Special Assistants for SN kids, what are they like?

[mamadadawahwah]

I am pushing to have a special assistant paid for by my LEA for my child who is ASD.

I would like to hear some thoughts on how beneficial these people are, or if they arent, as well.

Ideally, i would like to hire my own person, trained in ABA and put them in with my child, but can't afford it as yet.

Do those of you whose children have a special aide get a chance to meet with the aide and discuss teaching strategies and talk about things much? What are some problems you have encountered.

thanks

my dd1 has one at the mainstream kindergarten that she attends. It is a 'private' kindy and the parent committee funds her position. She attends until lunch time - after which it is basically rest and home time.

The only negative is that she does not really know makaton - which my dd1 used - However she has been teaching herself and they now have access to a seminar and other resources for that.

I am able to discuss with her in the morning how dd1 is going and what sorts of things have been happening. She or the teacher also writes in dd1's book for me to see what else has been happening.

Whilst we don't necessarily discuss teaching strategies -w e do discuss strategies and such that are used at home and are successful. However aide is also very good at thinking outside the square as well and coming up with other ideas.

my boys both have LSAs and they are fab! the school hired them, we didnt get any say in terms of shortlisting, but we met with the head beforehand and had a very long chat about the boys and discussed fully our approaches and heard their plans. she then took that on board when hiring. then we met the LSAs and had a long chat about the boys and their needs and how to handle them - it was all really good! the LSAs work under the class teacher, basically, just helping the child as required to participate in the class.

with ds1 that means sitting back and prompting where required, and defusing potential explosions, you know the sort of thing! with ds2, it is more hand over hand stuff, and being physically very close cos he needs that.

we have no problems at their current school. where we used to live was not so good. they seemed bril at first, but we came to realise they were just telling us what they thought would shut us up, but the reality was they were segregating my kids and just sticking someone in to 'babysit' them! instead of working to teach them! they even used to leave the school secretary reading to them FFS!!!!!! we found this all out from the last LSA hired for ds1, who was so disgusted she told us everything!

so the major thing is to ensure that your school is totally behind you and supports you and wants to do the best for your child, because everything else - training, methods etc, can all be worked out as long as the head and the class teacher are truly in support of your child!

We have a home-school notebook where we write things and the LSA does the same, so if we don't have time to catch up in the morning or at leaving time at least we have this means of communication. She writes there of any problems or anything in particular they are working on and so on.

my daughter is in YR at school and has a full-time TA. Her TA is just wonderful. :) We communicate mainly through a diary which she writes in every day without fail. She leaves 30 minutes before the end of school to pick up her own children and someone else takes over from her then, so I don't see her often - maybe once a week she stays longer.

Ours was hired by the school but already well-known to them beforehand, she's done midday supervisory stuff and a bit classroom support before. I do like our school very much so trusted them do get someone good.

She's a really lovely person and adores dd1, and has found a very good balance of helping her when needed but stepping back when not.

Teaching strategies fall more into the remit of the class teacher in our case, and we all meet for a discussion at the IEP meetings, and meet just the teacher at parents' evenings. Our TA has done a few courses though (paid for and organised by the school) so she does know what she's doing.

My ds also has a LSA employed by his school. Ds is in year 1 now. She's got bags of enthusiasm and sometimes even offers me ideas and strategies that I could try at home. She sits with him during class to encourage him to stay focused, and to prevent him from just getting up and walking off bothering other children. Only complaint I can think of is that she's not prepared to write a school diary, which is a disappointment as I'm sure we'd all benefit if we were all aware of any incidents that might have upset him during the course of the day. She doesn't have any training with autistic children other than visiting a SN's school to see what strategies they use, but she's clued up and knows what works best for ds.

Ds1 had an LSA in Reception and she was fantastic with him. She seemed to know instinctively when to step in and when to stand back and let ds1 try something for himself. I didn't see her very much face-to-face as she mainly worked with him in the mornings but we comunicated mainly via ds1's teacher.

Ds1 didn't need an LSA this year so she now works with other children at the school. She still goes over to ds1's class now and then to say hello and see how he's doing.

My DD has a LSA in her mainstream nursery school (starting reception in September).

I had no say in who she was going to be, but she is lovely, caring, thoughtful. She doesn't "take over" my daughter but just helps her in any tasks she finds difficult.

We have a "home school" book - now on our second diary. One issue I did have is that it seemed I could predict what the LSA was going to write on any particular day of the week. I had comments like "S had a good day", "S had a fairly good day", "S had a fair day", etc. etc.

I wrote in the book (which I got told off by the headteacher as it upset the LSA) that I felt this was not giving me enough information about my DD's morning - what is a "fair day"? and what constitutes a "good day". Does it mean she was co-operative, unco-operative, aggressive, friendly, etc. etc. I felt the words that were used were not descriptive enough.

I was not being nasty but just wanted to put my point across and sometimes if you talk about the issue rather than have it in writing it can be overlooked.

Now I get a more descriptive account of my DD's day. She tells me what activities my DD participated in, what activities she had difficulty in, what ones she enjoyed, etc.

I know a nursery setting is a totally different environment to a proper schooling environment and I think my DD's "problems" may escalate in a more learning structured environment.