the other children in their class.

I've asked Auntie a couple of times for advice because I've had an undiagnosed child that's exhibiting behaviors of ASD.

Trust me, a good preschool teacher and/or director will see the signs. In time they will recommend an evaluation. If I approached a parent about their child and found out that they had been evaluated and diagnosed and the parent hadn't shared that, I'd be more upset and more likely to ask for the child to be removed from my program. Why? Because preschool is a partnership with the parents. We realize these are your children ... your most precious cargo as I sometimes say. We are here to help them grow and develop into the most incredible person they can. Preschool is the first step to their education. If the parent isn't be open and honest with us, then how do we trust that you are working with us to help your child? If you are open and tell them, then they are much more likely to work with him and hey you never know, they may not exclude or "label" him ... they may work with him more and give him what he needs. Encourage him, buddy him with someone else to help him learn proper behaviors if necessary, etc. They may not tell you they can't accept him.

Sometimes preschools aren't equipped to handle SN children. A severely autistic child might need more than what a traditional school can provide. I'm honest with families that sometimes I can't provide that ... my class sizes are too big, we move through our school (it's an old house) frequently so there's lots of transitions ... at the same time, if I have a mildly autistic child that just needs a little more lead time, I can do that! I can work with that child.

So while this sounds like a great school ... just keep in mind it may not be a great school for YOUR child. There's not a school out there that's right for every child, nor is there a child that's right for every school. That's why there are so many of us.

I'd be honest .... take the risk. Tell them that you hope they are willing to work with him and see him for who he is. If they aren't, it's not the right school for you anyway.

Good luck!!

andreas4dogs · March 2011

-auntie-:
Good luck.

A lot of kids on spectrum do really well in a mainstream preschool with lots of structure.

I am not religious but AMEN to that. Gabe THRIVES with lots of structure. He needs it. A child led program would certainly not be beneficial, at least for him. Thanks for sharing, it is interesting.

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Auntie, re: your comment on schools

Re: Auntie, re: your comment on schools

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