He is 4 and has expressive/receptive language delay, plus other issues... 'mild asd' says his paed but no formal dx yet.
Anyway he has started 2 mornings a week in a SEN language unit set apart in a classroom in a MS nursery.
This is his second week, and the salts and teachers who run it, all say he is settling very well, and that he wasn't quite like what they expected (they are aware of the asd issue and have seen paed reports,..) and i got the feeling they were expecting 'much worse behaviour'.
Their opinions and views atm, is that DS does have sli and that indeed he is a bit distant when he first arrives in the morning at the unit but that with a little propmting and assistance he 'comes round' to doing pretty much everything they want him to do! (apart from messy sensory play he truely hates it and will scream if made to.)
Ok she said he does 'obsess' a bit with the cars and trains, and his play needs developing, but he accept instructions to change activities after a couple of warnings and prompts are given without tantruming.
He is also flexible with the routine in the unit.
They report he understands 'turn taking' quite well in a small group (there are only 4 other kids with ds atm), but has much difficulties with sharing. (we have been working intensively on the turn taking for about a year now , and the sharing too but very little progress on that one!)
He also accept interact at his own level with the other children, and tries to communicate, but it will be interesting to see what happens when more children join, mind you it's a max of 10 to 4 adults so he 'll always perform better there than at his usual MS nursery with up to 25 other kids!
So in all they are saying it's a positive start and he has some comunication and social skills that need developing.
I'm very pleased to hear that, and it does sound so much better than what i hear and see when he is at MS nursery.
I'm just a little amazed and (pondering...) really with the big differences in DS within the two settings. ....why???