My son was just diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder

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TexasBlue, I’m really glad to hear you say you’ll be starting with an ABA therapist in a couple of weeks. There are so so so so many treatment options available out there intended to help children with an ASD get a strong start in the right direction so to speak. The unfortunate reality is that some of these treatments may help, some may be a waste of time, but only one has been properly studied and has been proven to produce significant measurable results (I’ve seen it in my own son… he’s my world), and that’s ABA implemented properly. We eventually pulled him from his EI program when we realized that his critical hours were better spent in ABA sessions.

I’ve spent hours upon hours reading the research carried out on ABA and here are a few good books to begin with:

A Work in Progress – Ron Leaf, John McEachin
This is a really easy to read ABA “guide” so to speak from one of the primary doctors in the Lovaas UCLA study.

Teaching Individuals with Developmental Delays – Ivaar Lovaas
A well written book which details what year 1 of an ABA program should look like. This is perfect for comparing it to what your ABA provider is implementing. Lovaas is considered the modern day pioneer of ABA and was the head of the UCLA study.

I can’t stress it to you enough, that you should investigate what ABA can do for your son, as I’ve seen it produce some incredible results for three children with an ASD, two of which were completely non verbal at the onset of their program (one had just turned 3, the other was 4 and 2 months). Points of note about it are:

- 10 to 20 hours per week of ABA according to Lovaas will not produce significant results. 40 hours and no less than 35 are a must.
- The most positive change will come the earlier that the child starts the ABA program, before the third birthday is optimal.
- 75% of the ABA session should be teaching programs, 25% play. This can be 50/50 initially.

We switched ABA providers for various reasons and we noticed immediate improvements in our son when we made the switch. Why? In our humble opinion it was the strong attention to play with the second provider and they stick with the Lovaas approach. The intense teaching programs were still there for the majority of the session, but the language really started to blossom through the play portions.

School will always be there, but right now I’d urge you to do your research on ABA as your primary option. Again, as a parent, when looking at all the options out there, it makes sense to look at the only treatment that has data to back it up. For additional info. google Lovaas UCLA

My only regret about having my son receive ABA is that we started him late (please don't make this mistake), due to multiple misdiagnoses by so called “experts”. What you’ll quickly realize is that because this isn’t a field that’s regulated, providing treatment to children with an ASD, there’s a lot of hocus pocus treatments and bad advice out there. Good luck!

The best advice I can give is trust your own judgement. Not what the "experts" tell you or what the school district might recommend.

When my son was 2 I was told that he was mentally ret*d. I didn't believe it, I got him as much care as I could, PT, OT, Speech, full time speech preschool and a typical preschool too. When he turned 5 and became "responsibility" of the school district he still wasn't talking. They wanted to put him in a self contained classroom with other non-verbal kids. I knew he is wasn't around typicals that he wouldn't ever learn to talk. I had him go to a private typical preschool for another year and forced the public school district to provide the speech, OT and PT services at the private preschool. They did, although on a limited basis. When he finally did go to Kinder at 6 years old it was into a typical classroom and he could communicate enough to get along. My son is now 12 and going into 7th grade next year in a very difficult college prep private school. He is able to keep up with grade level expectations and had Bs and 2 C's last year. His IQ has been tested to be 124. He is PDD-NOS/ADD/Depression.

Don't ever let anyone else tell you what to do with your child, you know them best. They will live up to the expectations that you set for them. They may not get there in the same way other kids do, but they will surprise you with what they can do if you let them. Good luck!

I too struggled with the Pre-K Special Ed decision, however, having just graduated I'm glad we did it. It was hard at first - my DS experienced severe separation anxiety, tears, tantrums for about three weeks, was unsteady for about 3 months - but the school's teachers great strategies and coping mechanisms, an ABA therapist who worked with him in class a lot to help him get through activities and he had a sensory diet. Ask a tonne of questions, push to get as much therapy in school as possible, and do a class observation.

My DS was in school 2.5 hrs per day 5 days per week and received speech, OT and ABA. We also did private speech, OT and ABA.

The cons?

I didn't love his main teacher. She had a heart and could be nurturing sometimes, but it was often buried. She'd been teaching special ed preschool for 20+ years and honestly, it showed.

Depending on the other children in class, he may start imitating some inappropriate behaviors, and he may not have good peer models. We went through a period of spitting and making some strange noises which he picked up at school.

The Pros?

He loved his school therapists, and because everyone is different he learned to communicate with all different types of people (we don't have any extended family locally, so my DS doesn't get as much exposure to other adults as I would like.)

He got lots of additional sensory exposure and got to practiced skills like sharing, taking turns, and waiting in lines while being coached through the experience by a therapist. This has enabled him to enjoy places like our local pool far more because he's now able to wait in line for the slide all by himself, and he's much better about checkout lines at stores, etc.

Probably most importantly it gave me some additional time when I could research and prep activities for home without him spending all that time just lining up objects around the house. I have spreadsheet of ABA, OT and Speech activities taped to my living room wall (which I update every couple of months as he progresses) and I try to incorporate 5-10 of these per day, in addition to play therapy. Educating a child on the spectrum can be exhausting and frustrating at first - I find that now my DS is 4-3/4 he's a pure delight to teach and play with and his knowledge about our solar system, volcanoes, tornadoes, dinosaurs, flying and aerodynamics amazes me every day, but early on I needed every bit of help and support I could get.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you are going to be homeschooling your ASD child anyway, so just think of pre-k as a bit of extra schooling and some time you can spend working with your daughter.

Good luck with your decision!

I am a parent of an autistic child and for what it is worth, I have an (unsolicited) informal, but unofficial, diagnosis from a professional who was on my son's diagnostic team. I am not AS enough to have been diagnosed (I don't think) as a child, even if this was practical back then. (My standard disclaimer)

My son was in special needs pre-k, and I would have a very definite notion of what your expectations are. I was essentially doing all the actual education, as my son is HFA and the children in his class largely had cognitive issues. He did not learn a darn thing academically, until he began being mainstreamed in K, but I knew he wouldn't, going in to it. I have always supplemented my son's education and will (hopefully) be homeschooling full-time in the fall for 3rd grade for a variety of reasons. We do some unschooling in the summer, anyway, and I will try something structured in the fall, and see how it goes.

What I got in pre-k, and why it was worth it to me:
He qualified for pragmatic speech, right away, which was useful.
He got practice being around a handful of kids for half a day and learning some pragmatic social skills. (I live in an isolated area, where all the homeschooling parents are specifically religious, and with whom I would not fit in.)
He got practice at structure and not being unschooled all day. (I liked unschooling for him as a younger child, but he does need practice following other people's schedules)
He got practice being around other adults who had authority over him. (I don't have relatives that I would trust to handle him)
They knocked out some of the low hanging fruit that I neglected, b/c I had bigger priorities, like convincing him to pee standing up.

Consistent with the above, know that their priorities will not be the same as yours. This can have positive affects like the above instance, or negative ones where you might feel like they are wasting time they could be using better.

Given that you have expressed having adequate social resources, I would think about what services he will get. If he would get free(which your tax dollars pay for) occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy etc. Think about what specifically the EI classroom would be like, and whether it would be a net positive your child, and whether it would outweigh the flexibility and control you have now.

Just to add: The NT parent regulars on here are all very empathetic to the needs of autistic children, not just their own needs. Not all of the parents who identify as NT are 100% NT. Not all of the parents who identify as AS are 100% AS, either. We are, I would say, a good mix with a much higher AS % than you would get on a parent board on an NT parent board--with a heavy leaning towards neurodiversity vs. curebie philosophy. Not everyone agrees, but that is not a bad thing.