Has your child had a learning/language explosion during the holidays and if so....

[CrunchyStarlight]

does that mean that school is holding them back?

Interested in your thoughts. Is school really more than childcare for our SN children?

hmmm.

got lots to add on this one, but needed by dds.

be back in a bit.

Yes, DS2 has started doing all sorts of things, but he often does when his routine has a shake up. DS1 is the same. I think they get stuck, as it were, wherever they are and doing something different like having school holidays, visiting my parents, my parents visiting us or even going back to school always gives them a bit of a kick up the bum.

I think my ds has come on a lot in the holidays. It makes me think flexi schooling might be the way forward. Mix with his peers part of the week and visual learning and ABA with me the rest.

I'll see how he goes until half term. We've got his statement review in a couple of weeks when I'll be having a nag about his 1-1 (i.e I don't think he's getting his 25 hours) and other stuff, lack of visual timetable, lack of visual aids etc.

Dd2 always does well in the holidays but i put it down to her being around her sister (who is very verbal) and getting more 1:1 from me. I can't say that nursery has not helped her though, they have done a great job and her speech is improving all the time. I do worry about her starting school next week, i just hope she keep improving and she gets the support she needs through the school.

funny you should say that, even dd3s teacher of the deaf agreed with me when I said the last year in nursery had basically been expensive childminding, she'd got very little from it. School have promised more next year, we'll see!

But, dd3 has always made improvements over the summer holiday, even before school when it was home visits we were getting. I'm not quite sure what it is. Sometimes I think she concentrates and takes it all in during term time and then over the holidays when everything's a little more relaxed and pressure free, it all comes out.

I'm particularly interested in teachers perspective, because I understand that children are expected to 'regress' or 'lose skills' over the summer holidays and need to repeat work when they get back.

I have to admit that DD1 has had a vocab and sentence length improvement. How that will translate to out of home/group improvement, well wait and see.

I have had a few different school/nurseries/holidays to compare and contrast with dd1.

yes, i do think that a lot of provision for SN children is little more than institutionalised childcare. I do not necessarily exclude SN schools form that statement (ime)

dd1 has always been stressed by school (talking historically here). it was pretty clear to me, that as far as she was concerned, school was a kind of holding pen - somewhere she got dropped off each day, coped without me, maybe did the odd thing she enjoyed, and then came home again.

how she held it together I'll never know (very quiet and passive)

each holiday, we would have a few stressy daus at the beginning, where she wuold climb the walls due to change of routine, then she would settle.

and come on leaps and bounds.

BUT

I have noticed this too with her ABA programme. we always had a really informal part time home programme, with just one tutor at a time (eg one tutor did all the hours). when tutor went on holiday, she would stress about losing the routine, and then calm down, and take a few steps forward.

the same is happening now she is at ABA school too.

she absolutely loves her school now. loves the people there, and definitely misses it when she doesn't go (before, I always got the impression she was more wanting to know when she was going back to school so that she knew how much respite she was getting form it - now, it is more because she wants to know when she can get back to the fun)

she is no longer as stressed by school - obviously she does still get stressed, she is having to learn new things, in a new environment, but she can cope much better with the levels involved.

since she started at ABA school, holidays have been the calmest I have ever known. a lot less readjustment days, not so much kicking off, and due to the progress made, a lot more ability from dd1 to entertain herself for periods of time.

she has still, this holiday, made huge leaps forward in language and skills.

she has sorted out pronouns, and is using sentences more naturally and fluidly. her echolalia is virtually nil on some days.

skills wise, she has made great leaps in dressing skills, and certainly wiht jigsaw puzzles etc - her manipulation putting them togehter has improved, and she is beginning to be able to put the pictures together.

so, while her school now is anything but institutionalised childcare, she still makes huge progress when she is on holiday. she gets less one-to-one time now, as obviously there is just me shared between her and dd2.

I think that sometimes, the time and the space to think and reflect (in as much as she is able to ) is what facilitates these leaps. she spent all last term working on manipulating jigsaw pieces, but getting nowhere. within a week of breaking up, she was manipulating like a pro.

I think a pause can be very benficial in all types of learning - remember revising for exams? it was always stressed that you needed to build in breaks, to give the brain a chance to absorb fully what you were trying to learn - I think this is what I am seeing in dd1 (especially now I know she is learning something at school!)

I'm a teacher and I see a lot of kids go backwards over the holidays - I don't teach in the erm, nicest area, let's say, and I think the kids get encouraged out of the house all day or are left to play on computers - thus getting very little interaction with adults.

I think SN parents cannot go down that route so easily. Also those with ASD kids will, like me, have seen that their kids are more relaxed and happy at home and so they can take on more.

I would also add that it's not just the 6 weeks the NT kids have 'off'. Trips/visit/sports days eat into quality teaching time at the end of term. I would say very little formal learning happens from the half term. Not to say they don't learn anything else - practising for plays and sports days are valid learning experiences.

Yeah, I curse the day I taught ds to say 'no, I don't want......'

grrrrr

ds has made real progress; big reduction in echolalia, increase in two-way communication, etc. strangely, there were about 5 days during the holidays where he seemed to have a regression, lots of stimming and repetitive language, and then another leap forward.

he has been making good progress at nursery too, but the environment there is more challenging, so i can understand why a lot of his progress seems to be consolidated during the more relaxed holidays.

i am a little bit worried that his new language unit will be a little bit because he has made so much progress. i think they still have a lot to offer him though, so fingers crossed his hours are not reduced.

LOL dd1 said this morning "want breakfast in bed" (when what I actually need her to say is " would mummy like breakfast in bed? ", but hey - still rejoicing in a four word sentence)

I haven't done any speech work at all, but have done loads of swimming, running, climbing and very outdoorsy stuff which I am convinced helps. Think she needs to get back to school & and a lot more work on speech sounds, but her vocab & sentence length have improved.

ds is definitely more tuned in and responsive. I think that so much went over his head at nursery that he just stopped bothering to work it out.

Don't suppose MS reception will be much better. Even with a 1to1 for most of the time I can see him tuning out with all the background noise and movement going on. Perhaps flexischooling would work. If we could have three afternoons a week with him at home we might keep up the progress.

would love to homeschool but a) I work part time and b) I don't think I'm cut out for it especially while my nearly two year dd is still waking me up most nights (yawn)

Interesting. We have just restarted a very informal home programme with DS2, based around play themes (I've spent what seems like the last hundred years sorting all his toys into themed boxes). We've not really done anything like this for a year - apart from Floortime sessions - so very few table time activities. I've been amazed by how much progress he's made with attention, concentration, speed of response and confidence. So school must doing something right (he does have amazing, dedicated 1:1s).

Just thinking about this, I haven't noticed much of a difference with DS but language is not his problem area.His school, MS with a unit, has been an amazing, enriching experience for him. However I was a primary teacher who moved up with my class from YR to Y2 (very unusual I know but it worked!) I often found, and parents often told me, that children had an all around increase in skills over the long summer holidays.

My personal opinion is that the complete break allows time to process what has been learned and that an increase in unstructured play / outside activities helps bring out more 'latent' skills. Not sure if there is any accuracy in this but it is one reason why we go camping, lost of outside stuff is tricky for DS to access, he uses a wheelchair, but when we camp we are always outside!

We had a similar experience to others, a big struggle for the first few weeks, babbling, losing words, wetting, anxiety....but now we have more sentences, direct questions and even an attempt at chatting with similar aged children.

Were about to start reception in a week or so and get our formal dx, in more detail. Im hoping she enjoys school as much as she enjoyed nursery.

DS's speech has regressed, but that is my fault. I understand 85% of what he says, so he doesn't need to work so hard. On the plus side he has stopped soiling and is not picking holes in his face quite so much. And his sleep is better, we are getting 11 to 7 with only one wakening in between.
I am very worried that it will all go tits up again next week when he starts school.
From a teacher's perspective, there was regression in some children but not many. But that was special school not mainstream.

Well, I definitely use the holidays as catch up time for DS2, for instance, I taught him how to do joined up writing this year and we have done spelling practice almost everyday (his school seem to be a bit too relaxed about his dyslexia TBH, I feel they have low expectations).

DS1 has learned to read fluently over these holidays, so that would seem to support the idea that school wasn't where the real progress was taking place. But then DS2, who is NT, has also come on a lot too.

DS1 couldn't have made the progress he has over the holidays if school hadn't done all the preparatory work first, and I think what's happened over the holidays is that a pause in formal learning, with lots of outdoor time and running around, has helped reading suddenly click.

I've often noticed, too, how when you go on holiday children make some kind of developmental leap, or start to do something new -- either it's having you around all the time and not distracted by the washing machine, or being in a new place, or whatever it is. And for my own part I rely on breaks while I am working to let my brain rest and sort out problems on its own.

So no, I don't think school is just childcare. I don't even buy the 'all children regress' argument -- they may forget some things and consolidate others, learn some more. But school is hard work for ASD kids (even at the best of times) and I think the effect of the down time in holidays is perhaps magnified for them.