2 yo with mild autism, would you tell the nursery?

[eskimomama]

Hello all
My 2 yo DD has mild autism symptoms (just got dx) and she attends a nursery 3 short mornings per week. I'm not sure whether the staff suspects anything concrete, they obviously know she doesn't answer her name and doesn't have any language. They also say she never takes part in activities, she happily stays on her own and doesn't disrupt the room at all. Otherwise she's happy there, it's just 2 hours 3 days a week.

I've been wondering whether to tell them or not. I don't want a big label on her little head that might trigger a different attitude towards her (ie the "different" kid in the room, with all the consequences). She will only go there until August and then move on to Montessori or another school, probably for mornings only to fit with all the therapies and everything.
At the same time maybe they can be helpful if I tell them about the A word and could be more involved with her rather than just leaving her happy on her own.
I'm really unsure, and don't want to do a mistake there.

Maybe I could just say she has language and communication/developmental delays without mentioning autism?

What would you do? Many thanks

Absolutely you need to tell them!

How can they help her if they don't know this vital fact about her?

They already know she's different, they don't need you to tell them that. What they need you to tell them is how best to help her.

I agree with Indigo. There is no harm at all in telling the nursery, it's not going to label her for life. Nursery won't be surprised there is something, but they may not have much knowledge or experience of ASD, so you will be having to let them know what help your DD may need. My DS2 has ASD and I can truly say that sharing his DX with the people caring for him has never been anything but beneficial. You can remind the nursery that her DX is confidential and not to be shared with other parents. Personally, I actually found it easier to share with the other parents once DS was in MS school, but that is entirely up to personal preference.

You do need to inform the nursery of this diagnosis. Children with special needs who are quiet and compliant more often than not get missed in a nursery or classroom setting and this is what is happening to your DD here.

You should also only see a "label" as a signpost to getting her more help.

My DC was just like your little one at the same age when she went to nursery. We didn't and still don't have any diagnosis. She is 3.5 yrs now.
The nursery just left her to her own devices despite knowing she had severe speech delay and ignored all the other kids. I would tell them as they will hopefully make more effort with her.
I am amazed BTW that you got a diagnosis in a 2 yr old displaying only mild ASD traits.
Does she have issues with changes in routine and/or meltdowns?
My own DC has none of these but has a significant problem receptive and sometimes expressive language?
Sorry for being a bit nosey but could you tell me what other ASD traits your daughter has? Thanks!

I agree you should tell them. I know that with my dc I hated telling anyone initially because it upset me to talk about it and because telling people officially made it more real. I really sympathise with how you might feel now, but telling them can only help them to help her in an appropriate way.

i'm quite surprised that you managed to get a dx at this stage without nursery input (or noticing and discussing development with you).

of course you should tell them. there is little point in bothering to get a dx if you are not going to access support for your child with it. i'm assuming you sought dx so that you could access support? you have plans for support in six months time? early intervention is absolutely essential. why put it off for another six months?

fwiw, the nursery can then access advice and support from the autism outreach service (or equiv in your area), specialist lea advisor, sn budgets for 1-1 support, and your therapists (presumably slt?) can visit the setting and offer advice on communication to the keyworker and senco. at the very least.

why would you not want to give the nursery the tools to best support your child?

specialist reports need to be copied to the setting so that they are aware of current interventions. the best way for your child to progress is to encourage joined up thinking between all agencies. not compartmentalise them. nursery needs to be fully aware.

later on, you will remember this post and laugh, as you will be spending the rest of your life trying to get agencies to talk to each other and requesting multi-disciplinary meetings...

Thank you very much everyone for the insightful info. I'm a newbie mom and this is precious advice.

aliceinboots to keep a long story short, I was suspecting something since DD was 22 mo, but got fobbed off twice in 5 months by the local psych teams. I need to mention I live in France and everything ASD-wise is extremely backwards here, so we decided to seek a dx in Ireland where DH is from (paid the private fees for it too...). The dx is mainly describing her symptoms without labeling her just yet as she is totally non verbal.

Her symptoms are mainly communication. She doesn't respond to her name, doesn't engage with strangers (and very little with us), very little eye contact, doesn't take turns, doesn't play with others at nursery, she is quite afraid of strangers. She has a few sensory issues too (likes to wrap up in blankets atm). She looks at parts of toys rather than playing with the whole toy, she doesn't do pretend play.
Lots of little thingies like that...
Hope it helps.

Thanks for that eskimomama. LeonieDelt, it must come down to different paeds then. Our paed (we've since changed her) felt that DD was far too young to diagnose ASD at aged 2, despite virtually a complete lack of speech, patchy understanding and being completely oblivious to peers and even largely her elder siblings.
To be fair she has improved (slowly) since then but still has limited speech and poor social interaction with her peer group.

Please do tell them, my DD started to regress while at playgroup and because she had no DX was just thought of as "naughty"

Yes tell them. When they know they will be able to access services to help with strategies to help her. They can also start the ball rolling with speech therapists and ed psych's. Most importantly if they know she has autism them they will understand her better, which will help both them and her enjoy nursery.

is she at an english speaking nursery? are you bilingual at home?

it isn't necessarily unusual for children in bilingual families to have delayed speech - this might be compounded by nursery if it is a local one...

not suggesting the dx is wrong or anything, just that it might be a compounding factor, and presumably the psych was aware of language dfifferences etc. there are a few mners with sn kids in non-english speaking countries i think. it does make it more difficult, particularly when your own language skills may not be up to the vocab needed to discuss specifics with local professionals. are you moving back to the uk in the summer? if you are staying where you are it might be more worthwhile to integrate yoursefl into local services tbh.

fwiw i have a bucketful of uk reports which were an 'in' here, but to access local provision usually means you need to be referred for re-assessing in the country you want to access services. if you are moving back to the uk then it may not be worth your while, as you already have a private uk report, and a french one wouldn't offer any additional way into provision.

have you seen a psych who specialises in bilingual kids? i would have thought there would be even more reason to delay dx, but obv her issues are quite pronounced. do nursery think that her non-communication is due to language difference rther than asd?

without wanting to sound unkind, who told you she was mildly autistic?? She is young for a dx and in my experience a younger dx normally means they are not so mild.
DD2 went to a Special autism nursery from the age of 2 qand its helped a huge amount.
I would certainly tell the nursery, they can put in some extra help for her and certainly they will likely be more understanding.

outofbodyexperience she is in a French nursery. We are a bilingual home and I am French myself and always spoke to her in French. I think she understands French better than English. We've been looking hard for psych's/speech therapists specialised in bilingualism and didn't find any (we're in the countryside, and France is so obsessed with psychiatry that they wouldn't be of much help anyway).
At the moment we are assessing whether we should stay here or whether there would be more "modern" services available in Ireland (DH is Irish). That would mean a lot of changes (house, jobs especially...) and also if we start therapies here in French that would be a big switch to English for DD (maybe confusing her more?). But we might have to if France doesn't offer what she needs.

So far I have seen an occupational therapist (although not exactly the same function as the UK), and she seemed great.
Still chasing all the time to see a good speech therapist...

Lisad123 the dx highlighted that her weaknesses are in communication/interaction (she is fine with gross/fine motor skills otherwise). The psych we saw in Ireland said she was just above the limit for ASD for er age group but because she is non verbal some points are hard to comment on. She definitely didn't want to put a label on her just yet as it might evolve when language develops (....), but we insisted she puts "autism" in her report so we could push for services in France. Otherwise they'd keep saying it's all MY fault and I'm overprotecting her therefore stopping her development (the usual stupidity).

I know for certain there is an autism private school in Ireland, very much like the one dd2 went to. Keith Duffy from boy zone did a massive amount for them as his dd has autism too.