ASPERGER/ ADHD MUMS

[loopyredangel]

What experiences have you had, when your child was a little one starting nursery? I suspect my DS has Aspergers, we are waiting for an assessment, but they may not diagnose at such a young age - he's 2.5. I tried him at nursery but he got progressively worse with each visit, was sobbing and scared as it was too noisy and too many friends. What did you do? How did your child cope?

Don't know if you're still around as you posted some time ago. We had similar issues with DS1, 10 years ago now, who has a diagnosis of AS but we were unaware of this at the time. He really struggled at the first preschool nursery he went to at 3, attendance was every morning and there were 40 children per session. We took him out of nursery for a while (suspect he may have been excluded if we hadn't) and tried again a few months later at a smaller private nursery which allowed him to attend just a couple of seesions per week. He continued to struggle with the protocols but was a lot less stressed by the environment of this much smaller nursery and made one or two 'friends'. The first few years were an absolute nightmare however I firmly believe this is because we didn't know what we were dealing with and felt we were just rubbish parents. Once we began to suspect Aspergers we became the experts and started to employ appropriate strategies and routines in partnership with school.
He is now a happy 11yr old looking forward to going to secondary school in September though still has problems they are no where near what they were in those early days.
I would suggest that even if you are not given a dx for your son that you use some of the strategies and routines that you would use if he were as it will help him to cope so much better and will save him (and you) so much anguish.

Good Luck and well done for spotting the signs. Wish we had been more clued up.

My DS has just been DX'd with AS and starts pre-school in Sep (he's already 3.) We saw the Educational Psychologist before DX who met him, built up a really good picture of him and is recommending an inclusive place for him so there will be extra staff to cope with him. This was with or without DX, she just looked at his needs (someone to boot him up the bum and make him join in ). Luckily, our local pre-school was an inclusive setting anyway (the funding now follows the child) so the staff there are very familiar with ASDs and I'm confident they will all get on fine.