Sent home from nursery for biting 3 other kids.....

[hotmamalovespavlova]

Bad day dd 3.8 asd sent home from nursery today as she had bitten 3 other children in the space of 1.5 hrs, it is the second time in a week she has bitten someone on their face.
Inclusion teacher is going in on friday to do a risk assesment????
Nursery have know from the beginning and have always been very supportive through the dx and tolerating her behaviour she attends 3 full days and has 1-1 funded for 5 hours across the week and is on early years action plus.
She is very happy and excitable and loves going to pre school often they see only snapshots of her challenging behaviour.
We have sudden swings in behaviour and the timing of her behaviour over the last few weeks couldn't be better as EP going in to assess for statement purposes on monday so at least the staff can confidently talk about her needing one to one.

Wondering what reaction I am gonna get from the other mums on friday children will of no doubt named the culprit

:(

Best thing is to be open with the other parents, and say yes DD has problems, and Nursery are trying to get her a full time 1:1 so that these problems don't happen again.

I would apologise to the parents if I knew who they were.

I hope your wee DD gets full time 1:1, and becomes less distressed at Nursery.

Also be careful about getting into the habit of taking her home when she is naughty........

Hi I've been through this whole saga with dd1 who has ADHD. Be didn't bite but she did hit a lot. I used to take her over to the parent an say sorry and try to get dd to say sorry or make a sorry card then I'd explain dd has it a few issues and that I was currently pressing school to try and help me get them sorted. Good luck and sometimes you do just need to hold your head up high in the playground when you have a sn child as it's not easy dealing with other parents

The bottom line is, that the nursery ate letting your DD and the other kids down. Maybe you can enlist the help of the victim's parents to get your DD the support she deserves. In order to do that they need to complain to the school, NOT about your DD but about the fact that supervision isn't adequate to keep everyone safe.

Good luck and saorry you're going through this. xx

sorry you had a rotten day, agree with the other ladies, it's not fair to your DD to be being sent home like that, sounds like she needs more 1-1 time, so nursery can nip incidents in the bud. As well as a risk assessment, would have thought they need to be doing an analysis of what leads up to the biting, ABC - antecedent, behaviour, consequence, to try and prevent this behaviour happening as far as they can.

try and get it written down somewhere that your DD was sent home even if its you writing a note to confirm events. Being sent home is the best possible evidence the nursery are not coping and if its a mainstream nursery may even if an illegal exclusion - it certainly would be illegal if she was school age.

Thank you for your responses.

Pre school have always been great I am going in tomorrow with the inclusion teacher to have a meeting.
Apparently there was no building up to the biting she was doing it for no reason that they could see.
Pre school are not going for any more 1:1 she is being assessed for a statement for starting full time MS primary in September initiated by me despite the inclusion team saying she would never meet criteria .

The manager made her apoligise to the kids but she just echo's back 'say sorry to ' she has no feeling of remorse as she has already been disracted by something else.

She has generally been off on one for the last 2 weeks and I can't see the reason behind it, nothing has changed and she is not ill.

In the last two weeks she has hit bitten and pinched 3 adults at the pre school in one session, hit me so hard in the face it has knocked my glasses flying across the room and after the kids yesterday she smashed a baby gate into my face as I was trying to calm her over her biscuit being broken, bit my best pals little boy on the arm and then her dad at story time.

Today she went for my best friend when she was helping her go to the toilet and my pal said it could only be described as being gone for by a little agressive dog snarling, trying to bite kick and punch her.
It as almost as though she is constantly on teetering on the edge of a meltdown.

I am exhausted and generally fed up the whole thing seems like one constant battle.

dd2 (aged 6 ASD) sometimes bites and scratches other children. it is not always obvious what the build up was. She has a risk assessment. Don't worry about this. It should say what her difficulties are, what dangers her behavious poses to herself and others and most importnatly how they are going to minimize the risks through strategies. I would agree that you should keep a log of what is happening and also ask school to document any incidents as it will support your claim for a statement and for full time one to one in school. My dd has full time one to one and simply would not cope without this. On the subject of other parents, I feel your pain! I try not to discuss her difficulties too much with other parents, and thus far I have not been shunned in the playground,. I would however, be open if it was broached and simply apologise for the other child's injury and say she has SN and has difficulties with her social communication.

I think what really got me was the manager saying 'other children will start avoiding her if this continues'
She is liked because she is very happy and excitable and a few months ago made a friend who she adores and talks about constantly and it is a two way friendship though definately a little more obsessional on my dd's part.

Cansu-glad to know your dd copes with support in mainstream and that it is attainable I keep being told it is so difficult to get with a dx of autism and this is by the people writing my reports.

I think it depends how much of a PITA you can be to the LEA. there are other ASD children in dd's class who don't have it. I think you will probably have to make the case with your evidence. I also think it's important not to accept the proposed statement if you are unhappy with the provision in part 3, but that's a whole other thread..!

So the risk assesment I presume will have to be a written document that will detail the last few weeks as the reason for it being done.

So this will show attacking the adults 'their words' and the numerous bitings and being sent home-am I entitled to a copy of this document?

I am ye tto send of my part for the assesment so could include it as I have a feeling the preschool have already done there's prior to all of this.

My DS (4) won ABA at Tribunal and we have a behaviour management plan to address issues such as tantrums, stim, aggression, self injurious behaviour, throwing etc. He has a system where he earns or loses tokens for behaviour. This is not unique to ABA - it should be part and parcel of caring for a child with ASD, but rarely exist in any useful format in mainstream.

It is however usually well outside the expertise of a pre school or even a mainstream teacher to develop a programme - it needs an autism or behaviour specialist really to devise the programme and supervise it. I do not who in our local authority is equipped to write a behaviour programme I suspect the behaviour support outreach team / CAMHS is but DS would never have been put in touch with them until much further down the line when it had all gone hideously wrong. The autism outreach probably should have done it but it never occurred to them. Probably because he was 3, blond and cute looking.

You should ask for something similar to go in the statement (if you get one). It is also another good reason to support getting a statement in that specialist input is required to manage challenging behaviour.

There are guidelines on behaviour management on Dept of Education website. Also look at Challenging Behaviour Foundation and British Institute of Learning Disabilities. The guidance is focussed at the SLD end of SN but in my mind apply equally to young children with autism, especially if you want to address this behaviour when they are young - which I certainly do because being hit by a 4 year old boy is one thing, being hit by a 14 year old boy is something else.

You need to ask for increased 1:1 now not when the statement comes because it is not fair on your DD or the other children and ask for support from someone qualified to do behaviour management. So you want the statement to say something like 'provide behaviour management programmes to teach appropriate behaviour and reduce inappropriate behavioural patterns'.

Also it should say that everyone working with your child be appropriately trained in implementing the programme and enforcing boundaries consistently at home and nursery.

DS is in mainstream by the way with ABA.

I know of some children in mainstream without ABA trained staff who hit their TAs often and one spends alot of time being restrained in a corridor. So you are right to push to address it now - however if you want mainstream you don't want to over-egg it in case they say not suitable for mainstream.

So you need to push the inclusion teacher - ask her if she will come in and set up a programme and do some training asap.

So an hour and a half later my head hurts....dd bit someone on the head whilst we were there which may of helped reinforce things as the parent of said child was also in the meeting as a governor .

Upshot is SEN officer has already been alerted to the situation and has requested written observations over the next two weeks with a view to giving up to 15 hours 1:1.

Thank you for all your comments as always they are very helpful.

Do you think she would understand behavioural mapping?
Sounds like a hard few weeks :(

Intirigued what is behaviour mapping?