Special Needs
Princess_Lily
member
Question re: Support in Classroom
Princess_Lily
member
How are Aspergers/HFA children started out supported in K-12? Are they in an inclusion classroom and pulled for "specials" like Speech, etc?
I just don't know what to expect.
I just don't know what to expect.
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Re: Question re: Support in Classroom
Auntie stated it all perfectly- I'll just add what happened with my son (HFA) this past year in kindy. He was in a small half-day kindy class (mainstreamed). All the ASD kids were in this class, so there was a mainstream kindy teacher, and ASD teacher, and some floating aides. After the mainstream class concluded, DS went to his contained ASD classroom where the teacher went over the lessons they went through in the morning and they simultaneously worked on social skills. He had ST, OT, and APE pullouts once a week. They were supposed to organize these pullouts in the afternoon so as to maximize time in the mainstream setting.
Next year, because the district has moved to entirely full-day kindy, the ASD kids will be mainstreamed again in one classroom, but with more pull-outs for social skills and other services.
Like auntie said it can vary considerably. Our school is an "ASD site" so there are a lot of kids with ASD around and they have a pretty well established program set up.
There is a kid in my son's school who has been with my son in EI since he was a toddler. He's going into third grade now and is actually leaving to go to a private parochial school- there are no services left on his IEP. When he was young he was a runner- I chaperoned a bowling trip with him and my son's preschool class and he was the nonverbal kid who staff had to hold in their lap because he kept bolting for the front door. Now he's a quiet but polite and extremely talented kid.
In discussing with her the speech evaluation, we went over a possible Aspergers/ASD DX.
While she said that could see that, her concern was placement, that DS could be placed in a "bulk, low-functioning autism classroom" (OSFÀ) due to the DX.
Do they do this? Is there someone who will help to transition DS? Is it normal to be nervous of putting your child in another's hand?
Also, she (SLP) is pushing hardcore to continue OT. While that's nice and dandy, we are paying out of pocket for ST. I can't afford ST & OT therapies right now. I'm planning on doing OT at home. Is this common? The hard push is off-putting.
DS was placed in the ASD class and was the highest functioning because he was verbal. The rest of the other 5 kids were non-verbal. I only knew one mom from this class and her ASD son was non-verbal. The rest of the class was unknown to me except they all had ASD.
In December, we met for an IEP to put DS in the developmentally delayed pre-kindergarten class starting with 15 minutes and slowly increase his time to the other class if he had good behaviors.
We were hoping to do this sooner because we were being called everyday. They did not want to send DS because he had bad behaviors. He pretty much mimicked the other kids to get the same negative attention.
Sailor, how was your son handling socializing, etc in the low-functioning classroom? How does that impact the children?
His behavior turned to the worst because the other kids were always yelling, screaming and tantrums. I felt it was not a good fit for DS in the ASD room. DS had no role model peers to better his socializing.
We did pay for a mainstream daycare after school hours to get DS the socializing he needs with mainstream peers. His SLP also was there to facilitate, therapy and help the daycare teachers on the ASD behaviors.
I would suggest to get evaluations going with the school district.
I know he does not have a high IQ, it is more average. Our district gave us a kindergarten round up packet of what a kindergartener should know. He knows his letters, numbers up to 20, and colors. He does not know how to read sight words.
He is verbal and his echolalia has gone down to very little.
Yup. My kiddo is very language delayed (not nonverbal now but was minimally verbal not too long ago) and has been reading sight words since two, did very well on nonverbal iq testing and academically could start kindie tomorrow....but I digress.
To offer a different perspective my high functioning kiddo is in a self contained classroom. There are five kids in the room. One girl with a very similar presentation, a very verbal kiddo who is an eloper, and two more severely impacted kids. The self contained classroom has been a godsent. DDs development is very asynchronous so she gets a window of time in every single school day to work 1:1 with her teacher. There's an slp in her room two days a week and an ot two days so there's lots of support. The visual supports have really helped with behavior and impulsiveness. Even though she's not getting a lot of time with typical kids she is still making forward progress socially. I'm sure self contained isn't the right placement for every hf kid but it has here.
-Its a private SLP through a therapy office,- a private business. There they do SLP, OT & PT only
16% of what? Vocab? Expressive language? Artic? Receptive language? Pragmatics?
On the re-evaluation, everything was all within a normal range -except articulation. She thought because DS has slurred speech and talks fast, she needed to test further. Upon using the GFTA2 (which tests articulation), DS tested @ 16th percentile.
The psychologist is testing IQ and said that so far he is of an average IQ. He said that could change with age...DH has a very high IQ