We all have low-energy days. Instead of pushing myself, I try to give myself permission to do nothing when that feeling hits. I just sit for awhile, then I usually get inspired to do something.
It sounds to me like your gut is telling you that the church preschool is the right option. It would be nice if preschools came with an "autism seal of approval," and believe me, not all special ed programs would get that approval, and many church programs would.
My son is high-functioning enough to have avoided diagnosis until age 7, and he went to a church pre-school and did fine. He had trouble with sensory overload while indoors, and had trouble following instructions, but that could have been accommodated pretty easily if he had had a diagnosis at that age, like your son has.
If you feel you need a more systematic way of evaluating your child's placement options, below are some checklists. Good luck with everything.
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art44663.asp - a good one by an autism mom, with lots of comments.
http://www.autism-pdd.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=13687&am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;am p;PN=1 - from New Mexico Early Childhood Transition Initiative (also available at the following address: http://www.ped.state.nm.us/seo/preschool/90.day.transition.g uidance.doc
http://www.paulakluth.com/articles/schoolinclusive.html - is the school really inclusive or full of hot air?
http://www.speechteach.co.uk/p_resource/parent/whichschool.h tm - questions to ask to help you decide which school for your child
http://www.spedschools.com/Placementinfo/parentcheck.htm - from Massachusetts
It sounds like you have a lot on your plate and you are doing a great job trying to find the best placement for your son. Hang in there and be sure to take care of yourself. I know it's tough.
Since your son is high functioning, he may do well at the church preschool. Perhaps, they can come and educate his teacher on his needs and any adaptations he needs. This is not uncommon with itinerant services.
I'm in a similar situation Tricia. Have been having a terrible time finding a preschool for my dd. I wish I could go through and take the things I liked from every school and put them together! In one program the hours are screwy, in another there's too many kids, in another they can't give her the full services she needs, etc, etc, ect.......It's crazy. I've been feeling very down the past few days as well and I'm sure a lot of it is stress over this whole preschool thing. Doesn't help that the time is ticking away and a decision needs to be made fast!
Good luck with your situation though......sounds like you have 2 decent options at this point since the one school has morning openings. Just go with your gut feeling!
I believe he would still recieve services for speech, occupational therapy and have access to the autism specialist. I think those services will go with him.
This choice just got harder for me. The preschool that the school district will pay for called this afternoon to let me know that they now have openings in the mornings. I left that door open for now.
I think I may just pass the buck and let my husband decide where he should go. He works graveyard, so while I am in classes this year he will be the one responsible for getting him to and from preschool.
I have been rather depressed the last few days for some reason. At times I just wish I could focus all of my energy on my son instead of going to school. I just don't want to have to go through the process of being accepted into grad school again. That was a lot of work.
Tricia
If you pay out of pocket for the church preschool, will the school district give you itinerant services such as speech, ot, social skills training?I am brand new here but have read quite a bit. I wanted to ask for an opinion on our preschool situation. I swear I never thought trying to figure out a preschool could be so labor intensive, not to mention stressful.
Anyway, we have a ISFP and he can get preschool paid for through the school district. After we got the list of possible placements we started looking. We ruled out the Montisori school right away because they have 40 children there.
Then there were 2. We had an in-home program that we really liked. It was small and she had a lot of experience working with special needs kids. But since we hemmed and hawed she gave our spot to another asd kiddo.
That left a very cool community preschool connected to the university I am attending. Nice facility, very engaging room, understanding teacher with experience, two playgrounds that were just fun. The drawback there was it is also quite a ways away and there are 20 kids in the class. Not too bad. Then they told us the hours available - M & W 3:00 to 5:45 and F 7:30 am to 12:30. There is a possibility that more mornings will open up but that isn't guarenteed. I am concerned about the weird schedule and not sure Trent will understand that one day we go to school in the afternoon and another day we go to school in the morning. I can foresee big problems around the schedule.
So my husband and I started looking around locally and found a preschool with low enrollment, maybe 12 kids and a very nice teacher. They won't pay for it though because it is through a church. I really think this is the best placement though. We aren't rolling in the dough but we could scrap the $$ together for this one.
I guess I am wondering what others experiences have been. My son is high-functioning, probably aspergers. (So high-functioning that when I called the school district for an evaluation they told me that from the forms I filled out, that he sounded mild and maybe we could wait 6 months. Wait 6 months for what??!! To see if he in fact gets worse! Grrrrr. I forced them to observe him and pushed for the evaluation.)
Anyway, I would love any thoughts. I feel kind of like the church preschool is best but am just not sure. This is so hard to know exactly what is best for him.
Tricia
Jessica'smomma - I soooooo relate to what you are saying. I too wish I could take the things I liked and put the perfect school together. And isn't it just crazy that finding a preschool could cause so much stres and then depression? It's funny too that you say to go with my gut, since my gut is being so darned back and forth.
Flip - thank you so much for the support. I hope he will do well in a community preschool. Both of our choices at this point are community based. Everyone on his team thought he would do well in that kind of setting.
Norway mom - thank you for the links. I absolutely love checkoff lists anyway and as soon as I am done with this post I am going to check those all out.
My husband called both preschools and talked to the church preschool teacher some. She is just such a warm person. She said that she had a boy a few years ago that was high-functioning and did research on her own to figure it out some more. She also seems to genuinely care about the children. And the lower number of kids is definately a plus for him.
This afternoon I tried to simply imagine what it would be like for my son to be in each enviroment 3 times a week. It's still hard to decide but that made me like the church preschool even more. There isn't as much business on the walls and the noise level seems lower. I don't know. Someday I hope I look back on this and laugh or something.
Tricia