What questions to ask a prospective nursery?

[catski]

Hello all. Some of you may have read last week that my son (22 months) has been diagnosed with ASD. We are still waiting on a meeting between the diagnostic team and our local disability service to discuss a program of treatment for him, but one of the things which was discussed in our diagnostic meeting was the possibility of sending him to nursery (he has been at home with me full time up to now).'

How it seems to work in our area (we're in sweden) is that children with ASD are sent to mainstream nurseries, with a special needs teacher going in every now and then (not sure how often yet) to check on the child and educate the staff on how to bring out the best in them.

We've been invited to go and look at a nursery tomorrow (yikes!), and I really don't know what to look for or what to ask for. My son's symptoms seem mild at the moment (no stimming, not in his own world, doesn't seem to have any sensory processing difficulties) but he does have impairments in social reciprocity, his verbal and non-verbal language is pretty limited and his imaginative play is also limited.

If you have any advice on what I should ask/look for, I would be so grateful.

I had my son (now 3.5) in one crap preschool and he is now in a good preschool for him.

From my experience I would ask

Have they had children there previously that have communication difficulties?

What strategies would they use to help him join in etc?

are they happy to give you a daily/weekly progress report on how your DS is doing?

Will he have the equivalent to a keyworker? Although i wouldn't want DS1 completely reliant on one member of staff in case they leave (as has just happened) I think when they are settling in it is preferable for him to get to know 1 person as it were.

It sounds very wishy-washy but the first (crap) preschool just had a general we-know-everything-don't-you-worry-about-it attitude and they really didn't have a clue nor did they want to take any advice on board from anyone. His current one had far more experience but wanted to get to know DS1 for who he is and work with him.

Wow - all fantastic points, thank you! Hadn't thought of anything like that

not one of them occured to me when first looking hence him ending up at at crap preschool!

Another point is my DS1 is quite a passive chap in group settings and I am 99% convinced he was just overlooked at the first preschool, because he couldn't at that time communicate with them and didn't have tantrums so he was viewed as "easy-going". So if your son is passive I would ask how much time they would be able to afford to give him some direction and make sure he isn't lost IYKWIM.

notfromaroundhere - do you think we sent our sons to the same first crap nursery LOL, very similar experience to me.

agree completely with catski's points.

one I would add - ask about how they deal with children with receptive language problems (answer should involve adding visual/gestures/photographs, and using very very simple language indeed, and trying to keep language consistent (so use similar words each time for a routine), with bonus points if they use any sort of signing system or visual timetable. you don't want to be in the situation I was in with DS's crap nursery, of nursery managing wailing to me "we don't know whether DS is not understanding us or not obeying us". Funnily enough as trained professionals I thought they should be the ones telling me that.....

I hope we did TotalChaos its too scary to think its a common attitude!

Good point on the receptive language.

I'd also try and sound out how open they are to taking advice from the specialist teacher - when I mentioned to the crap preschool that the SALT wanted to come and do a visit I got a whole lot of sighing and "well we're very busy we needs lots of notice" blah blah blah. They also completely ignored the reports the SALT had sent to them whereas his current preschool incorporates the information into his IEP (individual education plan) and sets up little games to help him with things like 3 step instructions, socialising etc.

oh yes - you definitely want them to be at the very least receptive and ideally very accustomed to implementing recommendations from other professionals.

Thank you so much for your advice - all typed up and ready to take with me tomorrow!