Feedback on Little Buds preschool or PEP Classic for HFA 3 yr old?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
| I would love some feedback on Little Buds, the new ABA preschool through Little Leaves in Silver Spring. (Their waitlist is 5 months long). We have seen two developmental pediatricians this week (our regular one and another well known expert) who believe 2.5 year old son meets the criteria for HFA. We have our official ADOS eval at KKI in May. He had a terrible time in a mainstream preschool this year (tantrums, hitting other kids, crying spells that wouldn’t stop) so we withdrew him after several months. He’s in private OT and Speech now but it’s getting clear that he won’t be able to handle being in an inclusive preschool like St. Colomba’s and needs a more therapeutic setting to help him manage his anxiety around other kids and the sensory challenges of being in a classroom. Both developmental pediatricians recommended a combo of PEP Classic and ABA or the Little Buds preschool. He will be three in October so Maddux and Katherine Thomas are not on the table for this fall. My son has pragmatic speech delays and echolalia plus sensory processing issues and anxiety. He’s the sweetest little guy but gets so stressed around other kids and shows very little interest in them but lots of enagagemet with adults. My older son who is 4 just got his official HFA diagnosis from KKI last month but he is well established at Maddux and is in private therapies. I am feeling overwhelmed right now and would love feedback on Little Buds or PEP Classic or any other suggestions you might have. I am a bit concerned that his language development wouldn’t move forward in these settings but the docs feel that it’s more important to get him in the class with other kids in a supported way which I agree with. thanks. |
Anonymous
| How about LEAP at U of MD? |
Anonymous
| Thank you-I would love for him to do LEAP and spoke to the director. The two issues are hat he needs to be potty trained which he isn’t yet but also he needs more support to manage the stress of being with other kids, his sensory overload and sitting in circle time and handling transitions. The director made it seem that it wasn’t a therapeutic environment in that sense, but mainly therapeutic for speech and language needs. I appreciate the suggestion, though! |
Anonymous
| That's too bad. They have had several director changes (so not sure what's going on) but they took a few high functioning ASD and several of our kids were not fully PT, like mine when they started and the old directors were really nice about it. Kids didn't have to fully sit as part of the program was working with them on that stuff. They had one severe kid when we were there. I wonder who they are taking - must be really really mild language kids then as many are not fully PT and don't sit/handle transitions well too at that age. |
Anonymous
| I, too, was excited about Little Buds. Then visited their program and the place was a circus. It’s not the fact they have too many kids, rather the therapists looked so inattentive and miserable and frankly not super interested in the kids. The facilities are also on the old side. I left feeling a little horrified imagining that my son would hate it there. I now get ABA through national therapy center which comes to our home and his daycare. |
Anonymous
| Have you considered Karasik? My HFA child who was in PEP Classic for close to one year thrived there and will be in mainstream kindergarten for K with very little supports (an outcome that was unheard of two years ago). The day is fully scheduled, the teachers are all highly trained, and he would get his PEP services fully integrated in his day. They're open year-round with only about 13 days off per year, so the schedule is consistent (which is not the same thing that I can say for PEP Classic with two extra weeks off during the school year that regular MCPS is not off, plus closed every early release or delayed opening day). Even if you weren't planning on needing school the 11 hours/day it's open, it's an amazing program and the price is relatively affordable, especially compared to any of the half-day "therapeutic"-type of schools. It's on Tenbrook Drive about 5 minutes from Little Leaves. |
Anonymous
|
OP here-thank you for the suggestions! I visited Little Buds on Friday and I had a similar reaction as the previous poster. The facility was small and there was no playground. I saw some upbeat aides but some looked tired and unhappy. I am a novice with the ABA but I don’t understand how this will be helpful if my kid has major sensory issues that cause anxiety. The director was saying that the sensory issues get resolved when they control the external environment but my mommy instinct/understanding of sensory processing issues doesn’t agree with this. I am going to pursue ABA at a preschool instead of Little Buds.(If he doesn’t get the diagnosis next month at KKI then we can’t do ABA anyway because we need the diagnosis to get it covered).
Thanks also for the Karasik suggestion. I looked into this two years ago for my son but I was put off by the large class sizes and the director was so difficult to get in touch with. I had to call Sharon repeatedly and email too for weeks before I could get a response. Also at the time we were looking at the afternoon and the PEP model was in flux for the afternoon and she wouldn’t follow up with me after several attempts to get clarity about the PEP. I did call her last week and she hasn’t called me back but I am certainly willing to give it another shot. My son needs a really small class size given his anxiety. Do you happen to know if the twos class is smaller? I am going to tour Geneva soon as I learned their afternoon twos class has 4-6 kids and two teachers. Amazing! I have heard they are very willing to work with special needs students and have allowedPEP itinerant and an ABA aide in the classroom. I am also touring Potomac Glen Day School too. |
Anonymous
| We are sorry that your brief tour of the Little Buds Program left you with this negative impression. We feel very fortunate to already have had the opportunity and privilege to help so many children in the short time that our center-based ABA therapy program has been open. Since one of the goals of our program is to help children build the skills they need for school or mainstream programs, our children are often in “preschool-like” activities throughout the day. At times this may look busy since there are several children in one room (each with a one-to-one therapist), but the activities are all deliberately designed for maximum learning in the natural environment using the principles of ABA. We were particularly surprised to hear that you observed inattentive staff. Our staff are top-notch credentialed Registered Behavior Technicians who work hard 40 hours per week. Not only are they well-vetted and well-trained before working with any clients, but each of them is extremely invested in their clients’ progress. If a staff member was observed looking inattentive or under-enthusiastic during your brief observation, this may have been because they were recording data, consulting with a supervisor about programming, or possibly implementing a therapeutic program which required that they provide limited attention either to help build a child’s independence or to reduce a problem behavior. As in all that we do, we are always striving to provide the highest quality services to our clients and welcome any feedback that will help to us to improve the quality of our program through continued staff training and professional development. Thank you, The Little Leaves Administration Team |
Anonymous
7:50 on 4/25 here. As to the class sizes, there are 20 students in the class and generally about 3 teachers at 3 years old. I was VERY hesitant about the class size because my child has also had major anxiety issues (we're talking 2.5 hour full-blown anxiety attacks getting ready to go to a prior preschool because he didn't want to go). I also hear you about the directors being very difficult to get in touch with and getting answers that always make sense prior to being in the program. We almost didn't send our child to Karasik for that very reason. Sharon H becomes a lot easier to get in touch with after your child is in the program. She is hands-on with the children, has been great to me while I've been a parent there, and I get straight-forward answers now. Continue calling and emailing, or if you have a friend at Karasik, have your friend visit Sharon H in her office to tell her to get back in contact with you. I have a feeling that she's difficult to reach because she gets a lot of inquiries about the program and she does both intake and running day-to-day operations. It's a lot of work and her focus is more on the day-to-day operations side. I was told by my child's MCITP team and my child's PEP team after our transfer to Child Find, that it's not the size of the classroom that matters, but the way the teachers handle the classrooms that matter. At this point, I wholeheartedly agree with that and Karasik finds the most highly-qualified educators for these children. I believe that the head teacher of every classroom has a minimum of a bachelor's in early childhood education and that the assistants have a degree in education or be working toward one. People who they hire who do not meet their very high standards do not stay there very long. I have never once seen something that has concerned me with the way the staff interacts with the children and there are multiple children with various levels of needs in every classroom. That is not something I can say for the other private preschools where I've had children attend. As for the PEP side, I don't know what has gone on behind the scenes, but it seems like MCPS and Karasik didn't fully work out the PEP expectations for a couple of years. I haven't heard anything like that this year, and Karasik now has a multiple-person PEP team on-site everyday. In the mornings, the teacher and one or two paraeducators (I wish I paid more attention to this, honestly) provide all the individual special education hours to students by pushing into their regular classroom. The speech therapist is there at least two days per week for either small-group (2 or 3 children), individual, or push-in speech therapy, according to each child's needs. I don't when OT or PT happen or how they work because MCPS has never given us those services. The 4-year-olds (and maybe 3-year-olds?) in PEP and the Head Start program have 1.5 hours 3 days/week during nap time of additional preschool group time with the special education teacher and the paraeducators in addition to their IEP hours. During this time, they read social stories and discuss how they can achieve the desired outcome themselves and try to act things out. I've never done ABA with my child. It seems really harsh to me. What we though our child needed was a consistent schedule of full-day school that is fully-structured with educators who know what they're doing. We wanted the teachers to watch the children during free play and encourage them to play with friends and a wide variety of toys, and not just look at their phones while children run rampant. We were also willing to make mistakes along the way and pull our child out of an environment we weren't happy with (as we did with two preschools prior to Karasik). We also expected to see results, and we have seen them with abundance. If Karasik has space, I would try it. You won't have MCPS over the summer anyway, and while they say their summer program is "less structured," it's much more structured than you'll find anywhere else. Your child is going to be expensive, and if Karasik works, you're paying less than you would ever pay for loads of therapies. If it doesn't work, it's just a little bit of money you would have spent on therapies that didn't work. As an added bonus, if you get a diagnosis, you can get into the LISS lottery and possibly get $2,000 toward daycare (any daycare actually). That $2,000 savings is great when you get it. |
Anonymous
|
Op here-First off, just wanted to mention that I know of two families that are very happy with Little Buds and have seen lots of progress. At this point, it’s just not the right program for us for a few different reasons.
I so appreciate the feedback on Karasik-sounds awesome! I may even just head down to the office to catch a Sharon in person as she still hasn't gotten back in touch with me. That sounds great that they get extra social story and special education time too at the nap time. I am sorry but we are new to this-what is the LISS lottery? Is that the same thing as an autism waiver? Just wanted to add that we toured Potomac Glen Day School and I was blown away-so impressed. They are not a special needs preschool but they are very knowledgeable and have Infnats and Toddlers, PEP itinerant, ABA aides, private speech and OT therapists come to the school to work with the children. They work hard to incorporate a child’s IEP goals if they have one. They are really well trained in sensory processing issues and do consults with the awesome folks at ITS about how to best address these issues. They have different sensory strategies to help kids with their tough spots in the day and also offer noise cancelling headphones and other tools to help kids with auditory processing issues. I wanted to mention this as I don’t hear this school listed that often when people are looking for nursery/preschools that are great with the anxious/sensory kiddos like my son. |
Anonymous
Karasik parent again. The LISS lottery is different than the autism waiver. The LISS website is: https://dda.health.maryland.gov/Pages/liss.aspx. Note that his has not been updated for FY19, but figure the dates are the same for 2018 as they are for 2017. The application for the LISS lottery is located here: https://dda.health.maryland.gov/Documents/2016/FY16%20LISS%20Random%20Selection%20Application.pdf. You can send the application for round 1 in by June 30, 2018 (date of receipt, not postmark date). If you live in MoCo, you mail it to: Maryland Community Connection - 4401 Nicole Drive, Lanham, Maryland 20706. You can also drop it off in-person if you forget to mail it in early or if you want a lot of extra assurance that they received it. Generally, an IEP is not enough to qualify for LISS lottery funds, but it's worth applying since you'll hopefully be getting a diagnosis before the paperwork needs to be submitted for the $2,000. I didn't know about Potomac Glen Day School. I just checked out the website and it says nothing about MCITP, PEP Itinerant, ABA, or other therapists. Are they private for each child? The big difference at Karasik is that there is a specific MCITP team and a specific PEP team assigned to the school. Any school can have teams visit for the specific hours in the IFSP or the IEP. It's also a Christian school, whereas Karasik is secular. I also want to add that, for the same hours, Karasik will be about half the price as Potomac Glen. If you're on the local listserv for Silver Spring moms, send an email to the list looking for me and I'll get you in touch with Karasik. If you're not on the list and you're on Facebook, ask a friend to add you because it's a pretty large list. Some of the emails go to spam, so if you email me, just let me know here and I'll check for it. That way, I can make sure Sharon H gets back to you. |
Anonymous
|
I just got an email that Ivymount is making their own preschool ABA program for next school year. Here's the info:
The Ivymount Early Childhood Clinic is Opening in August 2018! The clinic will offer the following services: Provides 30 hours per week of individualized and child-centered instruction in a developmentally appropriate learning environment within Ivymount School Delivers learning opportunities in a 1:1 student to teacher ratio across the day Targets skills across developmental areas Offers assessment and treatment of problem behavior Uses an interdisciplinary teaching model, including speech and language and occupational therapy services Emphasizes parent/caregiver communication and involvement in order to ensure that each child’s progress generalizes across settings and individuals http://ivymountoutreach.ss11.sharpschool.com/cms/One.aspx?portalId=122337&pageId=5433859 |
Anonymous
|
Additional info from the email from Ivymount is:
This fall we are opening an Early Childhood ABA Clinic for young students with autism. We are pleased to offer Ivymount’s high quality, family focused, collaborative programing while providing this much needed service for young children with autism. Our goal is to find 3-6 families with children between the ages of 2.5 to 5 years old who would benefit from a full day clinic based program. Families will be able to utilize out of network insurance reimbursement for this program, assuming their plan includes this benefit. We are hoping to work closely with you and others in the community to spread the word. I am attaching the announcement flyer in hopes that you might be able to share it with your colleagues and clients. Our Program Director, Jenny Engel is available with any questions parents may have. She can be reached at jengel@ivymount.org or 301-469-0223 x268. |
Anonymous
OP- what did you decide to do? And may I ask, do you feel that a more specific private program is a better fit for HFA than PEP was? |
Anonymous
| Op here-sorry for the late post I lost track of this thread. Someone emailed me after I posted anonymously so I can’t lay out our full plan right now because there are several sensitive moving pieces right now but the Ivymount program looks fantastic. I think it really depends on your child’s needs. I know some firiends who had awesome PeP experiences for their HFA kiddos. We had a very good experience with PEP itinerant for our HFA older child at a local preschool but we felt they needed more support so we transitioned to Maddux and my older kid is soaring there. |