Non-verbal 3 year old starting nursery - am I doing the right thing?

[Ponche]

My DD is turning 3 in September and I was planning to start her in nursery (day nursery, not a school one) in October for two mornings a week. She has no EHCP yet but I’ve visited a few nurseries and spoken to the SENCOs and they seem supportive and able
to accommodate her so far.

Currently on maternity leave with DC2 and back to work part-time in March, so technically don’t need to send her for childcare reasons until then.

But I was thinking it may be a good idea to start her next month and gradually build up to 3 days a week once her 30 hours funding kicks in from January.

I’m hoping this will give me plenty of time to slowly settle her in and get her used to nursery before I’m back to work. And if she really struggles in nursery, it will be better to know sooner rather than later.

I’m just not sure I’m making the right decision and feel guilty for sending her as she’s non-verbal and possibly autistic (waiting for paediatrician referral to come through). I’m worried she will struggle being around the other children and find it overwhelming. Her understanding is also limited but we are starting private speech therapy soon.

She was previously in nursery before I took her out to be home with me during maternity leave. Within a few months, she settled in and no longer cried at drop off and seemed to enjoy her time there. But that was before I had concerns about autism and she was quite a bit younger then.

I feel she will benefit from the different activities she can do at nursery but I’m just worried that she will find the whole experience overwhelming and traumatising and keep questioning if I’m doing the right thing, especially as I’m not due back at work for a while yet.

But on the other hand, the two mornings a week will be nice for me and DC2 to have one-to-one and do things that I’d struggle doing with both kids alone. Just wondering if anyone has any advice? Thank you.

No advice as such, but if you can afford it, and she settled ok before, then putting her in won't do her any harm and will be nice for you to have time with dc2. You could start her off slowly and gradually build up to 3 days.

My son wasn’t non verbal, but you definitely had to tune in to his speech frequency to figure out what he was saying when he started nursery. His speech came on leaps and bounds, and the other kids were extremely accepting on his speech issues, and the nursery workers were absolute magic with him.

I think try it, see how she gets on with it. Weirdly, I found it easier to get additional help for my son once he was in a setting, because I had the support of nursery and access to their connections for the help, which continued as he went to school.

I would be making an informed decision

will they have symbols for her ?
How will she communicate what she needs ?
is the class so big she could get lost in the middle of it all?
how can they tell if she’s sad/ needs the toilet / thirsty ect ?

it’s really tough I sent my lad because I thought it would help him…. It was heartbreaking and I took him out after three days and then tried again about 8 months later when I least knew he could make his basic needs known (
most of the time)
hope your ok. It’s so tough x

Thank you, lots to think about. I will ask what they will offer in terms of supporting her communicating her needs.

At home, she mainly communicates using hand leading. She’ll take us to the fridge if she’s hungry or she’ll bring her plate/bowl
to us if she wants more. Brings us her empty cup if she wants water. If she’s tired, she’ll gesture for her bottle if she can see it or take us to the fridge and gesture for milk. Her communication via hand leading is definitely getting stronger.

At home these things are usually in her sight, so I do wonder how she will communicate these needs at nursery and need to speak to them.

She’s not potty trained yet and is still in nappies. I am worried about her feeling ‘lost’ in the class and aimlessly wandering around. It’s just so hard as I’m thinking if she can’t cope in nursery (understandably), how am I supposed to work?

I am finding some days increasingly difficult so was looking forward to two mornings respite a week but am constantly doubting myself and want to make the right decision for DD.

I could also delay her start for a few months and hopefully work with the speech and language therapist to set up some visual aids she can maybe use to communicate basic needs/requests.

I’d forgotten that my son did the same, he used a sign he’d made up for when he wanted a drink, and he’d lead his key worker to what he wanted when he couldn’t make himself understood. Neither of mine were potty trained at that point either.

it was an extremely small setting though, and school hours/term time only so very different to a large nursery, and the staff there were just so lovely and put me completely at ease that they could manage the additional needs of my children.

What sort of vibe are you getting off of the nursery and staff there?

I don't have experience but just wanted to say you sound like a lovely mum!

From the information you provided I do think that nursery sounds a good idea especially if she had successfully settled before. Other Mumsnetters with experience will have practical advice on making the transition as smooth as possible.

You also need to think about refilling your own cup, once you have 2 DCs, it sounds like that quality time with DC2 will do you a world of good.

My oldest was non verbal when she started nursery, didn’t talk anything little until 4.5years. We were nervous and relucatant but once she was there we swore it was the best thing we did

Also the nursery were very good at using signing and her PECS board, in conjunction they worked brilliantly

There are one or two children at least in most nurseries with similar needs to your dc. They should be able to work with them, especially if it's a nursery that also has babies. Do apply for that ehcp asap if you haven't yet

I’m not an expert by any means, but I wondered whether you could stick a photo of her plate, cup and bottle on the fridge and see if you can get her leading and pointing to those when she wants them? Then maybe add in a nappy for changes?

I wonder whether that might transfer much more easily to nursery than the hand leading would? And if you might feel more reassured about her going if you felt confident that she could communicate basic needs?

The nursery will be able to apply for the EHCP so worth her being in nursery just for that. Please don't let them use PECS with her like another user has suggested. It's awful. From an Autism AAC speech and language therapy specialist. Google 'the problem with PECS'.

From a quick google (so might have missed the point) the issue seems to be:

PECS® uses picture-based prompting and reinforcement tied to error correction in order to teach language skills. The method allows the trainer to artificially cause frustration through the withholding of highly desired objects or food until the targeted behavior is achieved, even if the communicator becomes upset or angry. It is not a natural or nice way to teach language.

I have never seen PECS used in this way - where the child is denied something the teacher knows they want until they use the picture correctly. It seems hugely outdated to me to think it would be still be being used in this way.

Personally I have seen it used in this way.

The other issues are that it majorly focuses on requesting, communication is about so much more than just requesting. Yes they move onto 'I see...' 'I hear...' but omg how boring for the child. How many verbal communicators walk around saying I see I hear?!

It's also involves touching children and forcing them to do something (picking up a card). We should be reinforcing that people shouldn't touch you without your permission (of course I understood that in certain circumstances some children need to be held for their own safety).

PECS also doesn't incorporate motor planning. Cards will be found on any page of the book, in other children's books, down the back or the radiator... We should be getting them onto robust language systems E. G. Apps where we can use motor planning.

PECS uses a lot of sentence starters 'I want...' the majority of autistic people are gestalt language processors therefore we shouldn't be using sentence starters with them, we should be modelling language during natural play.

Thank you so much for all your replies, I really appreciate them and am taking them all on board. One of my main reasons for starting her in October was to get the ball rolling with the EHCP process, as I know it will take a long time and not be an easy process.

But my gut is telling me to hold off until January, especially as we have speech and language therapy starting this month and we also need to start attending SEN stay and plays that her portage worker runs. It just feels like she will have a lot of new things going on at once and I don’t want nursery to tip her over the edge.

Her sleeping is also all over the place and has been for a while, no matter what I try. Recently she hasn’t been falling asleep until midnight. If she wakes up at a decent time (eg. 7/8am) and naps at a decent time, she still won’t fall asleep until really late. If she doesn’t nap, she’ll go to bed at say 7pm, and then either be up a few hours later for a couple of hours or be up for three hours or so at like 2/3am.

She’s also just coming out of a period of refusing a lot of her usual favourite/safe foods and had barely been eating some days. So again just worried about how she would manage at nursery with broken sleep and being hungry but not wanting to eat.

Like a PP said, I will feel more confident sending her once she can communicate her basic needs so will try using pictures of her frequently used items and will also speak to her speech and language therapist to see what she suggests. I’ve seen some children use an app on an iPad to communicate but wouldn’t know how to get started with that.

I’ve visited three nurseries so far and two had staff that seemed nice and I got a good vibe, but one of the settings just seemed too busy for her. One other nursery I didn’t get the best vibe from the staff or the setting. Visiting another one this week. All the SENCOs seem supportive so far and all the nurseries currently have other children with SEN and there are a couple of other children in each one who are also non-verbal.

She’s having portage visits twice a month but these will change to once a term visits to the nursery once she starts. Portage seem keen for me to get her into nursery but I’m not sure if that’s just so that they can get to the next child on their waiting list.

I was thinking to apply for the EHCNA myself but the only supporting ‘evidence’ I would have so far is perhaps a report from the speech and language therapist, maybe a letter from her portage worker and then a copy of the referral to the paediatrician made by the GP. Not sure if that would be enough?

Hi OP, my DD has just turned 3, has speech delay and is completely nonverbal outside of the home. She has been in nursery since she was 1 and she is absolutely fine. Nursery will do an IEP for your DD when you dont have an EHCP, this is them setting individual parameters and goals for your DD that they work towards. DD current IEP is having a few 121 sessions a week with her keyworker focusing on using a PECS board.

The right nursery will be confident and supportive. and will be aware that DD cannot vocalise her needs.

I started DS when he had just turned 3 when he was non-verbal, not toilet trained and did not yet have his diagnosis. It was hard for him at first adjusting, but it massively improved his speech development because the speech and language therapist came and trained the nursery staff in PECS and then he got 1:1 sessions from the staff every day he was in alongside us using PECS at home. He also had lots of peer modelling of speech and communication to observe which he didn't get at home. His older siblings were in school during the day so he was with me or my DH all day and at that age most children at local play sessions were younger.

He did not get an EHCP until the beginning of year 3 because the nursery/infant school were able to meet his needs with detailed IEP's. The IEP'S were useful when the school were applying for the EHCP as they showed how much intervention they had already put in to support him and really fought the case for EHCP level support for junior school. They were also useful for me when I applied for PIP.

DLA, not PIP sorry.