Another mess. I am so frustrated.

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The private Pre-K program that my son has been attending will probably request we withdraw him. He bit an aide on Friday.

They're very nice people and want to see if they can help me find a way for the local SD to provide an aide for him, but I don't see that happening. As it is right now the SD has told me that he is "too high functioning" to qualify for summer services. I wasn't upset about that because we should be moved away from here by then, but I don't know what to do. I want him to be able to be around typical kids. All the kids in his room right now have one issue or another, and he's already learning some fun new tricks from them.

It's a nightmare enough that my husband and I have no life because we don't have anyone to sit for him just so we can see a movie or go out to dinner. Now we don't have somewhere for him to go and just learn and play like a kid. What to do...

What is his diagnosis?
What was the specific situation that drove him to bite someone?
Is this a normal defense/offense for him? (and which is it - defensive or offensive?)

If he is AS, the concept that he will learn to play like a normal child by attending pre-K really does not apply. Our kids don't learn how to play with other kids in most preschool programs. They spend the day overwhelmed and confused; hence, the biting. One of our members described it well - when an AS child enters a classroom, they find a bunch of unpredictable and noisy children. Since many AS children need predictability and are sensitive to noise, that tends to create a problem.

That does not mean pre-K cannot be a valuable experience. Just, in order to pick the best situation, you do need to have realistic expectations of what your child is going to get out of it, and understand what about it might cause behavior issues. My son would have had a much better pre-K experience if I had understood that better, and his pre-K years remain probably my biggest regret. He should have been pulled; the program he was in was all wrong for him. Got to love 20/20 hindsight, eh?

Life can be so hard sometimes.

The school district lied to you. You need to hire an advocated and get an IEP started with the public school district.

Hmm. Reading the thread again, and especially if your kid is picking up nasty habits from the other children, DW might be absolutely right. And immediately. Any new negative behaviours he learns from them may be twice as hard to dispell as any he comes up with himself because he'll reason 'someone else does it so it's okay".

As for the trouble getting a babysitter, this is also important: As I understand it, losing the ability to spend time together, alone, can be destructive to even the best of relationships. You need to do all you can to find a sitter in your area that you can trust / that can handle your son. Even if it's only one night a month, for four hours.

Any local family should be able to understand this and help for such a small amount of scheduled time? Your child should be able to understand this if made aware of it in advance.

PS - If you do prepare him, and he throws a fit at the instant you are leaving, it's going to be a tantrum, not a meltdown - a meltdown would happen just after you explain the scene to him. Don't let him win the tantrum, go anyhow. The meltdown, you'll have plenty of time to get over before the actual day of your date.

We usually got our babysitters from a nearby Bible School. They are usually full of people who want to do good. Each babysitter did it only once, but there was always someone else willing to try the next time. We paid them well.

I do, by the way, totally understand the babysitter situation. My AS son was so difficult at that age that hiring someone for one evening was a total no-go; he could only be left with people he had a real relationship with, and he was pretty choosy in developing those relationships. Because the preschool situation was not going well, I worked, and I had an infant at the time, we did hire a part-time nanny (my son still went to preschool, but on reduced hours), but even then, her time was used mostly for work. Still, we did get her and her husband to come by a couple of times so we could have a night out ... that time together as a couple is really important, and I know first hand how easy it is to push it aside behind everything else going on. All that long before we knew our son was AS ... we were just going with the flow and meeting the needs as we saw them. I loved the nanny we hired at that time; she developed the best relationship with both of my kids. She was one of those "magic" people that really can do the loving and strict thing ... my son responded so incredibly well to that. If you have the opportunity to bring someone like that in, I would go for it. Having that 3rd party opinion and presence brought a lot of needed calm to the frantic mess of my life at that stage; it really felt like God had picked her just for us, no joke.

All hail the Mary Poppins of the world!

OK, here's an update.

The private pre-k is offering to allow him to continue for now, however I must attend with him and act as the aide. I was completely shocked that this was suggested and am pretty anxious about it.

My son has no formal diagnosis. The SD has, through an administered A-DOS, given him the distinction of "Autism". I had posted my rant about our initial IEP meeting a couple of weeks ago. His written IEP is so painfully lacking that it's not funny. Getting him an aide will be very difficult if not impossible because he is very high functioning. He has been given regular time with an OT since the IEP which I was very excited about because he needs to work on tool use. This is not in his current IEP and they are very reluctant to add things. I decided to wait until parent-teacher conferences and see how he was doing. He's been making some pretty big strides so far.

bjtao, I think we need an advocate also but we're planning to move in March (please, God). Being they're somewhat cooperative right now I am going to try to continue along this line.

OddFiction, it turned out he bit because he was taken by the hand to be moved to a new activity. More than likely he didn't hear that it was time to move and became angry that he was being grabbed. He was in a very bad environment once already and becomes incredibly defensive when he doesn't know what is happening.

DW, I don't expect him to suddenly become "normal" by being around these children or to suddenly behave like them. I really don't want that. I want him to learn skills from them and he's quite capable of this. His biggest issue is with language and it always has been. Most of his confusion comes from people giving an instruction and him not hearing it. I don't think they can teach him anything more than social skills and appropriate behavior. He can read, spell and count much higher than ten. I leaving out all the pre-math and reading skills because they were mastered before his 2nd birthday. And yes, let me tell you. I have regrets about the last place he went to. What an awful bunch of people. Now I understand why he started crying every time I left at the end.

Imagine being engrossed in an activity and someone comes up from behind you, grabs your hand, yanks you to your feet and starts leading you but you don't know where. If you've already had a bad experience that started this way, wouldn't you try to escape somehow? This is my child. This is his perception. Now, if someone were to go to his level, make eye contact and say "Tristan it's time to [insert activity or transition], he handles it quite well. He is so unaccustomed to people helping him transition that he will sing the "bye bye" song or say goodbye to things himself. These are his strategies, and he has quite an extensive tool box for a three year old already. I guess people in most school settings don't have the time to make sure everyone is attending to their instruction. They just yell and expect everyone will understand.

Why is it just so darn important to conform? Why are differences treated with so much suspicion? Why are we running here and there? We're all going to be dead eventually. Why not enjoy our stay?

Strikes me as similar to another person's post not too long ago.
We discovered that it was quite likely most of his suppossed 'not hearing' issues were rather issues with not comprehending the instructions, or not getting the full gist of them.

For a little while, try this out - when he 'doesnt hear you' or seems to be ignoring you, or not following a set of instructions, ask him if he heard you talking to him. Then ask him if he understood your request. His high abilities in other issues suggest he is plenty intelligent, but often we have trouble with 'imprecise language' or 'breaking routine'. The example in the other thread was perfect, because there are many ways it could pose a problem:

Mom was telling son to go to the kitchen and turn off the coffee pot.
Stop. Read that sentance out loud. Is there anything wrrong with it?

Most people would say no. But your kid does not have the experience with imprecise language or lateral thinking (inferences) that most adults do.

(Remember this is an example of possible ASD thinking, and you'll need to alter it to whatever situation you are in)

1> There's no switch on the coffee pot. He therefor cannot preform the action. He may very well get to the machine, look at it, and think "no switch".
Tell him instead to switch off the machine. More specifically, to make the light on the machine turn off.
2> Coffee pots and coffee machines are not part of his daily routine. Does he know or care what the coffee pot is? Or where it is?
Ask him. You might be surprised that he doesn't, despite his intelligence. The solution to this is to start narrating your activities around the house.

(again, apply this to other situations. Does he know where the reading corner is at school? - other kids may have learned by watching where the other kids go when told to go to the reading circle... he was never TOLD where it was, so doesn't know.)

-----

PS

1> I think it's awesome you'll be in his classroom. You will see even better exactly where his specific issues lie.

2> Damn right kid! I'd bite in that situation too!

Last edited by OddFiction on 07 Sep 2010, 5:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well maybe if you can just be the "aid" for a short while, then you can observe what is going on and give the teachers techniques to help him cope better. I am surprised they offered that option, but if it is your only choice for him right now, I would take it.

My son is 5, and he was in special needs pre-k with the public school system 3 days a week and a private pre-k 2 days a week. Thankfully, we never had any aggressive behavior problems, and he did learn quite a bit. But even after being there for 2 years, he still does not play with other kids. But I still wanted him to have to opportunity to be around typical kids to see how they were interacting. My son's speech is really improving by leaps and bounds, but it is hard to know whether it came from the time at the private pre-k or the time spent with the speech therapist----

Hang in there and do the best you can. Especially if you are moving, then maybe you will have better luck with the school district you are going to.

I wish I could find someone like your nanny. I had a really great college girl who was studying music therapy one summer. I adored her and so did Tristan. She went back to college at the end of that summer and I haven't been able to find someone like her since.

I don't have trouble with him, he's pretty accepting of everyone. I am more like your son, hahaha.. I am a little too selective. I have a lot of trouble culturally too. The younger people here seem to be incredibly immature and unreliable. The older ones are usually pleasant, but like to keep you at arms length. I'm not used to this because I grew up around people who were kind of in your business all the time.

Oddfiction, yes it has a lot to do with processing and that's why it's so important that people make eye contact with him. I explained that to the director today. I guess hearing was too broad a term - he's not hearing all of it or he's not hearing any. Sometimes you have to repeat things several times. You also have to keep instructions simple. "It's time to sit in your chair" as opposed to "We're going to sit now and do a craft".

angelbear, yes I am taking it. I'm very nervous. Thinking about it is sucking the energy out of me. I have a lot of trouble in groups too and now I'll have to keep him and myself in check. I'm glad your son's doing a lot better. Thanks for the encouragement.

My daughter has an aide simply because she is high functioning and has had one since she was in first grade. She's now in 7th and taking honors classes, but we're hoping to wean her off the aide this year. The laws require your child to be educated in the least restrictive environment. I'm taking a guess that your child needs to be in a "regular" classroom, but the behavior is raising issues. For us, that's where the necessity of an aide came in. In many cases high functioning kids need aides more than lower functioning because they need help navigating class and activity changes and need that extra help to redirect to prevent acting out.

Sorry if I made too many assumptions, but I wanted to let you know that your may have more of a need than a child in a self contained class.

You're not. I think he would do much better in a regular room with an aide. The biggest problem will be trying to convince the district that is best for him. He's not pre-k aged yet (he's three and just transitioned services) so I have time. I guess I have some research to do.

I have been coached several times.......

You are not asking for what is "best" for your child. The school is required to provide what is "appropriate".

Stick with appropriate at all times.