'rosy' opinions of DS....i am slightly puzzled!

[mysonben]

Some of you know DS is 4 , has speech and languague delay, mild asd verbal dx.
DS is going to a language group two mornings a week (since early november), as well as 3 afternoons to a mainstream nursery (since age 2).

I'm ... the salt and teachers at the unit, say about DS "we have no trouble getting him to do all activities , he is interested in everything, he enjoys playing with the other children, he simply has a bit of trouble sharing at times but ALL kids are like that at that age, we haven't seen any behaviours at all which may suggest an asd it is 'pure language ' issues!" (i'd be so happy to hear this if only it was true!)

At his ms nursery, teacher says " he only responds half of the time when spoken to, his speech has improved a bit, it is also clearer, and he will spontanously talk to me about stuff that interest him (i do agree with this), but he still play alone in the same way most of the time, struggles hugely with sharing, screams and tantrums when other children interfer with his play, he still observes them and needs an adult to introduce him and guide him into shared games, he frequently imitates the others as opposed to playing interactively, he still doesn't like table activities and messy play"

At home, it 's a hit and miss with what response we get from him, he stims a fair bit, his rituals are going strong atm, and he is quite challenging.

I simply don't understand , i know the fact that there are only 5 kids there with him at the unit atm and that must play a part. Still, either he behaves in a total different way at the unit, or they are feeding me a load of rubbish, it's like they are not talking about the same child!
I intend to go and stay for a session after the xmas break to see for myself.
I'm a bit stuck because they don't keep asd children at the unit, i say nothing to them about his 'other side' as i don't want to rattle the cage too much and cause him to lose his place.

On the other hand with the referal to cahms for asd dx assesments looming in the spring , i'm worried in case the unit reports they have no concerns over asd at all, and DS is absolutely fine apart from a speech delay (which is untrue!)...[worried]

Sorry long post (as usual) , but as anyone else experienced this ?

maybe the unit are getting better responses from him, because they are trained to deal with his issues?

Thanks for reply, choptheduck.
Yes, it's a good possibility that their experience coupled with the fact that it is such a small group, must have a favorable impact.
But it still doesn't explain everything, it's a whole different child they are describing to me, i mean they are telling me DS has good social skills, that he is interested in everything and they haven't seen no obsessions, no echolalia, no stimming, no self-absorbed play,....no asd behaviours at all.
Frankly i don't buy it. That's why i went and stayed for a bit at his usual ms nursery earlier today to see what he was like, and although the speech side of things has indeed improved, he hasn't changed that much, he is far from what they are saying he is like at the unit.

When i told his ms teacher what the unit wa saying she said "oh!!! they must share their secret with us !"

Sorry if i sound a bit 'grrrr' but i'm really confused by their opinion and don't know who i can really trust, all these different professionals who are not straightforward and honest for various reasons and agendas, make me cranky to say the least!

I know what you mean, because I'm having the same problems with ds and his school.

ds has a verbal dx of asd and doesn't ahve any hugely noticeable asd related problems at school. He feels he has to be, and then is jsut a little bugger when I pick him up, completely overloaded and off the rails.

My ds is a bit older than yours though, and I'd find it hard to imagine a 4yo holding it together like that!

It does sound like he may be finding the MS a bit too overbearing. Would they consider giving him a quite space for 5 mins a few times throughout the session so he can rest?

Thanks Chop, yes DS does get overloaded by sound and lots of people fairly quickly. Bibic has indeed said his sensory profile is quite high and not typical in any aspects.
His ms nursery are aware of DS 's difficulties, senco , ep are also involved.
Apart from the office , the nursery is totally open-plan so i 'm unsure if they'd be able to manage any quiet place for him, but I can always ask.

About the unit, i have thought more about what they have said and honestly don't know how they can come to these opinions, (like you said he is only 4), and 'good' social skills cannot be switched on and off at his leisure, it makes no sense at all.

I mean, even the EP with whom i don't totally agree with, has concluded that DS has a speech delay, and has "a concrete and sensory seeking play", and his imaginative and social skills are imature (all written in her report).
So for the salt and teachers at the unit telling me the total oposite ... and

It seems a very common theme that kids "issues" seem to miraculously disappear when they get into a language unit where people actually understand them and know how to talk to them. I had this very conversation the other day with several parents at DD's (language unit ) Christmas play
Even if your DS nursery staff are aware of his difficulties,however well trained or well-meaning they may be it's unlikely they can deal as well as the staff at his SLU
Very frustrating though

Bubble2bubble, i see what you are saying, and i would expect the staff at the unit to be able to manage all speech and language related issues better than anyone else (including me ), but as for all of the other behaviours and issues to vanish simply because they can communicate better with DS...

Here is an example: last week, i pick up DS from the unit, teacher says 'B has done some great pretend and imaginative play today in the home corner!' , so i asked 'what did he do?', she said 'cooked a pizza in microwave and shared it with me', so i asked 'was it a real toy pizza or an imaginative one?', she said 'a real tou one, i asled B to cook some pizza for me and he did it, popped it in m/w and gave me a piece!'....
So she thought that this was great imaginative pretend play!!! when in fact it seems to me that it was adult led play, DS did what she asked no more no less.
Why would she think it was such good pretend play? He is 4 for goodness sake!!! my 20 month old DD can do that on her own, actually pop bread in toy toaster and feeds them to dolly without prompting!

That why i am begining to think they are 'sugarcoating' the issues.

Sorry, getting wound up again...
don't mean to sound negative, but if she would have said the pizza was an imaginary one and that DS did offer her a piece without any prompting then i would have been impressed.

ISWYM

Thank you for replying anyway...didn't mean to be rude, i'm glad for opinions and replies i get

Not rude at all

See i get so annoyed with all these so-called experts lately...
If there is one thing i can't stand it's being fobbed off.
Like when the EP says ' but your DS can do parralel play, it is excellent!...or 'your DS has a great sense of humour he looked at his teacher and said the brick was orange when it in fact green!'....Arrrgh!!! DS doesn't even know his colours!

I guess i'm just fed up with them all and getting diffrent opinions fired at me all the time. They all useless!

Meant to say EP says DS ' sparralel is very news because apparently children with asd cannot do parralel play!...just another untrue useless statement!
And beside DS is fairly high-fonctioning and fairly mild so with the hell should it be excellent news anyway. Parallel play and perfect imitation of others is all he can do

High functioning children with ASD can learn how to play imaginatively. So if your son has been watching how the adults do it with the other children maybe he has learned correctly how to do what is expected.

What I think is going on here is that your DS is reported to be doing so much better at the language unit because

1)lesser numbers of children so less likelihood of sensory overwhelm
2)and a biggie - the staff there will know exactly how to deal with kids with receptive language delay, will be able to speak to them like we do, tailoring language to their level, etc, which is bound to hugely reduce the child's stress levels if they aren't having things expected of them they can't do
3)being compared against other language delayed kids rather than against his peers.

IME, I agree with Wassup - the imaginary play can be learnt. And a language delay can have knock on effects on pretend play, DS's pretend play improved as his language improved.

PS - my DS had an awful time at his old private nursery, where noone really knew how to deal with a stonking receptive language delay IME. When I moved house, I moved him to a marvellous state school nursery where he thrived immediately - the second day when I was putting his uniform on him he said "nice nursery"! - which for his language stage at that point was quite an achievement. So the right environment can make a huge difference.

I agree too, imaginary play can be learnt.
Btbh, DS doesn't really do much imaginary play, the little that he does is merely re-enacting what others have done, stuff of the tv, or copying others. But his play tends to be 'richer' when others are around him or when adult is interacting with him, when left to own devices it's always the same play routines, cars and trains being pushed back and forth, same phrases being spoken, taping toys around to make some noise or putting cars into his big lorry to carry them around, it's very basic for a 4 y old.

Totalchaos, you are more than likely right, maybe i don't realise fully the different approaches of the two settings, will definately ask to sit in during a session to see for myself how they are managing and dealing with DS generally.

Mysonben, my DS (4.5) comes across as speech delayed. It's not immediately noticable that he has ASD, but the difference in him when he is with his ABA therapist and when he is at the MS school is so big that sometimes it is hard to believe it's the same boy. I think the therapist is trained to do a job, they know how to get the best out of him, whereas the school is not trained. Unfortunately, it's the school where he is going to spend most of his time, that's where he does not do joint play, he would rather spend all day playing with the sand and water. He does not initiate play with peers, just play alongside them, still does not respond to his peers, but responds well to his teachers and TA's. He does not have sensory issues much, so he is quite passive in a way that if somebody wants his toys, he will give it to them. He might say it's mine, but if they take it off he does not scream. His school and teachers think he is quite mild, but when we see him with his peers, the gap is enormous. I don't think that just because he is able to interact well with adults and does not have any receptive language delay, it does not make his NT. I read a lot of your post and see a lot of DS in mine except rituals and sensory stuffs, but I can definitely say my DS is not like a normal 4 years old, he is different. My DS's therapist says it's not what he can do with you and me, it's about whether he can generalise the skill in everyday life, the fact is my DS can't.

A lot of things you mention do sound as if he would high functioning even if he was ASD but you also say that you are not sure about his knowledge of colours? Surely even an EP would have picked up on that ? Mind you the one I had probably could have worked out if my cat could drink milk !

Thanks for these last replies.

TiredM, i join you on your thoughts, my ds's speech delay is the one thing that is the most obvious, the rest like the sensory issues, the limited social skills , the rituals,...well it's there but isn't noticable straightway in most instance (it varies on the environment a lot!), i mean i can see it, so can dh, and ds1, so can his ms teacher as we are the ones that know ds the best and spend the most time with him.

Cyberseraphim, yes my DS is very much high-fonctioning i think, paed said his asd was mild, in that i think she means his difficulties are more subtle although it does cause problems at times, mild doesn't mean plain sailing in my experience so far. Some days the asd issues seems more obvious than others.
I think anyone who has some good knowledge about asd would indeed spot it in my DS if they took the time to spend time with him (not a 20 mins quick observation in one setting only)
I re-read all of the reports from all involved, and i was pondering last night on things. DS doesn't know his colours (should EP have spent a little more time with him and asked his teacher she would have known this!), he still can't find his name on the board after 2 years at this nursery, he doesn't know any letters or any phonics, he struggles with shapes, but he does know his numbers up to 25. Lots of time has been spend with DS trying to get him to learn the above but it's not going in .
DS has much trouble remembering a lot of things, and i am now wondering if he has some learning difficulties.

I think it's something you need to get a better opinion about - to gauge his level of learning. DS1 is probably more middle than high functioning but knew shapes and colours by 4 - I know that is just one thing out of a much bigger picture of communication and learning but you need to know if he is learning these things but not showing it or just not learning them. I do think an EP should be able to tell you where the weak areas are compared to 'average' 4 year old.

I agree with you, the trouble is getting the ep to come out again! She saw ds so briefly in early november. And we are supposed to have a review in april.... I might have a word with his teacher , as EP had said should any concerns arise in the meantime, she will come and see him sooner.

I think it would really help you get more clarity to spend a session at the unit (hidden, preferably?)

Let's hope you will witness that rare species - a child whose special needs are being met in an educational setting (we should have a virtual bottle of champagne for every sighting!)

do you think you could suggest at the SLU playing with colours/shapes. it does seem a lovely setting for him, and whether he would take more in there, would they do this as a target, or i guess they have specific lang ones.

Ds did not know colours/numbers/shapes until portage. which was v. much hand on hand in a quiet environment and repeated every other week for months (around 6) and he did learn them. I'm wondering if this is a similar technique to aba. until this, i'm not sure he would have achieved it, not in the lively nursery setting, much as he enjoy it.

I thought that parallel play by this stage was a indicator of ASD. ds is always watching and coping (well snippets) to me that's how they can learn, and if an adults interacts play is reasonable (e.g. pizza) and left to his own devises, well can't beat stuffing cars!

'all these different professionals who are not straightforward and honest for various reasons and agendas, make me cranky to say the least!'

There is not one of us here that doesn't agree with this.

mysonben What you describe I have seen described here before. Peachy in particular I think struggles with behaviours that are context dependent. Can you afford to get an Independent Ed Psych to see him in both settings and at home (approx 500-800 pounds) - (in canada and can't find the pound sign on this computer)

Can you take up the teachers suggestion of them sharing info. with them? Surely that is the whole point of integrated children's services? And the point of Team Around the Child (although don't get me started on that)