Any success for your child in mainstream ???

[mamadadawahwah]

My boy is 3 and is enrolled in a mainstream nusery this fall. He has never been to nursery or a play group as such much. I took him to a week long day program this week and i was horrified at what i saw in terms of what i can expect from a mainstream. Snotty aides telling ME that i had to leave the room despite my asd child crying his lamps out for 15 minutes, telling me they didnt know my son was in an ABA program and couldnt do the simple tasks i asked them like NOT say the word no, but redirect him to a new activity or show him HOW to do something he is not doing right, rather than saying NO.

The children were taken outside to play and it was obvious my son didnt know how to interact so he stayed in the corner by himself with them enticing him unsuccessfully with items which are off his strict gf/cf menu, despite the fact i told them not to (i was watching from my car)

Yep, the original pain in the ass parent here, and rightly so. I am really reconsidering how my child is going to learn in a mainstream school if he gets teachers aides like these women who havent got a clue how to teach an asd child.

The local special school caters to all sorts of "disbilities" and is not asd specific so it is not any better and they dont use ABA.

I know everyone has been in this predicament with an asd child, deciding what kind of school to send the child to. This, my first experience of this kind of environment, does not bode well for the future and I just want some reassurance from other parents who had successes in their child's placement.

I can change which school my child goes to, the special school, but he wont be given the classroom assistant then, mind you from what i saw today, i cant imagine thats going to make much of a difference.

Please help

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I agree - this place sounds awful! DS2 has been at m/s nursery two afternoons a week for a year and they couldn't have been more supportive. OK, so they're not trained in methods of working with children with ASD, but they have taken on board everything that Early Years, OT and SLT have said to them and are absolutely brilliant at communicating with me. His 1:1 has just been on an ASD training course and is visiting us twice in the holidays (unpaid) for PECS training.
How much choice do you have?

There is funding for my boy for a 1:1 as long as he goes to mainstream. If he goes to special school he wont get the 1:1, but rather the school will provide "all the help he needs" because allegedly that is what they do anyway.

where i had my boy this week is not the school he is going to, but it is attached to the school and their ethos seems to be the same. I am absolutely dreading meeting the new classroom asst. I have no idea what she is going to be like. My first question to her though will be "what does ASD stand for?" if she can't answer that one, we are leaving!

I was worried about the 1:1 stuff, and was one reason why we chose mainstream over the local autism unit (there were others- like the local autism unit was dreadful at the time ). It didn't work out at all because the LSA's (full time 1:1 in statement) weren't trained and kept leaving.

We then switched to special school (SLD/PMLD). The usual class ratio is about 3 children to 1 child. HOWEVER each child has their own timetable and so whilst ds1 may have a ratio of 1 adult to 3 children for say sand and spash, hydro or breakfast club, for any "teaching" he needs 1:1 and gets 1:1. It's not an ABA school but to teach him anything they use behavioural techniques (as its the only thing that works ) Once something is established then they use "i am working for" for practice but again with 1:1.

Our other local SLD school did not work like this (classroom teaching without 1:1 sessions) and that would not have worked for ds1.

So always worth viewing the schools and checking how they work.