Bad night and rethinking mainstreaming..

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-24-2005
Bad night and rethinking mainstreaming..
13
Fri, 11-18-2005 - 8:16am

Chase made his first reconciliation last night and things didn't go well. He wasn't disruptive but he just wasn't really there. The other children went up so easily and seemed excited about the whole thing but Chase was looking about the church in a daze and kept asking me to scratch his hands, neck, fingers. I know he was stimming and needed that but it was just upsetting and I'm not sure he really understood what was going on, the big picture I mean.

I started crying right there in church and it was one of those cries I couldn't hold in but fortunately is wasn't an ugly cry. His daddy took him up and Chase was just like a zombie the whole time and had to be prompted to move his feet.

For those of you who are catholic, did your children get the whole confession and first communion thing? It's a big concept and I just think it might be too much for him to grasp and I'm thinking about waiting until he understands what it all means before letting him make first communion. My mother says it can't hurt him to do it now but I just don't know.

Sorry this is long but he goes to a private catholic school that doesn't have many resources and every year I have to educate the new teacher about Aspergers. I'm starting to think he needs to be in a program where the teachers are trained to deal with ASD's but a change now would throw him for a loop. He loves his school and classmates and I like that he can say "God" in school without getting in trouble for it but I'm starting to wonder if that is the most important thing for him right now. Any advice from BTDT moms would be so appreciated. Ya know it was just one of those nights when his "differences" were glaringly obvious and while I'm thankful he doesn't have it worse it still makes me sad inside no matter how much I try to suppress that feeling. Thanks for listening. Vicky

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-03-2004
Sat, 11-19-2005 - 9:17am

I just have to quickly respond to "We're seeing DS copying social skills from the other kids - something that he would not have to opportunity to do in a special ed school." The 2nd half of this statement is not true. Our son goes to such a school and while I do wish he could have more opportunity for a FAPE with neurotypical kids and used to worry about this, the reality is he has had LOTS of opportunity to copy social skills and learn, and at school. Plus working with professionally trained teachers all day has helped him understand himself and truly learn to interact in a way that I believe it is difficult to address in mainstreaming. You can not generalize about special ed schools.

My son IS learning social skills, and from other special ed kids as well as NT children in other settings besides school. Not all special ed kids have great difficulty with social skills. And my charming funny 8 year old son says "cool" and "sweet" and can beat any neurotypical kid at video racing games at an arcade and hang in there through a challenging Tae Kwondo class and hold a conversation with NT kids he doesn't know. He has several neurotypical friends he plays with regularly on weekends, and has learned so much about friendship from his many ASD friends from many hours and hours of happy interactive play. In fact, he has a large gang of friends, some ASD, OCD, NT and even just unusual. And sometimes they all travel together in a pack.

I know you were only talking about your situation, and maybe where you live the special ed schools and rooms would NOT provide the opportunity you are describing. I am glad for you that your school is working so well with you and your son. That is sadly somewhat rare. But there are also wonderful special ed schools providing great education and social skills, and for many of us, the current real-life state of affairs is that the mainstreaming isn't a great place for our children to fit in and learn, in fact, quite the opposite.

yours,

Sara
ilovemalcolm

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-13-2004
Sat, 11-19-2005 - 4:15pm

Thankyou for correcting me. It would appear that special ed schools in the US are somewhat different to here. You see, I'm in Australia and the kids in our special ed schools ALL have severe intellectual impairments. As a result, social skills are virtually non existant.

We do have a couple of special ed schools for autistic kids. They currently have about 100 places in our (capital) city and 300 kids wanting to get in. Hence, the places are given to the children who have the most severe autism: the kids that have no social skills, would not cope and would be too disruptive in a mainstream school.

There are a number of support classes dotted around the grade schools, but our government is trying to close them because they are not financially viable ?!

In short, unless your child is severely impaired, you go into mainstream here.

Dress Up Games, Doll Makers and Cartoon Dolls @ The Doll Palace
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-20-2001
Sat, 11-19-2005 - 5:12pm
I have read that more and more churches are starting to offer special needs sunday school.

 


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