Nursery Troubles.

[aaronsmummy]

DS 2 is Austistic. He has been going to Playgroup/Nursery for a year and has really come on. He is 3.5. When he started he had no eye contact, was non-verbal and was scared of the other children. He now uses words at a four word level, we no longer need pecs and will play alongside another child but not share. He gives lots of smiley eye contact too. The problem now is his behaviour, he kicks, spits, bites, scratches and screams. He has no concept of danger and frequently has to be restrained from either killing himself or another child. He also doesnt sleep much - 4am wakings are the norm. His behaviour is worse when his routine is disrupted. Nursery has now closed for 2 weeks after just coming back from the summer break. Since being back he doesnt seem to be getting much attention although we got funding for another member of staff. I keep arriving to find him wet and dirty. He is usually playing alone while the children are doing another activity. The whole attitude is that it is just too much trouble. Should I move him to a school run nursery to get him used to it before reception, will his behaviour improve with more structure?

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

aaronsmummy

I would certainly have words with the nursery
and the person assigned to special needs there.
You certainly should not be finding your son both wet and dirty.

Has the nursery suggested you apply for a Statement?. If not I would seriously consider doing this yourself and asking for an assessment from the LEA particularly before he gets into school.

[aaronsmummy]

They are going to start statementing him and we are supposed to discussing it mid-october.

[mamadadawahwah]

Dont wait to "discuss" the statementing, do it as a parent. You can do this yourself by making a parental application. All you do is send a letter of request (go to the IPSEA web site for the form letter) and you are entitled to a reply within 6 weeks by law. This gets the process moving far faster than relying on teachers getting their act together.

It took us over a year to get our statement, so the sooner you start the better.

Does the nursery have any behavioural management techniques on board for when your child exhibits these behaviours? Do they pander to them, or do they have techniques to reduce them? If your child is "acting out" for lack of a better term, do they keep a functional analysis of why, i.e. do they keep data on what happened just before? This is called ABC, antecedent, behaviour, consequence data keeping. Is there a pattern?

Is your child's time at nursery becoming more just curtailing his behaviours or is he learning as well? This is a real struggle for our little guy, and I am worrying that most of his time is going to be spent by teachers intervening his behaviours, rather than him actually interacting from his peers, which is why i sent him to nursery in the first place.

Basic techniques could and should be used with your little one. there are free manuals on line on how to use behavioural intervention for young children. Its so simple and there is absolutely no reason why a nursery can't use these techniques for your wee fella. Its all about whether they "want" to, if they want to spend the time and energy. Which is why you need a statement NOW, so that you can write this stuff into the statement.

[coppertop]

No child should be left wet and/or dirty. That's part of their basic duty of care. It's even worse IMHO if they are doing this even when they have the funding to pay for another member of staff.If ds2 is not getting much attention then what is the extra staff member doing? Tbh I would look elsewhere for a place. Does the school nursery have a place for him? If so I would move him asap.

The staff need some kind of a strategy for dealing with the behaviour. Have they bothered to try to find out what the triggers are? His helper should be making a note of what ds2 is doing just before he starts kicking, biting etc.

Has the Paed offered any help with the sleeping problems? This may not be the solution for you but when my ds2 started taking melatonin his behaviour at pre-school improved a great deal. He still has meltdowns but nowhere near as many as before.

Do you have a contact number for the Area SENCO? I think they need to know what is going on.

[aaronsmummy]

Mdww - I will get the ballrolling with the statementing asap, thanks for the info. The nursery is just like a big toddler group really and I think the only thing that has been implemented is PECS which they no longer can be bothered with. I am not sure whether the progress made so far is because of what I have been doing, the Nursery or just general development on his part.

Coppertop - The SENCO is friends in RL with the Nursery Manager. When we have meetings they have a general pat ourselves on the back session. Unfortunately the school ds1 goes to has no nursery so if i move him to a school that has he will have to stay there in reception and on as he reacts badly to changes and I couldn't do it to him twice, then I will have the problem of which does dd eventually go to. He has Melatonin which has helped a little with the sleeping and the hv has recommended phenergan in the day to calm him down which i will try. When he is at home - he never has any toilet accidents he is really good, I don't understand why this happens at nursery.