Help with specialist pre-school teacher thing...

[CouthyMow]

DS3 is 2y4mo.

Was meant to be having ADOS this month, but has been delayed due to waiting lists.

He has been through pre-school panel via a Section 332 from the comm Paed, and has been allocated a specialist pre-school teacher (very unusual in North Essex!).

He has speech delay (only started putting together 2 words this week, very limited vocabulary, uses a combination of single words, a few two word sentences (terrible pronunciation, misses the middle or end of words), Makaton, and gestures.

He sees SALT every 3 months for observation, but all I have been given is sheets of Makaton signs (which are difficult to follow), told to read him lift-the-flap books, sing songs to him, and give him the ubiquitous carrot sticks to chew on...

He was dxd as hyperactive 'with a high chance of ADHD' at just 21mo. VERY limited attention span.

He has Hypermobility syndrome and uses orthotic shoe inserts, and may well have Piedro's by next month.

He also has multiple life-threatening allergies.

Right, background set.

The specialist preschool teacher is coming out on 14th June. She says everything is very 'parent-led', and they want to decide a program of work with me, and what I want to work on and how.

Argh. Would it be outside of the box to suggest an ABA program? It was hinted at by her on the phone.

How would I approach that? What should I be asking for? What would help him?

HELP!

How did she suggest it?? I only met specialist teacher last week for the first time and she was a waste of space - going on about visuals altoigh I told her several times ds understands and listens very well.

So I would be very surprised if another one would be suggesting ABA! Cross my fingers though, maybe there is a miracle happening.

I have a feeling our one's purpose is to convince me to go for mainstream school.

Is this like a portage worker? Will the support be at your home or at a nursery? My DS went to a special pre school from 3 (which was great BTW) but at 2y 4mths I was still in denial, so had no portage.

Are you sure they are asking you how how you want to work on something.

In my experience, they want you to give them some issues for THEM to then tell you how to address them iyswim, using their limited generic training on visuals and if you are lucky, Hanen.

actually could it be Hannen?

How was the 'hint' worded? Hannen can sound a lot like ABA when explained. In fact it is more AB, with the final A missing.

Behaviouralist interventions (ABC charts, shaping, systematic reinforcement, habituation, backwards chaining etc) are almost universally acknowledged as effective for dealing with severe challenging behaviours and important self-help / permitting-care actions.

So for a hyperactive dc who may die if he disobeys and touches (or eats) the wrong thing, it would be hard to refuse parent training.

Hanen is extremely popular for language delays.

and as star says, Hanen is sort of ABA-lite. If you could build a strong professional consensus for behaviouralist approaches plus Hanen, it would be groundwork for ABA.

I wonder if this lady is an ex-Treetops person. I heard they were expanding their influence a bit further afield....

She asked me to suggest the ways I thought DS3 would best respond to, and we can talk about what I feel the best 'evidence based' (said in a nudge, nudge, wink wink voice...) methods to help him might be.

She said it is all very parent-led in the way that they work with the DC's, maybe intensive daily programs, or twice weekly.

It's the equivalent of portage, and it will be in the home as currently we do not have a Nursery placement.

www.askthurrock.org.uk/kb5/thurrock/fis/view.page?record=EY9YYggSbbY ??

I'm nowhere near Thurrock - and they have their own, separate LA, despite being in Essex.

I'm as near to Suffolk as you can get whilst still being in a large town in Essex...

Thurrock is more South Essex.

I still don't understand why Thurrock has it's own LA, rather than coming under Essex, but it does.

So no, it's not coming from Thurrock portage service though I wish it was, I've heard really good things about it...

It's coming from a specialist preschool teacher from the Statutory Assessment team - what used to be called SenCan here.

Based in my North Essex town.

DDT you say half the team was on mat leave / long term sick etc? Maybe they've imported a Thurrock-er type as cover? Or maybe the Thurrock model has gone viral

No, I'm sure this last used to work on the team doing something different a few years back when DS2 was younger, I recognise her name.

It's the actual assessor a that are half off on Mat leave, not the teachers.

I have a vague recollection that she may have been an EP that saw DS2 at preschool?!

Maybe she got fed up of being an EP and went back to working with the DC's?

Or maybe I'm wrong, and she is beamed in from Thurrock?!

Maybe she feels bad that the team failed ds2 (maybe he was her inspiration fir subsequently getting trained up in Thurrock )

Pod the wall question, but are you saying that a Montessouri approach would benefit DS3?

I ask because just in time for him starting FT school in September 2015, I will get a brand new catchment MS primary.

Which is going to be a Montessouri Primary.

I know NOTHING about Montessouri, apart from vague notions that they don't really follow a timetable or have much structure.

So I was very sceptical about using a Montessouri Primary - especially as I had only really heard of it for preschool age before.

It's going to be run by someone who has a successful Montessouri Primary or two in Manchester, and possibly other places too.

Would this be a GOOD thing?

If so, how lucky would it be that it would be opening practically on my doorstep?

Pod = off, no idea where autocorrect got that one from!

TEACHH is basically nicked from montessori. As is the concept of social skills as something you can break down and actively transmit, and the very idea of multisensory learning (in a good way, not the just-bung-him-a-bit-of-laminated-cardboard way).

That said, unregulated bad montessori is as bad as anything else.

Lots to think about!