Auties transition to Year 1 - thread 3

[LightTripper]

This is the continuation of the thread for parents and carers of autistic children in reception year at school, going into Year 1 in the autumn. All welcome (also parents with older or younger children who want to ask questions or share their wisdom!)

Welcome!

Thanks Jeb, that’s encouraging. He said he had a lot of strategies he wanted to try.

I must admit that I was dismayed when I heard that their teacher was going to be a newly qualified one. Then I thought about it and decided that most likely good teachers start out good and get better with experience. Bad teachers are probably bad from the start and don’t improve much, we’ve all had at least one of those I expect. Anyway, it may not be true but I’m keeping an open mind for now!

Another pretty good day for ds though I haven’t really tested him yet as we only went to my mum’s and the shop near theirs. Still, he seems fairly chilled. He just needs to sleep longer, he’s exhausted. I’m pretty tired too as though dh and I try and take turns getting up with him he really only wants me down with him at the moment.

Much cooler here today. I’m hoping for a better nights sleep.

Many schools use this for children with SN from yr1 if they are working below the national curriculum level.

From what I've read over the last few months they either continue to use the EYFS or the p scales. Depending on the school.

P scale link added.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/617033/Performancee-PPScale--attainmenttargetssforpupilsswithspecialleducationalneedssJune2017.pdf

I think newly qualified teachers may have more awareness of autism compared to older ones, they probably learn more about it on their course. Plus they’re super keen and not beaten down (yet!) so I reckon it’s not all bad to get a NQP! Experienced TAs are what you need, as they’re the ones who make all the difference to our kids. My DS doesn’t have a TA, but the class one last year spent a lot of time with him, I wish she was going up with the class!

Jeb I said to dh that that hopefully that would be the case as it makes sense. I do hope so.

danni thanks for posting that, it’s interesting.

Well I did not get a better night. Ds has been awake since 1:50am. Just had a , I’m going to need many more.

He sounds like he could be a good teacher open. Sorry you had such a bad night. Would you be able to have a nap at some point today?

That's really interesting jeb. I agree about the the TA's. I hardly met ds's one this year but the one for next year is amazing. She already has loads of idea for how to help ds. She'll also be looking after ds one day a week as his 1:1 only does 4 days a week and we're not going to do flexi schooling next year.

Light that sounds like a lovely project for your dd.

Thanks for the link danni.

liv I didn’t get a nap but he slept well last night and woke at 5:40. It was so nice. I took him out in the car yesterday to elicit a nap and after much shenanigans he managed a mere 45 minutes .

He was pretty highly strung most of the day. We had a friend and her (also asd) son visit and ds was pretty horrible at one point and wouldn’t share a particular toy. Strangely, later in the afternoon when I would have expected him to be worse, he was in a pretty good mood. I even managed to get him to do about 8 mazes with a pencil as his writing practice with zero encouragement needed.

We are back on watching YT videos of Blipi and Leo’s Lekeland which he is desperate to go to (they do look fab though scarily big). It’s nice after the Toy Story 4 Benson took us into Goosebumps/Slappy territory which was a pain to try and police. He refuses to use the kids version of YT where you can use parental control.

He seems to have made progress again with his cognition and understanding. He’s asking some questions of the sort he’s not before - mummy, what colour are your eyes? We’ve all got x colour eyes. What’s a shin (when heard in a story). That sort of thing. And his playing seems to be more imaginative too. Much of it is probably cribbed from YT but he’s adapting it and using it in different ways. All brilliant stuff to see.

I hope everyone has a good Sunday.

That all sounds really positive light. Glad you had a better nights sleep.

We had to ban you tube, I found it made ds to obsessive and light you I struggled to control the content he was watching.

We've had a fairly quiet weekend so far, it's very wet here so we've been housebound which is actually quite nice after so many days out and about.

Ds has become re-obsessed with those magnetic building blocks and has been making some really creative things, which is nice. The only problem is they are now scattered all over the house and garden so we've had to get some more.

Well that sounds like a very positive obsession.

How did you manage to ban YouTube
I can’t imagine the fall out if I tried to do that.

we’ve also had mostly dry mornings for the last 1-2 weeks. First time since he started school. I don’t want to jinx it...

I just removed it off the Tv and ipad. He was pretty upset at first, he occasionally still asks for it. I've found that quite a lot of things he liked to watch are on amazon prime and you can set very strict parental controls on it.

That's great open, fingers crossed for you! We have had so much weeing on the floor in ds's room. I can't wait till we get the new floor laid, I'm so sick of having a smelly carpet.

I bet you are liv. It seems a common thing. I guess it’s partly sensory and partly about getting a reaction? Admittedly an uneducated guess.

Ds is in such a good mood today. What a difference 4 hours extra sleep can make!

Hello all. Hope the summer hols are going well for everyone. I've had a week of calm restful days with DD, focusing on avoiding anything new or mentally challenging and she's so relaxed. Her speech is a little better too, much less stammering. Had a few days after break up from school of wild anger days but now it's just sporadic and I can tell her stories till she's calm. She ran off the other day at the park and had a toddler running away after her. Took ages to get her back, she was completely oblivious, and the parents of the other toddler gave a fairly ferocious look to me for my 'wayward' child. Sigh.

I've been doing a bit of handwriting practise with ds this morning, so we tried to write a shopping list and he didn't want to do that, so we decided to write all of the colour classes from his school. But I was trying to get him to write it himself without me spelling it out for iyswim.

So I said ds write blue class.

This is what he wrote.

'blooww class'

So cute.

danni that’s fantastic! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Furry great your dd has relaxed a bit. I think we’ve probably all had those sorts of looks in the park at some point. Her child will probably do something similar Soon enough though!

Open not sure why he does it. I think probably sensory/being half asleep. We don't react at all just clean it up and remind him to use the toilet next time.

That's great danni!

We have definitely all been there furry!

That is great Danni!

I've just ordered DD some note books from Amazon that have the half lines ruled and a space for a picture at the top. At the moment she is working through all our Post-it notes and notepads in the house. After I Marie Kondod when we moved here we had a massive stack and I honestly thought we would never get through them in our lives, but I think DD is going to manage it :D

It's weird with the notebooks as if you search the ones that come up are all nearly a fiver, but you can find apparently the same thing with different covers for less than £2.50 .... weird - I guess they're just trying to get people who don't have time to hunt to pay more!

Glad your DD is unwinding Furry. DD actually was very highly strung this weekend. Nothing disasterous but just very controlling, which I usually think is an anxiety thing, so not sure exactly what was going on. We thought maybe she was coming down with something but no sign so far. Maybe just more steps of the holiday adjustment.... We actually had a tricky time in the park too (DD picked up some sticks and was adamant she wanted to build a house, but only had 4, which obviously wasn't really enough, and then left them on the floor and some other kids tried to pick them up. I always find it hard to know how much to intervene because I guess she was being annoying in an autistic way but they were being annoying in Neurotypical ways so I don't really see why because they are the majority they should get their way... anyway, we navigated through it just (with me as circus master trying to get them all to play together). It's all fine I guess, but I sometimes think our kids don't actually behave any worse than NT kids - but they do it in a way that is just "kids being kids" and gets written off, whereas ours are a bit more unique in their ways of acting out!

We still haven't done any work at home, but DD did do a reading book with me at the weekend (alternating pages), and I've pulled out the various workbooks we've got in case we all have the energy at some point in the next few weeks!

Light I ordered a couple of those books for £2.47 each. Ds is not quite ready for them but hopefully soon.

I’ve actually bought so many different workbooks over the last few months. Several are a bit beyond him right now but hopefully we’ll get through them in time. So far today he’s done some logic puzzles and a cutting exercise. He’s quite enjoying these at the moment which is nice. I need to do some phonics later, that usually needs a bit of persuading but he only needs 1 more sticker on his chart to get a blind bag so that should do it.

We had a trip out to some shops this morning that went pretty well. I was going to end at a cafe but decided not to push my luck and came home. I’m trying to work out how good/difficult he is currently. He seems to be settling down and had another good sleep until 5:45 today () I’m wary though because of past experience so am taking it softly softly at the moment.

Well done for navigating the tricky situation at the park. One of the problems we have at the moment is where he might fixate on another child that he wants to play with and if that child doesn’t want to play he will keep following and pestering them. He will not listen or be distracted so it can be really difficult, especially if you’re alone with him. This too shall pass though I’m sure, it just means I’m a bit wary of where we go at the moment.

Hi. Hope everyone is ok? How's the holidays?

This first week has flown by.

We went to the park today with my mum, we walked instead of going in the car to drag the day out a bit and got caught in all the thunder and torrential rain, ds loved it! He was squealing with delight, funny child. I had to peel our clothes off when we got home and wrap us in towels we were absolutely soaked. He loves it when it rains heavy like that.

Not going overboard on the homework front, just a reading book or 2 a day if ds will & a few minutes handwriting practise here and there.

I'm trying to work on him dressing and undressing himself and putting his coat on by himself over the holidays mainly.

Bit quiet on here, I hope your all having fun. X

We are going pine cone collecting tomorrow, I told ds we will fill his bucket up, there are loads around here, it's supposedly chucking it down all day too so ds will be happy.... we are going to paint them afterwards, should keep him busy for a while.

I'm trying to find as many free things to do with him as possible, otherwise you need a bank loan to get your way through the summer holidays.

That sounds nice danni, sadly not something my ds would be interested in. He occasionally collects the odd bit (and then gives it to me to put in my pocket) but he wouldn’t fill a bucket. Have you got your tuff table now? Sounds ideal for that.

Ds is still dry in the mornings. Strangely he’s started to not even go until about an hour after he wakes up (he won’t be forced!).

Ds has definitely got into the swing of the holidays, it’s difficult trying to get him ready in the mornings. He was also very cross initially that we weren’t going on holiday straight away. Next year we may have to go away earlier rather than later.

@LightTripper I loved reading your description of being a circus master - I could totally relate to that! When I go to the park with my friends with their NT kids they seem so relaxed whereas for me it’s a real “job” to monitor ds, predict the potential triggers, work out the balance of when to intervene and when to let him figure it out himself etc. The number of times I’ve had to put my enthusiastic yet stern teacher-ish hat on to get him through a particular fixation. The worst are the ones that have sand works, he’s very rigid in how something should be done but not massively articulate or patient with any different ideas!

Sounds like you're having a good time danni. Hope the pine cone search goes well today.

We're not going anywhere till the end of August open. I think ds has needed the relaxation time though.

Jeb your last sentence made me smile. Same here!

We're all ok here. Ds seems pretty relaxed. He really seems to like the part-time nanny we have for a few weeks which is a relief.

The main problem we're having is that ds is not going to sleep until nearly midnight every night and dd is getting up at around 6am. I know I'm still probably getting more sleep that you open, I'm not sure how you do it!!
I think I'm going to get some melatonin to trial. We saw a psychiatrist as part of ds's assessment who said she could prescribe it if needed.

The carpets are being replaced next week! Hopefully it won't be too disruptive for ds.

liv usually I get about 7 hours - 10-5ish. That’s manageable I think, though we do have to go to bed early. Less, obviously, if he’s having a tricky period. Midnight is bonkers. Definitely get the psychiatrist or paed to prescribe some melatonin.

It’s good ds likes the nanny. It’s so tricky when you can’t just put them in a regular holiday club but you have to work.

We’re not away until towards the end of the month either. Dh has a week off at home before that which will be nice.

Jeb I agree, a trip to the park is not relaxing at all. I have to keep a close eye on ds, I can’t just sit and relax while he plays.

I keep getting emails to say that someone has posted, but the link doesn’t seem to work - strange! I’m not very computer literate!

Took the boys rock pooling today - one of those things I’ve shied away from as I could just foresee the trauma. But, they both loved it! Ds1 was initially very skeptical and didn’t want to do it but once I had (finally) caught a crab he “got” it and then loved it. It was really nice to just “do” something that was pretty normal without too much extra management or support.

How’s everyone else’s summer panning out?