Has anyone with a young ASD child not done Early Bird?

[UhKevin]

DS was diagnosed in autumn at 3.9. We’ve had details of how we can apply to go on the Early Bird course locally but unfortunately it’s inaccessible to us. It’s ten weekday mornings once a week - DH works FT and cannot get that sort of time off, and for me to go alone would require additional nursery sessions for two DC at a total cost of around £600. I do understand the pressures the system is under / running it in daytimes; I’m disappointed by the situation but definitely not knocking anyone for it.

I’m starting to read various books and we’re going to a couple of topic-specific shorter workshops. We don’t feel in a place personally for peer support groups right now. Can someone please just reassure me that we’ll be fine without this course?

I never did early bird as I couldn't fit it in at the time. I read loads of books and went on various free courses our Local charity run about behaviour management, Makaton etc but they were usually only 1 morning sessions.

Once ds was in school I did a course called strengthening families. So you haven't lost your chance to learn.

Someone on here also suggested that the open university course on understanding autism, it's free. I've not done it but it looks interesting. www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/understanding-autism/content-section-overview?active-tab=description-tab

If you check your local offer it should tell you about more things that are local to you when you are ready to access them.

You can read in depth on all the areas covered by early bird, also YouTube is a great resource. If you attend the course you will find that it is not all relevant to your child as all children are different.

The main thing you will miss out on is the discussion aspect (hearing about other people’s experiences and what did and didn’t work for them etc.) and meeting other people in a similar place to you who may become friends.

It may help if you had a list of what the course covers so you know the different areas to research. Our LA does it’s own version of early bird and some of the things we covered were: some theory of autism and social communication issues, different types of communication, visual supports, sensory issues, teaching new skills, play skills, behaviour issues, eating, sleeping and toilet training.

I would take all the help youre offered.

Thank you, liv and open. That’s both really helpful and quite reassuring. I’ll sit down tonight and make a list of those topics and look at that OU course as well. I’ve been to the library this morning and got Jessie Hewitson’s book and I’m waiting on Sally Ozonoff et al’s. If there are any particular pointers on You Tube they’d be gladly received - I’m a bit wary of stumbling on less than ideal or very controversial channels and not realising. We’re hoping to talk to friends this week who have been through similar recently and may move to peer groups from there. I’m definitely getting to a point myself where I want to hear more from others about what’s helped them personally as well as all the theory and professional advice.

Branleuse, I’m sure you mean that helpfully and we’re certainly taking all the help we’re offered that we realistically can. But if my DH (quite reasonably) can’t essentially go PT for ten weeks, the course isn’t available on evenings or weekends, and we don’t have £600 extra to spend on childcare right now, I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do. There is absolutely no way we’re the only ones in this situation; that must be for sure. I also rang the NAS to see if another local area is delivering the course where we might be able to go and was told we can only go to the course in our area so no daytime alternatives are available as our area don’t/can’t provide them. Believe me, I’m trying here.

We've just done Early Bird Plus but because of the length of the waiting list there was nothing in it that we didn't know by the time we actually got to it (and some of it is very old fashioned, E.g. Implying you might want to suppress non harmful stims: I understand they are rewriting it). Our local authority had already run a course that was two full mornings that actually covered nearly everything and was much easier to manage from a work point of view.

I agree that you can get nearly everything from books. Luke Beardon's recent one is another good one. On YouTube try Purple Ella, Autistic Not Weird (and his website), Nurturing Neurodiversity (also her Facebook Group) - especially if your DS is non verbal but I find it good even though DD is very verbal. Chirp speech and language channel is great on much more than communication (also E.g. Sensory stuff in particular).

1800 seconds on autism podcast on the BBC.

Uniquely Human is an excellent book.

I don’t know how severely your ds is affected, or if he’s verbal, but I also really like Calmer, easier, happier parenting/Boys, though I’ve not been using these techniques consistently over the last few weeks due to illness/Christmas. It’s not an autism book but claims to work for children with special needs and I’m finding it effective.

The out of sync child has fun is great for activities for sensory issues and motor skills development.

The Hanen books are excellent resources for communication.

Light that really is super reassuring. Thank you.

He’s so far (touch wood) not severely affected and very good verbally so we count our blessings. I’ll look up all of these. Wasn’t expecting to get so much help and now it feels like there’s a fair bit on the menu! Thank you both.

We never did the early bird as DS wasn't diagnosed at the time, but the course we did do was good.

We were lucky that both our workplaces were really supportive, and happy for us to take the hours off and make them up in the evenings. I would just say it doesn't hurt to ask. I appreciate not everyone has this flexibility but he might find they will accommodate a lot more than he imagines. It's not a million miles off having a bit of time off for a child's medical appt, and you would hope a lot of employers would be sympathetic.

DH attended the course nearest his office, rather than our local one, because he has a long commute.

Just in case its helpful your dh can take the entitlement to unpaid parental leave as single days if your child has special needs. I appreciate you might not be able to take the financial hit and he may feel he cant cope with his workload but some people just arent aware they can do this.
I had a bit of a rant at the course providers at how much the 'free' course costs to attend. We didnt do early bird but cygnet and it was so useful.

We never did any courses . Ds was dx at 2 years 4 months.

Our son was diagnosed 17 years ago and we were never offered any courses. I picked up all I know from surfing the internet, reading books and attending the odd one day course/conference.

The National Autistic Society is a good site for info.

It’s a bit more complicated with DH’s work, unfortunately, or we’d definitely consider unpaid leave (though we’d lose more than the £600 it would cost for just me to go with childcare).

We’re booking on a few one-off workshops we’ve also been offered so hopefully that will be a start. Cygnet looks a lot more accessible, too, when we get there.

Thanks all for the support here - it’s all new to us (obviously) and we haven’t yet worked out what it all means for our family.

It's worth looking up your "Local Offer" website too (Google your local authority and "Local Offer". E.g. our local CAMHS does monthly lunchtime sessions on specific topics that we haven't gone to yet but look pretty useful for slightly older children based on the topics). There may be similar stuff in your area. In our area you get handed so many leaflets and lots of it may not be relevant at the time but becomes useful later.

If you want to join our Primary School Auties thread here please do - we mainly have kids in Year 1 and Reception but it's not exclusive at all and lots of stuff is probably relevant (there are loooong previous threads too if you are interested: which start before they were at school - all linked at the top of the current one).
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/3748449-Primary-school-Auties-into-2020-thread-4
The first thread might be helpful - when we were all trying to figure out school choices and dealing with Dx!
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/a3080753-DS-with-ASD-starting-school-Sept-2018-I-am-feeling-overwhelmed