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

As expected, she was fine once she was in! She even went into the Spanish class which is a minor miracle (didn't join in but that's very much second order in my book, great that she felt brave enough to go in the room and at least watch what is happening!)

I'm not sure if my points are interesting or just pointless wiffling @livpotter. It's something I've spent way too long reading about and watching YouTube videos about. Most autistic adults seem massively against it and some say it has damaged their mental health, so it feels a hugely risky thing to do ... but then it's also scary to just be out there with no advice or guidance from anybody so... I basically take the view that although what we are doing is called ABA it's really just parenting advice, and as long as we are always in the middle and trying to protect DD's mental health as first priority hopefully we'll be OK.

I finally managed to get him to school at 1:20pm. The teacher called again at lunchtime and said to keep trying. She said to tell him the favoured TA would come and get him. I told her that my feeling was that this change is the major issue and she said this TA would stay back to bring him in in the morning. I told ds and though he didn’t appear to be listening I think he was and shortly afterwards he said he would go in. All good.

However, the teacher had been out of the classroom this afternoon and when I asked the favourite TA about tomorrow she said she would be at the line but with another child in the class. I don’t know anything about this child, or any needs they have. I’m hoping they will catch up and we’ll have some resolution but it seems there’s another child in the mix (there’s already another little girl that has physical needs and currently only attends mornings) and that it may not be straightforward.

So I’m a bit angsty about it all and not sure what tomorrow will bring. Dh and I are hoping to meet with the teacher and SENco in the next couple of days to discuss. I think the teacher agrees that the most important thing is to get him into school. If things don’t improve then I think we’ll have to call an emergency review of the EHCP?

She didn’t want him to get over reliant on one person, and I understand that but maybe it’s just the nature of autism?

Well done @open that you managed to get him into school. That means that when he thinks back to this day it was still a school day where he went to school. If he’s anything like my ds everything else beforehand will be forgotten. I’ve had mornings where he’s been peeled off me screaming, it’s jusr horrible but by the tune pick up cane he was saying the day was great. hmmmm.

@lighttripper sounds like your therapist is very sensible - all good therapists look at where the child is at, where you want them to be and then breaks the middles stepsdown inbetween. And I think it does make sense to teach children skills if they don’t baturalky develop them. A NT child who finds maths difficult doesn’t not get taught at their level yet because they haven’t learnt it themselves, of course not, teachers will use loads of different ways to teach, visualise and practise skills that will help them. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said about what matters is what behaviours and skills you target. Sounds like you know loads about it - would you ever train as a consultant yourself?

I would definitely consider it @Jeb86 but I'd want to be really confident I was doing no harm. I am fascinated by defelopment now I'm learning more though and would love to find a way to work with other autistic kids when DD and DS are older.

Well done for getting him in @open. I kind of get the point of not being too reliant but actually I think it's probably bollocks. I think the major major thing with all our kids as different as they all are is they can't learn if they're stressed and anxious, and they struggle with change more than most. NT kids are allowed to keep the same teacher for a whole year, so why can't an autistic kid keep the same TA for a year at least, so they can be calm and use their limited spoons for learning?

Obviously sometimes change is unavoidable but they should at least explain it to you and DS and give him some transition support and consistency in the new plan. And if the TA is still there I don't understand why they would move her to a new child....

Interestingly a lot of the NT kids in DD's class are apparently struggling with the change of teacher and not wanting to in. I think the gradual transition away from nursery towards more academic activities is hard for them too. But if it's hard for NT children how much more so for our Auties?

That's great about the Spanish class light. Your points are definitely interesting haha! I also read that about autistic adults having their mental health damaged, which put me off it even more. There was quite an interesting twitter feed a while ago where autistic adults were asked what most upset them as children, the vast majority were upset about being stopped from stimming as it took away a vital coping mechanism.

Well done Open! From what you've written it sounds like they have an ulterior motive for moving the TA. I think it's a bit cruel of them to do hat to your ds in reception year when everything is so new already. I hope that it can be sorted out.

The teacher confirmed by email that his favourite TA would meet him in the morning, he said at breakfast that would be good. Minimal effort trying to get him in his shoes and coat (wanting to play) but out on time. When she came to see him he told her it was nice to see her which made my heart melt. She told me that she was having him first today. He walked in calmly and happily (with the other child holding her other hand). Obviously it’s only one day but it seems pretty clear to me. Hopefully the teacher will make the necessary changes, we will be encouraging her to do so. If we can’t get him in to school in the first place then nothing else counts.

That's brilliant open. Hope the school can keep it up. Must've been such a relief for you this morning.

So glad it went well today open! Hopefully this will make it clear to the school how important consistency is for him!

Yes, it was a huge relief. Thank you for the support

I’m looking forward to a nice weekend with him and no school stress!

Hi, just a quick one from me, will pop back on later if I get chance.

Any recommendations for a weighted blanket?

They are quite expensive so don't want to just order from anywhere, I would like to order a decent one that will last.

Sorry danni I can’t help with the weighted blanket.

Teacher has confirmed that we will go back to the preferred TA ‘for now’. I am relieved and hope that this will result in a settled period. His sleeping has improved this week and we had 5:30 wake ups today and yesterday - a veritable lie in in this house. Especially nice since we’ve been going to bed earlier.

I hope everyone has a good weekend, did anyone have snow this week?

That's good new open. I love that 5.30 is a lie in in your house! Funnily enough it's our NT dd that is the early riser here.

Danni I made ds a weighted blanket, it's not complicated but it is a bit time consuming https://www.mamasmiles.com/sewing-tutorial-how-to-make-a-weighted-sensory-blanket/ sensory blanket]
I used an old cot duvet cover and bought the pellets from amazon, think the whole thing cost about £15 but obviously depends on what filling you use.

Sorry link fail there!

liv everything is relative isn’t it! We used to hate the 5:30 wake ups, now we feel lucky if we get one

Glad that the preferred TA is back supporting your son Open. It does sound as though the change was motivated by other children's needs not your son's.

I went to my son's school yesterday for what I thought was a session about how to help teach your child to read but it was actually how to read to your child - which I think I don't think I need any help with, nevermind it was nice to meet some other parents.

My niece has been diagnosed today so hopefully my sister can use that to leverage more support at school for her. She was put on the SEN register in Reception but taken off at the end of Year 1 as she is doing much better academically. She is really struggling socially though and is desperate for a friend.

My boy is super excited about going to a classmate's party tomorrow but I am unwell and I think that he is succumbing too - I dread to think what will happen if he can't go.

dimples I hope you can get to the party tomorrow and it goes well. Good news about your nieces dx, hopefully they can access more support for her. What sort of things did they discuss at the reading session?

Light I meant to say well done to your dd going to the Spanish class. Did she talk much about it?

The reading session was quite odd - it was run by a governor (a retired teacher). She outlined the benefits of reading to your child and asked if we would like to hear how she reads to children (now, I'm going to reveal what an awful person I am - I was really tempted to say no. In my defence I rearranged work as I thought the session would be useful for me to support DS with his reading). I thought that she might read a page or 2 but she read the whole book (which was quite long, boring and old fashioned). My neighbour was sitting across the table from me and I had to avoid looking at her because I think if we had made eye contact we would have started giggling.

In better school news for the first time since he started school DS has homework that he can actually do - every single other week has been handwriting.

Good news on the homework, ours is maths this week. Adding groups of items or similar. I need to have another look.

What a waste of time for the reading session, what were the school thinking? I know there are parents that don’t read to their children and schools are always trying to find ways to change that but these parents are most likely not going to come to these sessions. Ds’s school have just started a new initiative, aiming for children to read at least 4 books a week at home so we need to log all books we read in his reading diary. There is not usually much in this outside of these events as he mostly refuses to read his phonics books. We read to him as much as we can though. I think they get marbles for class treats for every week they complete.

Exactly Open - it felt like it was pitched to the wrong audience. If you had turned up (and there were about 10 of us) you clearly value reading...

DS is currently trying to persuade me that he is well enough to go to the party but I'm not convinced..

How was the party dimples? Did you go?

I just got the termly reception newsletter it lets you know what dc are learning this coming term which I wish they wouldn't bloody send to me as ds clearly doesn't follow the same curriculum ds class are learning to count in 5's, counting writing and recognising numbers from 0-20, counting backwards from 20, doubling and halving, they are writing short stories based on a fairytale, attending class swimming lessons, are all now on reading books and writing names etc.

Ds is on a different planet to that........

He is honestly falling further and further behind every day, bless him.

I worry so much.

Open decided to risk the party and he coped very well and seemed to enjoy it. His friend from the playdate had saved a seat for him to sit next to her at the party lunch and another Mum who helps at school was saying that he is always so friendly and polite

He went downhill afterwards though and has had a very quiet afternoon.

Danni learning to count in 5s, doubling and halving and writing short stories - that all sounds more advanced than my son's school. It's hard not to worry though. Apologies I can't remember if we have discussed this before but is there any scope for your son to repeat Reception.

Were are all your dc at with learning at school if you don't mind me asking?

ds is still only on 2.5 hours a day at school (I will save that story for another day) I'm having to do something more in the afternoons with him, I've always done learning at home with him since he was small, we do something every day, but Im trying to do a bit more education based stuff in the afternoons when he should be in school

He could count to 10 and recognise numbers to 10 long before he started school, he also knew all letters & colours, shapes etc so don't need to work on those things.

I recently bought a white board with dry wipe pens and we have been practising numbers from 11-20 he now recognises all numbers up to 20 barring 13 & 15, he says threeteen and fiveteen instead haha!

Not getting anywhere at all with the reading, he knows all the letters and all the sounds the letters make, he will sound them out saying

C-A-T

M-A-T
H-A-T

he says the letters faster so he's practically saying CAT, MAT, HAT etc but he still cannot fathom how it works at all and is yet to read an actual word he's sounded out, it's so frustrating as it's quite literally on the end of his tongue! I've been practising this daily for almost 5 months now with no real progress. Ive changed tactics a couple of times how I'm teaching him and I've wrote in his reading book but his teacher just said keep practising So not sure what the answer is to that??

He can just about write 6 letters of the alphabet but each letter is about a4 sized and upside down / back to front etc I now worry he's dyslexic, Ive looked online and he does meet quite a few of the symptoms, it was the back to front letters that led me to google and dyslexia came up so I checked the symptoms.

Not sure what else I could do at home educational wise, I do vary things and try come up with new ideas, but it's often difficult to keep him engaged because he has the attention span of a flea!

What sort of things do you do at home with dc?

@dimples76 just see your post. Glad today went well, is ds any better?

I haven't spoken about repeating reception but during his ehcp meeting before Xmas they were discussing targets and his reception teacher and senco were speaking between their selfs and I heard her say that target needs to be met by September 2019 and the senco said yes that will be year 1 so I'm not sure they were thinking about that tbh.

But it would make so much sense, I've thought of it before, something I can ask.

danni is he right or left handed? I think lefties can write letters back to front at first (I’m one). My sister is a leftie and started writing from right to left. None of us are dyslexic.