classroom setting ?

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3.5 years old girl attending early intervention for 1.5 years with very big advancement .she has a speech delay (forming basic needs sentences ,but very limited one on one intraverbal conversation) .social skills are kicking in steadily , but her imitation of her peers is not very good, although imitation is perfect from audio visual material and family play.very independent and very intelligent (totally observant of surroundings and even knows how to read and knows most action verbs and answers questions with these verbs when shown their pictures ). is she ready now for a nursery classroom setting ? she tried this setting 6 months ago ( when she was far less developed) and she didnt benefit at all as she resisted this instructural and group settings . what do you think ?

What do her interventionists think?

It is so hard to predict what they are going to be able to cope with and what they are not yet ready for. My DS is also very intellignet and very independent, he did well in preschool when he was 4-5 yo but this past year in Kindergarten at 5-6 yo was a real struggle. He really resisted the instructional parts of the school day. I think one of the biggest differences between preschool and K was the length of time spent on each activity. At preschool, they took their time with each activity and did not try to cram too many different things into one day. In K it seemed like they never spent more than 20 minutes on a task. This just didn't work for DS. By the time he was ready to start the activity they were doing the teacher was ready to move on to the next thing. So, I guess I would suggest that you find out as much as you can about what her day would look like at the nursery school and think if she could handle the various tasks, number of transitions, responsibilities, etc.

Don't warehouse your kid with strangers. HOME SCHOOL!! ! Nothing else will work anywhere near as well, and there will be problems in a school away from home, that will not be present if you home school her. I cannot fathom why anyone would subject a child to the torment of a regular school setting, in a misguided attempt to make the kid "fit in" to a normal setting. We on the spectrum will never fully fit in to a normal setting. Some of us can fake it, but those who can't or are not ready to, should not be forced into trying to fit into a mold not designed for us.

HOME SCHOOL!! ! HOME SCHOOL!! ! HOME SCHOOL!! !

We are in a similiar situation with our 3 yo. He currently has a special ed teacher that comes to our home (2 hours a day 5 days a week) and she will be with him until he starts school in September. We also plan on putting him in swim class this summer on Saturdays. The teacher and all who have seen him thinks he is ready, but we won't know for sure until September. Either way, we hope to work with the school to make the transition from home to school easier for him. He will be going to a special ed preschool.

Good luck!

questor, I can appreciate that homeschooling works well in many situations, and might have worked well for you, and I certainly understand why families choose that for their children.

That being said, it's a good idea to remember that something that's a best-case scenario for you might be a disaster for other families. There is no "one-size-fits-all" in autism, or pretty much in life.

She should only be moved up if she's ready to be moved up. Based on her capabilities and mentally.

questor - we have heard you loud and clear. I wish that you would stop insisting that there is only one way to parent a child on the spectrum. Every family must find their own way. There really wouldn't be much of a need for this forum if there was just one way to raise a child. I find your continued insistence that we are all somehow abusing our children by sending them to school to be quite offensive. At least those of us who have been on the forum for a while know who you are but every time you come here and make the same comments to new members, you are being decidedly UN-helpful. Wasn't it a big enough hint when the mods came in and remove your last offensive post? What works here is when people share their experiences and let others know what has and hasn't worked for them. This gives other members a range of ideas and hopefully somewhere in that range they can find something to improve their situation. Dogmatic points of view that are repeated over and over again aren't helpful and I personally don't think they have any place here.

Questor, not everyone is in a financial situation where this is feasible.

For my situation: We are financially unable to have one of us stay home with our kids. I would love to homeschool and have felt guilty everyday that I am not able to and this was BEFORE we started to think that there might be any issues like AS. Now I feel worse but we only have three options at this point in time:

1) I can quit and we can live in a cardboard box.
2) I can go back in time and marry a really rich dude.
3) We can do the best with what we have and try to find a situation that works the best given our resources.

That is really IT right now.

Your ideas are not new or unique, this is something that I'm quite certain every working mother has already thought of. All you are doing is trolling at this point.

I begged my parents to home school me when I was younger but they didn't give in for two reasons. Both of my parents worked full-time and weren't equipped to be able to stay home with me and home school me and the second reason was that my therapist and teachers didn't recommend it because it doesn't give you any lessons for later in life socially. I'm socially screwed up enough as it is, I can't even imagine what would of happened to me if I was home-schooled. I was mad needless to say but I eventually got over it.

I have to say I'm glad I wasn't home schooled. If I didn't go to school from grades 7-12, I wouldn't have learned a lot of things socially and academically. I think I'd be behind socially way more if I had been home schooled. The only way I'd see a good reason to home school your children, especially children with special needs is if they're constantly being bullied to the point where it turns into a matter for their personal safety. Bullying is normal though and children to to learn how to cope and deal with that kind of stuff.