Hello all,
I would really appreciate some help.
My little boy is 3 and we recently had a private diagnosis of asd. We went down the private route as we are in the early stages of the NHS process and our little boy is summer born (end of August), so is due to go to school next September. We are not going to have a statement before he starts school and we are due to apply for schools by January, so as I understand it he will not have any real support in place. We are therefore incredibly anxious about the whole process. To compound matters, our second little boy was stillborn in July, so we are finding life completely overwhelming at the moment. We want to do the best we can for our little boy and to get whatever help we need in place. We are just a bit lost as to what to do next.
My son is currently at the preschool to our local ms school. We have already made clear that our preference is to defer his start to school. He is so young anyway in his year. He has a lot of vocabulary and can speak in sentences but it is generally to get his needs met or to comment on things (i.e. "let's go to the park", "shall we read a book", "there's a man walking") but there is no back and forth, he struggles to answer questions, and is it largely echolalic. He is unable to tell us anything at all about nursery, what he does, who he played with, if he enjoyed it etc. His speech has come on tremendously in the last few weeks, but the lack of back and forth does means that he is not able properly to interact with his peers at nursery although he is a very sociable little chap and he desperately wants to.
The school are not particularly amenable to him deferring his start. We keep being told apocryphal stories about a child they knew of who was not talking much at 4 and then made massive progress. Not helpful. They have also made clear that they will not entertain him repeating nursery, which we think would be the ideal scenario to give him a little more time and to add to the massive progress he has made just by going to nursery. We are so proud of him for actually making it there each day. He has big issues with rigidity and transitions (particularly where we go and how we get there). We were unable to attend a private nursery earlier this year as we had issues each time we tried to get there (we had to pass a station and a meltdown ensued every time we tried to go past). So he's done brilliantly going to nursery every day (although some days have been a bit of a struggle) and he really seems to enjoy it.
We feel that the best thing for our son is to delay his start to school. Given the approach the school are taking, this will mean that he will leave nursery next year and having a year out before starting the following year. We really wish he could stay on as he's doing so well in many way, but that's not to be. My questions relate to what we do next year. We are working hard with him at home trying to implement some of the suggestions from Hanen's More Than Words and we're also using the techniques from the dvds we have purchased from the teach me to talk website. We have really seen a difference from both of these, but we can only do so much. Our son has started to play less and less recently and getting him to play has been a real struggle. He is constantly rhythmically banging things (chairs, cups, toys). It's something he has always done but it has escalated, and left to his own devices he would do it all day.
We would like to put in place an ABA programme during his year at home. We just don't really know where to start. We have been reading through some of the information on here and elsewhere about ABA programmes but it is quite overwhelming, particularly the idea of seeking out tutors, supervisors etc. We are based in West London and we wondered if anyone could recommend some ABA therapists or a programme. We really just want to try and put together a plan so that his year out is spent making as much progress as possible. It just feels like a daunting prospect and we're scared of getting things wrong.
Sorry for the length of this and thanks very much in advance for your help.