DS turned 4 last month and whilst he has no diagnosis, I’m coming to terms with the fact he likely has ASD. He isn’t what I would call non-verbal in the sense he does have a fairly wide vocabulary but he is selective in when he uses it. Everything is very much on his terms so if he wants to answer your question or tell you what something is when you ask, he will but if he isn’t motivated to or interested in it then forget it. He can label lots of items, say the alphabet, count to 20, finish off words to songs, read a few words in books but his communicative language isn’t quite there. He won’t tell me how his day has been or what he has done at school so I rely on the staff to inform me of this.
We are under the NHS SALT team and have been for a year but haven’t seen much progress so are looking into private help. They gave us communication boards which he used for a few weeks but lost interest and now refuses to acknowledge them. The SLT we have seen believes his communication skills are excellent but that he has realised he can communicate very effectively without language so doesn’t feel motivated to use it. He is very independent so his first port of call will be to do something himself and if he gets stuck, he will lead us by the hand and point to whatever he is stuck with or pass us the object.
Other than speech delay, we have very few issues. He has actually never had a tantrum which thinking about it may be odd but he is a calm and quiet boy, doesn’t kick up a fuss. He enjoys reading books, playing on the Nintendo switch with his older brother, playing on the trampoline and on his scooter and playing with Lego. All usual stuff.
He started reception this week. He was in a private nursery 3 full days (8-6) whilst I was at work prior to this so not like he has jumped from being at home to school, he has experience of an educational setting. I don’t know if I am expecting too much here so looking for advice.
Due to DS not being able to tell me what he has done or how his day was, I have asked the teacher or TAs each day but they haven’t been able to tell me much. They all just sort of say ‘if there was a problem, it would be written down at the main door so they’d tell you as you were passing by’ and that they’re floating around all day so haven’t spent much time with DS specifically… So I have absolutely no idea what he’s doing all day.
I also don’t know whether he has eaten his lunch. He is a fussy eater so I was given the school menu and I highlighted the meals I thought he would eat each day so they knew. I don’t know how much he has eaten but do know that when he returns home, he is ravenous and eats essentially a full meal so I gather he isn’t eating much. I need to know if he is eating any school dinner because if not, I will provide a packed lunch.
On top of this, I have been handed a ‘care plan’ this morning which I didn’t look at until I got home. When they said care plan, I thought it would be how they were helping him with his speech or development because I had this at his previous nursery. I was rather shocked and taken aback to read that it’s all to do with toileting which just makes no sense to me. They say he needs wipes and spare clothes and it goes into details about how his main goal is to sit on the toilet until his soiled clothes have been changed. He hasn’t had an accident all week and indeed, hasn’t had an accident since he started toilet training over a year ago now. He would rather hold his pee in all day than pee himself, he honestly has no issue with going to the toilet whatsoever so I have absolutely no idea why I have been handed this.
I will be speaking to them today at pick up but I’m starting to get concerned that they are lumping him in a SEN shaped box and because he likely has SEN, they have handed me that form today because they just naturally expect any child with SEN soils themselves? I don’t know, I just thought it was odd because if he has been shown where the toilet is, he will just take himself when he needs to go and certainly doesn’t have accidents.
Am I expecting too much from them or being difficult? This is all new to me because DC1 is completely NT and I never had a problem with the reception staff when he was in reception last year as a result.