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Benjamin2006
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27 Aug 2011, 5:32 am

I was interested to hear the experience of parents with children on the spectrum when they started school and how the transition went from either nursery or home life.

My son is 5 he is currently awaiting a full assessment for AS (probably a year away) he started primary one here in the UK 8 days ago.

I'm interested in any initial issues or changes over time with children on the spectrum. I know as always we are looking at a spectrum and different education set ups but I'd be interested to read any experiences or lessons learned from parents during these very early days in education.

Thanks in advance.



DW_a_mom
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27 Aug 2011, 11:23 am

Ours went well, but our school is very much a "teach to the individual child" school, and my son was so thrilled about not being at his preschool anymore, which had been a very poor fit for him, that he was determined to make it work. The issues that led to AS assessment, however, were showing themselves before the end of the first year, and if the AS had not been caught, it would have been a slow, negative spiral.

My son was also used to big groups of kids and his sensory issues were on the mild side.

But change anything in this summary, and it can be a mess. Teachers who don't want to understand, a child with severe sensory issues, mean kids, or a child with anxiety all can be big issues.


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Mom to an amazing young adult AS son, plus an also amazing non-AS daughter. Most likely part of the "Broader Autism Phenotype" (some traits).


Benjamin2006
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27 Aug 2011, 7:08 pm

DW I'm interested to hear what happened within the end of that first year...was it a case of the social interaction starting to develop and your son not adjusting accordingly or something else?

Our school has been excellent, they are aware of junior's history and have been able it would appear to get a good balance between allowing him to find his feet and being aware of potential issues and preparing him for them..of course it is only days into things but I've been impressed with their professionalism. It has been night and day from our nursery experience in the early days. Of course it is never a static situation and the nursery had to deal with a three year old back then...



DW_a_mom
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27 Aug 2011, 10:44 pm

It would have taken longer to notice the social differences, if that had been all there was, actually. My son is really outgoing, just not very good at it, as they say. So in K when all the kids were eager and willing, he rapidly made friends.

What started getting our attention was the gap between perceived ability, and work product in school. He couldn't do the paper work well, and he was hiding his frustration by putting on a rebellious attitude. That year he had a very inexperienced teacher, so the teacher's first reaction was that my son was lazy. I was getting concerned. My son had started writing when he was 3 years old, but had frozen in time with the skill. He wasn't advancing at all, still stuck on what they call kid writing, and I was seeing this new attitude that just wasn't him.

Since that teacher was inexperienced, we left the year without anything resolved, my son had a great summer (he always has a great summer), and a new school year started. THAT teacher saw it right away, and told us at the very first conference something wasn't right. She was hesitant to tell us, not sure how we would take it, but I was relieved. I had been getting more and more bothered by that gap between perceived ability and work product. It wasn't a straight shot from there because the teacher went on maternity leave, but by the end of first grade we had a lot of people thinking an evaluation was appropriate, and noticing things like pragmatic speech issues that just hadn't been obvious at earlier ages. His peers had noticed his struggles, he had noticed them, and social issues were increasing.

It seems like some key periods are the start of K (if there are major sensory and anxiety issues, that shows up fast), and second grade. If the social skills aren't there, they get noticeable starting in first grade for many kids, taking into second grade before anyone really gets concerned.

For us, the co-morbid of hypermobility/hypotonia/disgraphia drove everything. Without that, it could have been missed a lot longer.

I feel like my son's life has been a case of "caught just in time." We always able to get in there just before things became a devastating issue, but usually only just.

But, he's doing great. Really great. He's going to be just fine from here on in. Bumps, sure, but he has tackled so much and learned so much, I just know he can do it.


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Mom to an amazing young adult AS son, plus an also amazing non-AS daughter. Most likely part of the "Broader Autism Phenotype" (some traits).


Benjamin2006
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28 Aug 2011, 7:14 pm

DWam thanks for that......

Our son has had different issues, the main one being in nursery not joining in in bigger groups though towards the end he was showing big improvements.

He shows a variety of AS traits although in our opinion these are neither consistent nor actually dehabilitating (at this stage at least)....outside of nursery he seemed pretty social and capable for his age...and of course there are a number of AS traits he does not seem to be affected by at all.

He seems to have made a very good start, we expected/feared some issues and resistance at home and to be honest these have been non-existant. We then expected the more challenging resistant behaviour at school that he had at nursery and that hasn't happened either...the comment from his teacher (who had seen him at nursery) was that she had been pleasantly surprised by his reaction to school so far.

Of course we are not getting carried away...there seems to be a fair amount of opinion that the ages 6-8 are particularly difficult.
We are also aware that 8 days going smoothly is hardly concrete proof but we are delighted.

I suppose my post's motivation was to see the kind of general range of experiences with kids going to school...either difficult starts that got better or good starts that got worse...that type of thing...trends and issues to look out for



misstippy
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28 Aug 2011, 8:16 pm

My son started K three weeks ago. He LOOOOVES it. He was in full day pre K last year and a part time preschool the year before. It was in his little preschool that we actually picked up on his AS. He was in sensory overload all the time and would do things like run out of the room, flip lights on and off and stand in the middle of the room and just spin. He seemed to be obstinate, actually, which wasn't really like him. Also, he never joined in group play. So, we had him evaluated that year. They identified the sensory issues and some of the pragmatic language stuff.

Then, we moved states, so while he already had an IEP, they did full testing again, and that's where we got the school diagnosis of AS. Since being in actual PreK and now K, he's done really well. He's had two very experienced teachers and they have purposely given him somewhat strict teachers. He totally thrives in a very structured/strict classroom. He's their little golden boy. In his first little preschool program, they were not so structured. That's part of the reason he had such a hard time!

He still struggles with relating with his peers, but he's doing so well overall.

I bet your guy will have a great time too.