Reception auties 2018/19 - thread 2

[openupmyeagereyes]

Thanks to LightTripper for the thread title. This is the continuation of the thread for parents and carers of dc with autism in their reception year at school. Please join us if you can or, if you have dc due to start reception in 2019, feel free to drop by and ask us questions.

Thread 1

Welcome Jeb. It’s great you have the insight and will be able to help your ds. Are you going to seek a diagnosis? Wonderful moment at the nativity, you will always remember that

liv I hope the change in routine doesn’t impact your ds too badly. Fingers crossed. Try not to dwell too much on this issue on the last day. He must be very tired by now and in need of a break. It will all be forgotten in the NY.

danni I’m loving ‘Simon Calpol*, that is hilarious. I’m sure there’s a logical reason for it, at least to him!

Light I hope you have a lovely, relaxing break over Christmas.

dimples I hope the gymnastics show goes well. I’m sure you’ll make the right decision. I have faith.

Phew, that was mega but great to see the thread so busy.

We had a brilliant day yesterday with ds. He was so chatty and played really well with dh for ages. It seemed much more like how a NT child would play with small world toys, taking them to different places, the desert, the moon and he was directing really well ‘daddy, make the helicopter fly by walking around’. I mean, I’m sure some of it was scripted but it seemed very natural and he’s never played quite at that level before. He wasn’t very accepting of dh’s ideas though. SALT then came round and they had a good time playing together. He was a bit resistant to some of her suggestions while they played but then did concede some, he’s getting there.

Tomorrow I’ll try and post some of the ideas we were given for gross and fine motor skills.

@Jeb86 thanks for the recommendation for blank language levels, I'm laid in bed having a quick google & already can see it will be very useful. Thank you!

@danni0509 I’m glad they’re looking useful to you. If you have any questions please just ask. I know the pressures NHS salt services are under and that access to support is really poor at times, and then of course as in all walks of life you sometimes get people who just aren’t great at their job. I would have thought the salts decision to offer clinic appointments will be because that’s what their service is commissioned to do, regardless of what makes most sense. I’ve just found out this week that my area doesn’t offer salt support at all to any children with autism over the age of 5 unless they’re in a SEN school, Which is just crazy. Apparently even if they have a speech sound difficulty which is entirely unrelated to their ASD! Just crazy. Looks like I might be my son’s salt as well as mum, which I really wanted to avoid.

Can’t rejrmber who asked, but yes we are mid-process if diagnosis. We’ve had our first session and have our next at the end of January. I think they said it’d all come through by the end of nursery year.

@Jeb86 What are speech sound problems, school said my ds had an issue with this on the referral form but salt said this wasn't a problem for my ds after assessment.

He can say words clearly I've always thought he spoke really clearly, I've got friends who's children can have full conversations since being young but I struggle to understand what they are actually saying, but with ds he can't have the conversation but his speech is crystal clear,

The only thing I thought was his ffff's are more like sssslll's so flag sounds like slag  and floor is sloor and it seems to be the F and L together that produces the sl sound. Just the f alone he says as f

Hope that makes sense lol! X

@danni0509 schools can often get confused with the difference between speech and language, and also what is age appropriate. Children with autism will often having a language delay (following a typical oath but slower) or disorder (following an atypical path) that is linked to their asd - in the early years it might look like pronoun confusion, chunked phrases, difficulties understanding language, a mismatch in what they can say and what they can understand etc. In older children with asd it tends to come across in “unusual language” such as using high level vocabulary which sits at odds with their age/abilities, word order confusion or repeated phrases.

Speech sound disorders and delays refer to what the speech sounds like, the thing you have highlighted is called “cluster reduction” and refers to when children reduce a cluster of consonants - br bl cr sl fl fr str etc. This is age appropriate until age 5;11 and an Salt wouldn’t consider working on it until then, and then only if it is not showing signs of improving. It’s great he’s got an “f” in f initial words as it shows he can make the sound and should just come along.

Thanks for your faith in me Open. I decided the gymnastic display was too much and I'm so glad - we should have been leaving the house now but instead DS is sleeping on the sofa. So glad that you had a great day, yesterday.

Jeb I can tell that your expertise is going to be very valued here.

Our Christmas miracle this morning was that my boy wrote is name and apart from 'e' it was all v legible.

The SALT situation is so frustrating. Bizarrely I have the opposite sort of problem. Before starting school DS had been assessed on 3 separate occasions by SALTs and it was felt that after a slow start his speech is coming on nicely. The Ed Psych said that speech was a relative strength. So there is nothing in EHCP re speech. However, since starting school he has has weekly 1:1 sessions with SALT - I've asked what it is that they're working on but no response as yet. I am fighting for OT input which is in the plan..

Are all your dc five years already?

My ds is 5 next month.

Well done @dimples76 ds! My ds does a t the first letter of his name back to front, he can draw few random letters, c, l, r, o, m, n I think that's it but never in a straight line so one letter will be at the top of page next letter will be at the bottom corner, not sure how that's going to work when he does write his name lol!

I'll see if I can upload a pic of some spiders he's drawn the other day

I asked ds to sit at the table and practise some letters while I was beside him putting the tea on and I looked and said wow what have you drawn and he said 3 spiders. First time his ever drawn anything that looks like anything iyswim!

He was unable to hold a pen properly 3 months ago.

Think they must of been drawing spiders at school. They try to get him drawing & practising letters every day.

dimples glad your ds got some extra rest. Amazing that he’s starting to write his name!

danni excellent spider drawings and great that he’s writing so many letters now too. It gives me hope because ds is still not interested and not holding a pencil properly. He’s 5 in January. He also wouldn’t sit down and practice if I asked him to like your ds did

Fab spider drawing

My son is 5 - I delayed his school start to Compulsory School Age (he has a June birthday) so that makes him the eldest in his class, not that you would ever guess it. He is being monitored for growth hormone deficiency and out of 60 children in Reception he is the 3rd smallest - the two smallest are over a year younger.

My boy has been so delayed in all motor skills - he was over 2 before he could walk so seeing him being able to control a pencil was a magical moment for me.

Great news on the name writing dimples and love the spiders danni. Ds was 4 in June so one of the youngest.

Dh is flying over the English channel as we speak so he should be home just after lunch tomorrow. Really looking forward to him putting ds to bed tomorrow night.

@openupmyeagereyes I had to bribe him with Jaffa cakes to sit! Haha he doesn't do anything unless for chocolate then he'll do anything I ask (well almost) !! I have bred my very own willy wonka really need to stop the chocolate his only ate a satsuma today refused everything else, then picked some presents up from my dads and he ate half a tin of his quality streets, great parenting from me today! 1 satsuma and a tin of quality streets to eat all day.

@dimples76 little boy in my ds class has was 5 in June his mum kept him back a year he has asd but I think more high functioning from what I can see. Well it probably doesn't feel like high functioning to his mum but if I compare him to my ds he seems much more higher functioning than him. You must be so pleased with your ds he sounds like he's making great progress.

@elliejjtiny that's nice that he's home for Xmas!

My dh has worked I can't even count the hours this week. He finishes Xmas eve tea time for 3 days so that will be nice for me so he can take over a bit cos I feel like single parent the hours he works. He'll probably sleep most of it though being burnt out from all the overtime x

Thank you Open you are quite right. I think it's been such a long term and everyone is just exhausted! So glad you had such a good day with ds. His playing sounded lovely DH must've been chuffed.

Jeb it is hard when you have to do a lot of things yourself. We had a brilliant NHS salt but even with a pretty good amount of support from the NHS and a bit of private help I still seem to do most of the work as I spend most of my time with ds. All you experience will be incredibly useful for your ds.

Dimples that is fantastic about your ds writing his name! It also sounds like you made the right decision about the gymnastics display.

Danni my ds was 5 in September so one of the oldest In the class. Fantastic spiders and great about your ds's writing. Mine can do any letter's yet but is pretty obsessed with drawing dinosaurs.
Quality street and a satsuma sounds quite like what my ds ate yesterday haha!

Ellie lovey DH is home for Christmas.

We are off to the in laws today for about 5 days, which will be lovely. I can't quite believe it's Christmas Eve!

Hope everyone has a lovely and not too stressful Christmas.

Oh and Thank you for the ear defender recommendation open. I got some on amazon and ds loves them so much he took them to bed with him last night haha.

liv glad ds loves his ear defenders, so cute he took them to bed. Have a great trip.

danni enjoy ds’s time off together.

ellie great your dh is home too.

Things are good here. Ds is very excited and wants to open presents now, we keep telling him not until Christmas Day (we have lots already from friends and family). We went to my mum’s this morning, going to try and get him out for a while this afternoon.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Sorry danni, dh not ds.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Rather regretting now that I have fulfilled my boy's Christmas wishlist of 'bells, whistles and chocolate'. What could possibly go wrong?!

Merry Christmas!

Ds doesn't understand the concept of Christmas his understanding is still too delayed.

But I tell you what he's opened every single present himself this year. Last year he didn't have the strength in his hands to rip the paper nor the attention span to sit at the tree for any longer than 5 seconds!

He's sat by the tree for an hour this year opening presents himself without getting up and running off it's a miracle!

He was trying to open any present he touched and everyone's presents was down there in the heap, so I said look for 'your name' on the tag & if he picked one up that didn't look like his name he put it back down and looked for one with his name.

Bless him he's come so far since last Xmas day and his genuinely over the moon with his aeroplanes and bits and bobs, my living room looks like Heathrow and I've got a happy flappy squealy ds

Hope you all have a fab day. X