Question | Autism PDD

Thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions I'm going to talk with his teacher and aides today, hopefully I can get a better feel for them. I will wait to call his case managers until I talk to his teacher, this is just stressful.

autumn,

We live in Las Vegas Nevada, it is the 5th largest school district in the nation, I'm glad he is going to school for 6 hours but am concerned he will get anything out of it. He will go to ESY until August 6th, and be out of school for two weeks and then start his regular school year.
at my son's school they have never asked me why he does this or that, they have approach me and just tell me what he does at lunch or some faces he does when he gets shy. he has overcome a lot of that as the months kept passing by. they have been doinga great job and all aides and the teacher are specialized with autistic kids.

Candy - you say LV Nevada is the 5th largest district - what are the other 4?

Do you overall like Nevada's services? I do not think I could live somewhere so very warm!

Our teacher never had a child with ASD and I had to send her links the whole year of how to engage her and get her to express her day more...the speech path. was just as bad and I was sending her links too on pragmatics, and HFA and I felt the whole year I pushed for social skills teaching but was brushed off like it wasnt a concern nor the fact she was so quiet..they would of preferred all the kids be like her which made my cause meaningless. My son is in ESY right now, he goes for 6 hours a day and recieves speech and ot right now, we just moved to this school district and he just started last week. I've noticed his teacher and aides will ask me questions about his behavior and why he does what he does. These are people that work with just Autistic kids, he is in a class with only Autistic children. I think it's strange and I feel like I know more then they do about Autism. I'm not sure what to do, I'm already not liking the school or teacher.

This morning it was all crowded with regular kids and parents so ds was stressing, no one came over to help me calm him down or offer assistance. They don't understand why he doesn't eat lunch, refuses to go to therapy with his ot, and they didn't understand why he was so stressed out this morning.

I told them that change for my son is hard, it took him 4 months to get used to his new speech therapist at his old school, so I tried to explain this to them. I feel like these are things they should know or try to help with. I know it's just summer school but I'm already not liking it. I think they haven't looked at his IEP, I need to ask them today. I'm not sure what to do, he has two case managers, I'm not sure if I should call them or talk to the school first. This is all a first for me so I'm unsure of what to do. Any suggestions would be helpful

Candy, I am wondering if they are not trying to individualize their understanding of your son, and at the same time, assess your understanding of him?

Are they asking you these "whys," or telling you they do not understand? If the latter, they do not sound too astute, to put it politely. You might ask them how many autistic kids they have worked with?

I know too where we live, it seems the ESY is really the teacher's that got "stuck" working the summer program...Mason's ESY teacher last year, it was her first year teaching and her first summer program...she was very nice and tried to get to know Mason as well as possible, but she was very young and inexperienced! It was very difficult for both of them! We opted to pull Mason from ESY this year and only do the speech and OT...it takes such a long time for Mason to become stable in a new environment, I thought it would be more stress than not!

Hopefully this is just something that you will be dealing with for summer, but definitely try to find out as much as you can about the teachers and school before the fall...this way if they need to be "educated" on some things you can help. Good luck!

Good point Niki. I know in our district TWO PARENTS pulled their kids out of ESY, because the teacher had rigid expectations of attendance and no tardiness ... and one parent had even told her ahead that his kids would at times be late due to his work schedule. So it sounded to me like someone who was new, or maybe not tenured ... an aside, but 6 hours a day ESY is AWESOME! Is it for the whole summer? What state do you live in?I have been asked questions about behaviors by a teacher. However, they have always been looking for tips on what works best for my child. - "If x happens, what might be triggering it and what have you found is the best way to handle it?" - Knowing this helps them keep things consistent with my son.autumn,

I'm not sure what the other 4 largest school districts are but ds's case manager told us that Clark County is the 5th largest school district in the country. So far I like there services, I'm just concerned that his teacher and aides are not educated about Autistic children.

Your right it is very warm out here, today it is 110 and tomorrow and wednesday will be close to 116