Ready for Kindergarten | Autism PDD

Natalie is the exact same age and in the same situation. She's been in an intergrated pre-k for two years now. She will be going to Kindergarten in the fall. She's improved socially and so too is doing really well academically. I have considered the thought of holding her back, but to be honest, for us, I don't think it would benefit her. I think she needs to go on to be with kids her age. The children in her pre-k now come in at age 3. Some of them were just barely three at the beginning of the year. Nat will be 5 next month and you can really tell a difference in their maturity.

I know you'll make the best decision for your son. Good luck

My 4.5 year old is in a public preschool and doing great. He is diagnosed with PDD-NOS .He spends half the day in a special ed program and the latter half in an integrated classroom. Socailly he is making progress with starting to talk spontaneously to other kids but is still certainly behind in that area. Academically he is reading and writing already and has a wonderful memory and some math abilities emerging as well.

I wondered if anyone else has been in my shoes wondering would it be better to keep him in Preschool for another year or to send him to kindergarten even though socially he is still behind? I am afraid he will be really bored with the preschool curriculam ..and afarid he is not ready for Kindergarten.

So on the heels of this, if your kid turned 5 in December, and was supposed to start K next year, would you give it another year? He is a BIG kid, and already a head taller than his classmates. Socially another year would be beneficial to him, except that the size difference may be so huge by K that it could affect him. If this gives you an idea, at age 2 he was 40 inches and 40 lbs. He is probably 65inches and 50-51inches now.

Heather, you must have meant 65 pounds because otherwise he would be close to my height!

I don't know about 5 in December - because I don't know what the laws are in your state. I think in most states you don't have to register a child until they turn 6, but I could be wrong - check with your school district. If you have an IEP, it may be different.

I guess I wouldn't want to have to hold him back later on if it came to that. If you think that socially he needs another year, I would hold him out. You need to make sure that you are ACTIVELY doing something during that year though - not just giving him the extra time. Getting into lots of playgroups, doing social skills classes (if available) etc. Time alone will not do much - it may do some, but you need to go the whole nine yards.

There is SO much expected out of kids these days in kindergarten and I just didn't think ds was up to it. He is not reading yet - although today, he figured out the word "cup" on his placemat!

So I digress... I think that any advantage we can give our kids is for the best. In our community I know of no boy who has a summer birthday whose parents didn't hold him out - NT or not. Why would I make my son the youngest kid BY FAR in his class? He already has some fine and gross motor deficits and sending him on time would just emphasize those. My son is in the 75th percentile for height and 65th for weight, so I know he will tower over his classmates. I'm not sure that is a bad thing. He is not a bully in any way shape or form, but I think most bullies would be slightly reluctant to pick on someone who is so much taller than them. Maybe I'm just dreaming...

Heather in your case - I don't know if the height would be a bigger issue because your son is SO tall. Although I think my son is about 48-49 inches (He's 5 1/2). I know he is taller than most of the kids in his class - but not all! We grow them big here in Minnesota (to give you an idea, ds was over 10 pounds at birth and was 21 3/4 inches long!).

Chase is about 4 1/2 years old right now and in the school system's pre-school. He will not be attending K in the fall. First of all, he is not really talking much. Very limited communication skills. Chase socially is scary. He wants to play with other kids, but doesn't know how to. Luckily he has a younger sister to really help, but with her being 2, she herself is just learning social skills, so she is sometimes learning his bad social skills!! Our school system has him in the only pre-school class without typical peers. Its good and bad. It really focuses him on education and he is doing so well with that, but socially, where it is one of his larger deficits (along with not talking) he doesn't get at all. We have an IEP Feb 2nd and I really want to address it. I feel that we are missing some huge opportunity here, but still have another year to catch up. He will have just turned 6 when he starts K. I am ok with that. Now, with Anna being exactly 2 years younger and very smart, I am wondering if I send her at 5, and they will be a year apart in school or do I hold her back so that they are 2 years apart in school and age...Grant will be turning 7 just a month and a half after Kindergarten start. We had held him back in preschool for much of the same reasons as the rest of you. He has improved some on his social skills, though he still prefers to be alone alot of the time. They want to mainstream him next year for Kindergarten which we are fighting with the school about because there is not even anyone in the kindergarten class to help with him that knows how he communicates. He has alot of sounds and only a few basic words. I just do not know how they can expect him to make it there without help. I know we cannot hold him back in preschool again, as I know that is not an option. But atleast holding him back the one extra year has helped alot so far. But I am rambling now, so I will stop.

In Canada Funding for ABA is paid for by the government until the child starts school,so Zack , who turned 5 on Sept 23, is in a integrated daycare full time ,He has a aid ,and goes to a preschool program two days a week.

It was the best decision for Zack.

God bless ,Linda

I wish I felt confident my little guy was even close to be ready for kindergarten. It makes me sad sometimes that I can't even imagine that

Hopefully he'll be admitted into the special autism kindergarten class in the fall. I'm really hoping it will give him the boost he really needs.

My ds is 9, he's PDD-NOS and ADHD. We really felt he was ready at age 5 for K. The ped tried hard to talk us out of enrolling him. And he was very small for his age. But what happened over time is that he didn't grow like the other kids and he didn't mature either. His learning disabilities became more apparent and he fell behind, even with help. This year we placed him in another school with a better RSP program for his needs, and held him over in third grade again. He's doing great, he really needed the extra time.

Have you observed the kindergarten class? I spent an entire morning with one of the kindergarten classes in Andrew's old school, and I knew he wouldn't be ready. I highly recommend doing this. Our pre-K teacher set it up with the K-teacher. I would also try to spend some time talking to the K-teacher and asking questions. This helped me ALOT!

Sarah was exactly where your son is now 2 years ago. We kept her in a kinderkids program of 4-5 years olds another year(part-time) because she was behind her peers socially. She turned 6 at the end of July when she started kindergarten. She blends right in even though her age is older..most of the kids are 5 with some turning 6 here and there. I have no regrets holding her back and giving her more time to process being around kids another year. .Kindergarten here is all day.. academically he may be bored but I am sure alot of energy is used to cope with the kids and transitions, noise, ect.. She handles kindergarten with NOT one problem this year except she thinks she is supposed to not talk at at all because it's the school rule according to her

My friend started her daughter at 7yrs. old in kindergarten this year to help her cope better with sensory issues and she is doing awesome.. follow your heart:) Socially being behind is not so big a deal at 4,5, 6 but gets much harder when they get older so better to tackle it now. Her friends think she is just quite and shy.

Blessings, Shelley

I agree with what Shelley said. We held our son out this year - he is 5.5 and still in pre-school. He needed help with social skills and although he does well academically - he needed another year to help make more progress socially.

In addition, I wanted the extra year of PT and OT (we get them privately). Once kids get to 1st grade, it is nearly impossible to fit everything in, so I wanted to make sure he got that extra year of receiving those private services.

I have not regretted it one bit. My ds gets along MUCH better with kids who are one to two years younger than him - and that is who he is with now in his class. I realize the gap will broaden as he gets older, but right now - he is where he needs to be. And, he is making progress in all areas. His handwriting has improved dramatically and in kindergarten, they are expected to write in journals every day (at least in our area) - yes, you read that correctly! They should be able to write their full names as well. Ds can write his first name, but he has three VERY hard letters in our last name, so we will be working on that all spring and summer.

Every child is different though - but I know some many parents of even NT kids who regret sending their kids with summer birthdays on time. I have only met one who regretted holding out - and that was a child with classic Asperger's (this child had every symptom right down the line and is also a genius). Now personally, I think the mom made the right decision and I think she will see that in coming years.

Good luck with that decision - it is a hard one.!

I will be observing a kindergarten class- thanks for that great suggestion. My son's preschool teacher told me she really thinks he is ready for kindergarten so this is going to be a really tough decision for us.

K DOESN'T DO ALOT DIFFERENT THEN PRE. iF THE CHILD IS READ TO LEARN READING AND OTHER SCHOOL STUFF SEND THEM OR THEY WILL BE BORED. YOU COULD HOMESCHOOL ALSO AND DO COOP CLASSES/FIELDTRIPS WITH A HOMESCHOOL GROUP.

My son's ECSE teacher last year was ADAMANT that he needed to go to kindergarten or he would be bored. We ADAMANTLY disagreed with her and are thrilled we did! Some teachers don't look at the whole picture. My point was - learning social skills will be the main focus in his pre-school class. Since he is so far behind in those and has so much to learn - how CAN he get bored? And, if he learns some other academic things in the process - well, more power to him!

In addition, in both of his schools, my son has been used as a "role model" to help other kids. In ECSE, it is with letters and also with speech. The speech pathologist has my ds make a sound and has the others imitate it. My ds loves that he gets to "help teach"! At Head Start, they had been putting the class trouble maker next to my ds hoping that ds would positively influence him. My ds tried REALLY REALLY hard as he became friends with this kid and his twin brother (who is in a different class but they play on the playground and ride the bus home with ds). But, last week the teacher and the bus driver decided that this was not working - which was just about the time my ds started complaining about this boy and that he didn't want to be around him any more (good judgment on his part!). Now obviously, they weren't using my ds alone - they provided guidance and my ds was enthusiastic about trying to get this other boy to behave better. But, it didn't work and that is fine. I think ds learned a LOT from this experience and he is now saying he wants to invite everyone in his Head Start class - except this other boy. Which to be quite honest, I have no problem with as I don't really want him in our house. He got so bad last week that the bus driver refused to let him on the bus - they had to call his mom to come pick him up!

Anyway, ds has not gotten bored one bit. One thing we did was we changed pre-schools. Ds was in a private nursery school (mainstream) without any aide last year. He did totally fine, but they didn't push him enough. He did a whole TWO art projects the entire year because the teachers would never do more than ask him one time if he wanted to do art today. I felt ds needed a little more structured environment. He also attended ECSE last year - but there is a new, very enthusiastic teacher thie year (hurray!). So all in all - he has new curriculum, new classmates and it probably feels much different to him. Plus, our Head Start does one-hour social skills lessons twice a week for all of the kids. I Believe ds is the only child with a diagnosis in his classroom - the rest are generally children who speak English as a second language. The teacher today reported that ds is doing AWESOME and playing with several of the kids - intiating it as well as responding positively to others asking him to play (which apparently happens a lot).

Someone else brought up the point of being with typical peers. I totally agree. Ds is MUCH less social at ECSE. Which is kind of odd if you think about it - there are 20 kids in his class at Head Start with two teachers and a "grandma". At ECSE, there is one lead teacher, two paras, a speech therapist and an OT so there is usually at least 4 people in the classroom for 8 kids. Ds needs lots of prompting there to interact. But, all of these kids have social deficits and I think it is hard to learn social skills from other kids who also have social deficits. I was just saying to dh tonight that I would love to start a social skills group which included NT siblings - because who would better understand how to talk and interact with our kids? And then there would be typical peers (who are hopefully more patient than other typical kids) showing our kids how to interact.

Well, just my two cents and I need to go to bed!

I had this dilemma also Corbin was 5 years and 5 months when he started kindergarten and I could have held him back another year but I chose not to. Accademically he was ready for kindergarten and he has not fallen behind. In fact we just removed all the math, and reading stuff out of his IEP because he can do the work easily. He only has issues with handwriting as far as actual education stuff goes. Socially/maturaty wize he is behind however and this is a struggle but I feel he gets more one on one assistance now than he would have ever gotten in another year of pre k special ed. He is at school all day rather than only half a day and they have longer to address these issues.

My dilemma with holding him back a year was my other son who is nearly exactly 2 years younger is advanced. Incredibly advanced he is working on things now at home with me that Corbin started on in Kindergarten this year with the rest of his peers. I was afraid if I held Corbin back and chose to move Brecken up a year they would end up in the same class. That certainly wouldn't work for either of them.

It is a hard decision and one I struggled with myself. I am very glad I chose to put Corbin in this year though. It seems he has a special bunch of kids in his gen. ed class and they have accepted Corbin's differences and actually try to help him out rather than ostricize him.

I hate to be gender-biased here - but I think it is easier for some girls. I have some concerns about my dd who is born in May, but I would guess that when it comes time to send her to kindergarten, that I will do so even though she will barely be 5. Plus, girls on the spectrum present differently.

It totally depends on the child. I did a LOT of observing in the classroom, asking teacher's opinions, observing ds in lots of environments with various-aged kids. He consistently did better with kids who were about a year younger than him. That is what helped me make my decision and I am just thrilled with it. Each child is different so you have to take into consideration all sorts of circumstances. We were fortunate in that - now that we are moving in June - ds will be starting kindergarten in our new town (wherever that may be!) and he won't be starting 1st grade in a different school where all the other kids were together in kindergarten. Just my thoughts....

[QUOTE=snoopywoman]

Heather, you must have meant 65 pounds because otherwise he would be close to my height! [/QUOTE]

LOL yes sorry, 65lbs and somewhere between 50 and 52inches. He is in an 8 in pants if that gives you an idea. Thick through the chest and broad shouldered, but not fat at all.

[QUOTE=snoopywoman]

Laws are 7-16 for compulsory education, so in theory we could wait.

[QUOTE=snoopywoman]

He is actually enrolled in headstart now. It is a regular class, but they have an extra aide in the class. 5 kids of the 15 have developmental delays of some sort. The special ed teacher pulls him out for an hr a day, and the st and ot pull him out for work too. He ha He is doing REALLY well in the class, and is age appropriate for most of his skills. His speech is probably a yr and a half behind still-- coming along quickly, but still a ways to go. he is ooooh so chatty LOL Very conversational with adults, not quite there with kids. s come a LONG way with fine motor, and can cut pretty well now, but still needs a bit of work writing--- its more of a pressure issue-- he can write w markers, he just isnt pressing hard enough for pencils. He is reading well well above his grade level. Self help skills are all on track, except he needs a little help buttoning his pants. Gross motor is way behind, which we are going to address in his iep in a few weeks-- its the one thing we haven't been working on at all this year, and boy can you tell it! Socially he is very friendly, but not great at carrying on a conversation . Social speech with other children is something that we are addressing at his IEP in feb. Liam didn't start with any sort of therapy until the end of March last yr though, and was off for summer. He has made remarkable progress in the time he has been in therapy-- all of the therapists are amazed at his progress. Another year in preschool and I think he would be on the mark with the areas that he is still behind in. THAT is what makes me want to hold him back another year. If we were even dealing w a Feb bday, I would have no problem holding him back. He is SO big though! The kid closest to his size in class is probably 3-4 inches shorter than him now. My husband is like look, hes going to be a head taller than his classmates anyway, whats another 3-4 inches LOL. He is an incredibly sweet and gentle kid though, so aggression isn't an issue at all.

[QUOTE=snoopywoman]

There is SO much expected out of kids these days in kindergarten and I just didn't think ds was up to it. He is not reading yet - although today, he figured out the word "cup" on his placemat! We have this "I can set the table" placemat which has pictures of each item that is supposed to go on it and each object also has the name written on it. I asked him what the word said and he first responded "milk" without even looking at it (guess what he usually drinks!) and I told him to actually look at the word. He told me all the letters (well, he's known those since he was 2!) and then I had them sound them out and he got it! He has been able to read a few of the first BOB books, but I have to wonder if that is just repetition. Because of course he memorizes most things after reading them a few times.

[/QUOTE]

lol my son was huge at birth as well, and grew really rapidly. I guess my biggest fear is regretting holding him back in jr high or high school. I meen if he hits that teen growth spurt in 5th or 6th grade, where most boys don't until 7-8th, how obvious will it be? Will it be harder then?

gosh being a parent is hard!!!
heather

My eldest daughter (NT) was barely 5 when she started kindergarten and her maturity was behind..she was a clingy one, cried alot :) They wanted to hold her back not because of academics but for maturity..we didn't do it because she had already made some freinds and afraid she would resent us later. She is now in high school taken honor classes, marching band and tons of friends.. Some of my friends that have kids on the spectrum resorted to putting them in private school or montisori(?) because their kids couldn't handle 20+ kids in a classroom. Here some of the private schools will let you provide your own aide for your child...cost is totally on you though but it is nice to have that option-public schools here won't allow outside people in the classroom. Also some private schools are 1/2 day kindergarten which is an option. The one I know that is used alot here is Primrose because they allow the child in with the label of autism...some won't. Sarah's way of dealing with public school is being very quite and kinda tuned out. This is part of her personality though from birth. I didn't see her any different in Pre-k class either..she was always the one by herself and quite-but she looks and notices everyone around her. I was so afraid she would get ignored because of this trait but so far her teacher has her at the top of the list for keeping an eye on (so I am told)as I am not allowed to observe her in class. She would instantly want to go home if she saw me anyway:P I was happy that she wasn't put into autism classroom...they told me she was too verbal to be in the class and she needed to be with typical kids. She is doing fine..no meltdowns or problems. She loves the structure and rules of school and actually told one little girl that was giving the teacher a hard time:

" Hannah you need to sit down!! You are not a good listener! The teacher said "sit down!" and "you are not showing good behavior! " all the while shaking her finger at her:) of course the teacher applauded this proclaimation but I was scared to death the other child was going to beat her up when no one was looking

She tries to use the rules at home too.."mama we don't talk...are you listening to my words? pointing to her mouth

Blessings,

Shelley

Oh... I'm already worried about this.

My main goal is to have Bug mainstreamed for Kindy - On Time.

He has a Late January Birthday (cut off is Sept. 1st here). So not only will be be exactly 5.5 - he is a big kid! He already looks five!

Not to mention he has twin sisters coming one year behind him. Holding them back is not an option - with their late Feb. Birthday - they will also be exactly 5.5 one year later...

I can't imagine how damaging it would be for all three of them to be in the same class!!! (One Kindy Class in our neighborhood school).

Hi everyone,

I too have the same dilema.

I have twin boys who just turned 4yrs old in 2006. One has dx of PPD-NOS the other is NT. Their both small. My son with PPD-NOS is acedemically ready for kindergarden but with his speech/communication skills which affect his social skills and focus skills he is not. In our district (Long island), him and his brother would go to kindergarden this year but if we hold him back the district will not pay for his services.

We may move to NJ where the cut off for kindergarden is earlier so he would get another year of Pre-k and services.

My NT son is ready both acedemicaly and socially but since they are twins I would like to keep them in the same school year as well as the same school. This is easy to do at least currently.

To me it seems more so than not, it helps to keep term back if you still get services is the consensus. I think for kids with issues at least in the early years it maybe better to be one of the older kids and catch up with skills than it is to be one of the younger kids and be behind on skills.

Let me know what you do.

Thanks

I'm lucky that Jasper is a January baby, so he won't be eligible to start
Kindergarten until he is about 5 years,8 mo.

But I will chime in here and say that is is even very popular in my neck of the
woods to wait a year with fall babies--I'm talking about the 'typical' kids
here. I wouldn't give so much thought to size. Readiness is the most
important thing. Too early can be disatrous. I was always the TALLEST kid
in my class, at least a head taller than most of my friends. I just grew early
and stopped at 5'9" at age 13. Jasper's taking after me in this dept. I
assure you there will be kids of all sizes in the K class.
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