Kindergarten Questions

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-28-2004
Kindergarten Questions
6
Fri, 05-26-2006 - 12:35pm

Hello,

I've posted more or less the same question on the IEP board.

I have a 4 year, nine month old child who is in private preschool and heading into kindergarten. I call him asperger's, but the neurologist calls him "asperger like" developmental delay, and my son is about to get his first educational evaluation done, which I am told (in advance of the actual eval)will result in their getting the data they need to call him qualified for Special Education under the educational "autism" label. He is right on target academically, but very immature socially and emotionally, and he has very poor pragmatic language skills, and mixed skills in other language areas. His attention span is very unmodulated. (He can focus to the point that he misses the sound of all the other children leaving the room, or can seem to flit from one loose association to the next.)His conversation is very tangental or perseverative or both. (It seems almost anything can remind him of his obsessions.) He "spaces-out" in response to stress at school, so he is an "easy" kid who does not act out.

Even though the administators have theoretically not made any decisions yet, I know throught the grapevine that when they take all of the incoming kids in the district and put their names on sticky paper and split them all up into classrooms, they have my son's piece of paper with a collaborative class, which, in my district, may have up to 24 children, two teachers, and two instructional assistants. I visited the classroom, and the teachers there are excellent and could really reach my child with that staffing in my opinion, if he also has speech therapy, sensory diet, social skills training, etc. The teachers usually have the children in 3 or 4 groups, and it was very structured and the teachers seemed able to tell when children, even the good fakers like my son, had "checked out." The physical space is also very large, two full-size classrooms. The rumors are that there are no 'behavior' kids coming, ie. there are no kids in the class who are smart enough to act out when they need help, so the teachers can really focus on drawing out the children who need it. Indeed, that is the way the classroom is this year. In addition, the rumor is that they are expecting 3-4 (I think my son is the unknown) "classified" (special education) kids, all of whom with ASD's.

My question and problem is, I like this classroom, but I am not sure what I can put explicitly in the IEP. Can I request that all of the classified children be ASD's? I know I can't request the teacher, but the Special Education teacher seems excellent. And I don't even know her credentials and demanding certain credentials may actually eliminate her, for all I know. Can I request a certain limit on the number of classified children in the room? Can I request that all of the classified children be ASD's?

And, there is a big problem. My district only has 1/2 day K, and DH and I work full time. There is a private agency that runs a wrap-around program for K, that turns the whole thing into a full-day schedule for a fee, but it is not school, so it is NOT IEP-able as far as I know. The school has said that they could "try" to schedule individual therapies for my son during the wrap-around program, but I did not get any promises. Can THAT be part of the IEP? I do not see how the teachers could do what they need to do in a year if my son has about 6 appointments a week. And two areas of difficulty for him are transistions and social skills, so I do not see how he could negotiate getting up from a lesson and rejoining a lesson without putting all of his little efforts into that. And if he does, he will get nothing from the lesson academically.

I am worried about the wrap-around program. The children I observed were well cared for and looked very happy, but my son will space out and isolate himself too much. It was too busy and noisy, and required the children to pick something to do and do it. It will help if he is pulled out for his therapies, because the therapies will bring structure to the day. I know I can't ask for therapies to help him be successful in the wrap-around program, because it is not technically part of school. I think my only hope is arguing that he needs the therapies outside of the class time to succeed in the class. (How can he make friends if he isn't with them in the structured time? How can he make progress academically if he is pulled out so much?)

I also have the neuologist who doesn't commit to a full diagnosis, yet says that he needs ABA. I am not sure I agree; but I do think he needs his teachers to have tight tabs on him, very gentle discipline, and a lot of sensory diet and therapies. (Which is perhaps more of less the same thing. The point is, "checking out" is intrinsically rewarding to him, so the teachers MUST be able to make "checking in" a positive experience, too.) Where I think we agree is that the wrap-around program (not part of school) is not really good for my son. It is a little more camp-like and not structured in the way he needs. He may like it , but he is very unlikely to engage in a typical way in the activities. And if his friends start to think of him as weird, he may stop liking it.

I am trying to think if there is a reasonable argument for enrolling my child in both AM and PM Kindergarten sessions. I could go out of district, as just about every other district in my area has full-day K, but then he loses the biggest advantage of collaborative: socializing with the same peers he will be with for years, including middle school, which will probably be problematic.

If you have made it this far, thank you so much for reading this. Please let me know if you have heard of an appropriate reason to get all of his individual therapies scheduled during wrap-around time, not class time? And is there an appropriate reason to request that he get a full-day kindergarten (which would mean being in two classes, basically) instead of requesting an out-of-district placement, which would put him behind socially?

Thank you,

Sidney and son.

APOV on Autism
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-03-2004
Fri, 05-26-2006 - 2:07pm

Deasr Sidney,

As I don't know your son, this will be only based on my own experience and of course also does not take into account the quality of the instruction in your school, services, etc. It seems to me that a half day of kindergarten with teachers who can really tell when he is checking out and help him "back in" may be more than enough at this stage of the game. Has he been in preschool along with therapies, etc. already and how is all that going at this point? In other words, is he used to going in and out for therapies? At that age, my son had been doing that for 2 years already, old hat. And he had half day pre-school, have to say he made great progress anyways.

My thinking is that the wrap-around program with therapies interpersed through the afternoon and letting him chill out around attending the therapies after a full morning of classroom challenges, NOT really be forced to interact with other kids all afternoon, could be just fine for now. Let him get older before he is required to participate all day long! As he adjusts, you may find him drawn to other children and more activities in afternoon, but why not let him relax and chill out? Find things he likes to do, read, draw, etc.?

My son (PDD-NOS) learned very gradually how to participate all day long, and now even at age 8, he gets overwhelmed and needs downtime during a long, challenging school day sometimes. He has always been in a private special needs school with small classes and trained teachers who understand him, so just the setting alone is nowhere near as stressful as the program you are talking about with 24 kids in a room. And when he was kindergarten age, he was much more checked out during his school day even in that setting, those teachers really had to work for their money with him. And he has learned a great deal about how to participate in a classroom now.

I'm not sure of your reasoning for all the classified children in the classroom to be ASDs. I am pretty sure that you cannot request that in IEP because each child will need their own IEP based on individual needs, but if you have a strong reason for that, you should discuss it with program director. Won't the Special Education teacher be working with all the children? I wasn't clear on what you were asking about her and her credentials... I also think you can very specifically be involved with the choice of teachers here, as you are creating an IEP. Who the teacher is can definitely affect the individual education.

Getting ABA means the school district finding an ABA therapist. People with ASD kids have been able to get their school districts to do this, as there have been many cases now where courts have decided ABA is needed and should be provided. Does your neurolgist have specific needs that should be addressed by ABA? You might have to put up a fight to get this, but if you have a strong case for the help ABA would give your son, it certainly is doable.

The reasoning behind having his therapies scheduled during wrap-around so as not to miss classtime during kindergarten seems easy --- he will not be missing much in wrap-around! This might be a non-issue, in other words, the s.d. might be very open to the therapies happening during that time period. But my son has always had his therapies as a pull-out and I can't think it has hurt him or his education in the least. I think the breaks from the classroom have actually helped him. A good inclusion program takes into accound the needs of students not in the room at the time, lessons are often repeated anyways, all the children learn even with the ins and outs.

Good luck, ask more if you'd like. Others here might have better advice for you, as we have never been exactly in this position.

yours,

Sara
ilovemalcolm

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-28-2004
Sun, 05-28-2006 - 11:28pm

Dear Sara,

Thank you so much for your insight. I am a big lurker. And I am not one to give a lot of personal information. I don't really want to be recognized off-line, so I don't give a lot of details. That's just my style. But I have learned a lot about my own perspective and what I need to do next by considering your questions.

My son is probably a bit like yours. He is very sensitive to visual and all modes of stimuli. I think that the quality of the instruction in my school is good, but I don't know about therapists for services after preschool. It kills me that I lose the ability to pick them in Kindergarten. (Now, if it is not working out, I can get a different therapist. In kindergarten, my son gets whoever is assigned to his school.) I would love to leave him where he is now, but the school district will still make my son get all of his therapies at his "home" school, and would not send them to my son any more. That is sad, because his speech therapist and social worker are like part of the staff there now, helping my son build on his fragile social skills.

My son's biggest deficit is in social skills. His peers like him, and he even has interactive games with a few of the quieter children, but he needs a lot of support. He also has just started to "go deep" enough to dissapoint some of his peers sometimes. For example, he returns from the bathroom, and sees that his friends have changed the toys that he played with, or did not freeze wait for him to come back (as if with a pause feature from a video player) and he does not know how to deal with his frutration about that kind of thing at all. He has a lot of trouble when he can't control a game.

Academically, the formal assessments are not yet in. He never had an itinerent teacher, so this is the most uncharted aspect of him. Math: He can count to at least one hundred with understanding of the numbers, he knows the symbols for the numbers, and can count by twos and tens, he can add and subtract small numbers as part of a story, but he does not know the formal symbols. ("number sentences," I believe they are called.) Reading: He knows most of the letters and their most common sounds, he mixes up lower case d and b, and he does not know long vowel sounds for decoding, although he does have a few sight words with long vowels, like "go." He mixes up left and right a bit. He does not know the sequence of the alphabet, even though he knows all of the letters. (save for a lower case b and d.) He can decode easy short-vowel CVC words. Writing: He goes off on tangents and gets distracted even forming a letter. For example, making a lower-case "r," he may decide to add rain to his picture, since part of the letter looks like a roof, and put a rabbit under the roof. This is all creative and interesting, (Did he pick 'Rain', 'Roof' and 'Rabbit' because they are all "R" words? He'll never tell!) but he can take all afternoon to write one letter. On top of his game, he can come up with some reasonable spellings for words. His fine motor endurance and speed are very poor.

I think you might be right that a half day of kindergarten with teachers who can really tell when he is checking out and help him "back in" may be enough at this stage of the game. But I think the rest of his day might be damaging. He can't come home; we work full time. Being in a sea of children who don't understand his need to "pause" them when he has to use the bathroom (which can also be an all-day thing without a some picture cues to remind him what to do, including leaving the bathroom!) may be very stressful.

He is in a full-day plus (daycare schedule) preschool along with therapies, etc. It is going well. The philosophy their is very "every child is a gift," and truly differences are embraced and charished. The administrators make the therapists feel very welcome, and the therapists even do some "push-in" work. The social worker never actually separates my son from the group. But my son does love 1:1 attention with an adult, and it is relaxing for him. Being in the group is harder.

I don't think that the wrap-around program is going to work. Especially if he makes a blunder. He accidently angered someone at a party once, and cried for 1/2 hour. Then he stimmed a bit by spinning a toy, (an he is not a very big stimmer for an ASD guy) before he was able to rejoin the group. (All with me there.)

I guess I don't exactly need all of the classified children to be ASD, but I want them all to be withdrawers rather than acting-outers. My son is melted to tears by an soft, "I believe this was my marker."

My neurologist is very well respected, which is good, but he does not like to chat, to put it mildly. He was abrupt and appalled that my son does not get ABA. However, I don't see him being helpful. He scribbled his recommendation for ABA on a persription pad. He doesn't even go all the way with the asperger's DX, and does not understand that that is related to his getting services. But I am not too worried because the school district, for all of the trouble it is giving me, seems to be convinced that my son is in need of services as a child with autism.

For some reason, having therapies outside of classroom time does seem to be an issue with the district. It has not been formally discussed yet, but I detect subtle resistance. I get "We can try.." and "A lot of parents don't want therapies during the wrap-around, because they are paying for it!" The school tells me it's up to the CSE, and the CSE tells me it's up to the school. I don't understand it, because the school district has a lot to do in a very short day, and it seems that this should be helpful. I don't think my son is going to cause them standardized testing problems (Or maybe, if he spaces what he is supposed to do, or figures they already knows he knows the stuff, or whatever...) but with all of that pressure, I would think they want as much time with my son as possible. The district seems to want to avoid scheduling outside of the Kindergarten time. One of the other parents I spoke to whose child was in Kindergarten 2 years ago and only recieved speech once a week said that the district gave her a flat "We don't do that." and she never got the reason why, but she played by their rules at the time.

I am a little overwhelmed, because the school is not going to want to do anything other than what it decides. I wish we had good private schools around here for ASD children.

Thanks,

Sidney

PS: I just adored Malcolm's "You're not...Too bad," rap.

APOV on Autism
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-07-2004
Tue, 05-30-2006 - 12:20pm

I don't have any answers for you as we are just starting the process ourself. I do, however, have a question for you. You mention sensory diet in conjunction with IEP. What is a sensory diet and what does the school do to assist with this?

Thanks

Melissa

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 05-30-2006 - 3:36pm

a sensory diet is a series of activities to help address the individuals sensory needs. My son is primarily sensory seeking......rocks on chairs, jumping off of things, pushes against walls, crawls around, wants his arms pulled/stretched.....he is seeking some sensory input by doing these activities. He was assessed by our school's OT - he did not qualify for OT services (long story....not very happy about this) but she did create a sensory diet for him. He is given 4 to 5 breaks a day (for about 5 minutes each....if he needs longer, they allow it) and he is allowed to pick one of his sensory activities to do during this break.....they help him relieve some stress and anxiety.....help him satisfy his craving for certain input. His sensory breaks have been a great help for him these last couple of months.

Christie

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-28-2004
Wed, 05-31-2006 - 6:03am

Dear Christie,

My son could definitly use something like that. DH and I find that when we lose him, we need to do things like flip him upside down and have him walk on his hands. The OT calls it compressions. My son does not seek crashing things by himself, but he rubs up on things like a cat. However, when we encourage crashes, or make him into a sandwhich with couch cushions, etc., it draws him out. As for the sidling up like a cat, his social skills make it hard for him to see how that can be a problem for others at time.

He only qualified for OT at three because he was "lucky" enough to also have a fine motor delay. (Right now, the delay is gone on paper, but the OT assures me that when he turns five, there will be a marked delay due to his slow speed, since the tests change and look for different things at five.) The reason he got the OT eval was because the director of the agency who did his preschool testing said in his eligibility meeting that he sounded like a child with 'sensory issues', which I had never heard of. The chair of the meeting literally rolled his eyes, and snapped at her, "Well, we'll do an eval, but if there is no fine motor delay, we are not treating that!" I had no idea what was going on at the time.

I am discovering the joys of having a self-crasher, too. DH is begging my two-year-old not to jump down the stairs as I type. He does not want to jump down steps individually. He is trying to scale the whole flight. He is covered with self-inflicted rug burns and bruises, for which he usually asked for a kiss, then moved on, while we or his daycare teachers chase him with ice or bandaids, etc. In contrast, he screams that his diaper hurts and some clothing hurt, and the kiss does not help him. That poor baby needs some help, and of course he is not "like" my 4 year old, so I have to learn a whole new set of skills. My children need individual parenting plans.

Sidney

APOV on Autism
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 05-31-2006 - 11:16am

I agree on the individual parenting plans.......could use them around here too!

The school's OT is a big sore spot for me......during the meeting I attended at my son's school to discuss the results of their testing (MFE - multifactored evaluation), the school psychologist brushed over very quickly the OT assessment - briefly stating that he did not qualify for it. When I questioned this, he snapped at me that "Vaughn's (my son) handwriting is fine, he does not need OT". Luckily my son's pediatrician was at this meeting with me (along with son's therapist), not only has she been our family's pediatrician since before my son was born but she is also a mom to a child on the spectrum.....she went into a 15 minutes speech about my son's sensory issues (based off of a lot of reports from his teachers complaining that he is climbing on inappropriate things and jumping off of them, crawling on hands and knees around the classroom during story time, chewing on everything, etc.).....she talked about addressing his sensory needs to help him get through the day.....setting time aside to give him breaks to let off steam and do something that feels good to him......jumping on a trampoline, carrying several heavy books up the stairs to the library, crawling through tunnels, etc. Because of her, they agreed to have the OT make a sensory diet for son to use during his sensory breaks.....he gets one 5-minute break every hour (they also let him break if he looks like he is getting overstimulated or anxious). These breaks have definitely lessened some of the stress that he was responding to during his school day. They have helped a great deal.

I am currently looking for a private practice OT.......since the school won't supply it - we have to pay for it......unfortunately, we are on several waitlists.....

Christie