“They won’t go to kindergarten in diapers!”…well, actually, they are.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My siblings and I were raised in traditional cloth diapers before the advent of disposable ones. All potty-trained before age 2, according to my mom.

WTF is the issue here?

In my experience as a special Ed teacher, constipation issues seem to be common in kids with autism. There are also other factors that may make toilet training hard for kids with ASD (loud flushing, reluctance to use public bathrooms). Many more students with autism are mainstreamed now because they have average to above average intelligence and can be successful in the mainstream classroom. The schools need more staff to make this all doable.

No they don’t. Autism is not actually a reason not to work to potty train by five.

No one said kids with autism shouldn't potty train before 5. They (a special ed teacher, so someone who would know) said that toilet training can be harder for ASD kids. Meaning it could take longer. An ASD kid might start kindergarten in diapers despite working on toile training for years prior.

My kid trained at 4 after years of working on it. And among the obstacles were a seeming inability to know when peeing was urgent, a rigid refusal to interrupt an activity to use the toilet, and intense fear of using a regular toilet (as well as fear of flushing, fear of wiping, and definitely fear of using any toilet outside our house). Also severely picky eating that can cause digestive issues.

Guess what diagnosis my kid got at 6?

And you made an effort and trained your kid at 4.

And my kid has a milder form of autism and the sensory issues were easier for me to overcome than some of the traits of more complex ASD cases when it came to toilet training. Most people don't realize my kid has ASD when they meet her and our K teacher was skeptical about the diagnosis because she has no academic challenges and she uses advanced verbal skills to mask social challenges and negative behaviors. The belief that all kids with ASD who aren't toilet trained by four had parents who just failed to "power through" is BS.

The point is that when we were struggling with toilet training, no one gave us any grace or considered our child light have been tougher to train. I blamed myself a lot and bought into the idea that it was my fault. It was only after diagnosis, the summer between K and 1st, that I realized that the phobic behaviors and rigidity we had encountered were more than just a "threenager" or normal toddler resistance.

and yet you DID potty train before K.

Yes but the a child with a less mild presentation of autism might be harder to potty train and therefore it might take longer. That's the point. Not every child is the same. My child trained at 4 and plenty of people thought this was evidence of "laziness" or other failure on my part even though I was working very hard to potty train my child. Turns out she has a neurological issue that made it harder, even though her presentation is very mild and at the time we though she was just "strong willed" or that we had done Oh Crap wrong.

I know many kids with ASD who have more severe presentations and could easily see them getting to kindergarten without being fully potty trained. Also one thing that can happen with ASD kids is that transitions are extra hard and you are more likely to see a regression in something like potty training due to the stress of starting a new school or a new classroom environment. My own kid had a lot of pee accidents in K despite having been toilet trained for a year because the stress of the higher behavioral and academic expectations in the K classroom triggered some of her ASD behaviors including becoming non-communicative or refusing to interrupt an activity to use the bathroom. So I would also assume this would be more likely in a child with a more severe ASD presentation, and you might choose to start K in diapers to ease that transition if they'd only recently trained.

Some of you are just convinced that the only reason a child would not be toilet trained by K is lazy parenting and are ready to ignore all evidence that SN parents tend to be among the least lazy parents because they cannot afford to be.

“More severe” presentations of ASD have IEPs. Usually toilet training is part of that IEP at this age. And frankly, children with forms of “more severe” autism are rarely in a gen Ed classroom to begin with. If autism is *disabling enough* to require diapers (which is more than an occasional accident), the gen Ed classroom is probably not the best fit.

Oh cool, someone who has no idea what they are talking about.

As a number of SN parents have explained on this thread, you don't just magically get an IEP if your child has a diagnosis. You need to be able to show that their disability impacts their ability to learn. That's what IEPs are for. So no, not all kids with even more severe presentations of ASD have IEPs.

Also, IEPs are often narrowly drawn. Toilet training will only be included if it's a problem that inhibits the child's ability to access education. So a child who is incapable of using the toile independently will have it in an IEP, but a child who simply wipes inadequately probably won't. Schools will push against anything necessitating a full-time classroom aide if they can, and toileting support usually requires this.

Also, in K and 1st, toileting issues are common for SN kids no, would not be enough to have the child removed from the gen Ed classroom. Especially in K, since many/most K classrooms have their own bathroom, making toileting support easier to provide. Also many, many non-SN kids have toileting issues in K, whether it's just occasional pee accidents or having trouble with basic toileting skills like flushing, washing hands, using the right amount of toilet paper, etc. So an ASD kid in a diaper is really not this huge outlier in a K classroom. An older kid would be a different issue and if the child still was in the diaper by 2nd or 3rd grade, and was not able to independently change themselves, then you have an argument for them to be in a SpEd classroom. The legal default is to mainstream kids unless it's not possible.

[Anonymous]

Constipation is extremely common in kids and more so in ASD kids. It's not indicative of intellectual disability or a severe presentation of autism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS PEP (preschool education program) paraedicator, and we change diapers on 3 and 4 year olds all day long. We also have most of them potty trained by the end of the year

But not all of them. So apparently even with diligent training from a professional, some kids still don't toilet training by K. Interesting.

But very few children who meet the criteria for free sped preschool are then put into Gen Ed kindergarten. I work in a large public ES and the only people in the entire building trained/allowed to change diapers are the sped preschool staff. And their class is full.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for my daily reminder to be grateful I decided against a midlife career change to teaching, which seems very much to be a nightmare in these times.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I get it…you shouldn’t have to deal with that (literal) crap. And if it is just that the parents were too lazy to potty train, then that’s unacceptable.

However, I am also the parent of a child with an intellectual disability who has gastrointestinal issues, and it is possible that he won’t be potty trained by the time he starts kindergarten. I hope his teachers will be accommodating. The kids involved may well have special needs that have not yet been diagnosed. I’d reserve judgement until you meet the families.

Yes, but this exactly is a failure of public education. These children should not be in the general population with the other children. They should be in a dedicated classroom with the other children who have significant delays and problems integrating. We need to stop dragging down the children who will be able to excel by accommodating the ones that very clearly, need extra help .

AMEN!

[Anonymous]

Some of you have made up a whole host of facts about this situation (which itself may have been invented by a troll, I notice the OP hasn't been seen since page 1) to suit your narratives.

None of you even know what the situation is. You are assuming that this 5 year old in a diaper will need the kind of care that an infant in a diaper needs. My guess is no. My kid wore pull-ups at night until 5 and we never "changed" her. She got up in the morning and took off her pull-up and put it in the trash and then wiped herself and used the toilet on her own.

If these kids are wearing diapers as an emergency measure against constipation-related leaks, it's also possible they will need no extra assistance beyond the school ensuring that fresh pull ups are available to them in their designated bathroom.

I think some of you are envisioning a kindergarten teacher needing to lay a 5 year old on a changing table multiple times a day or something and that is definitely not what is going on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS PEP (preschool education program) paraedicator, and we change diapers on 3 and 4 year olds all day long. We also have most of them potty trained by the end of the year

But not all of them. So apparently even with diligent training from a professional, some kids still don't toilet training by K. Interesting.

But very few children who meet the criteria for free sped preschool are then put into Gen Ed kindergarten. I work in a large public ES and the only people in the entire building trained/allowed to change diapers are the sped preschool staff. And their class is full.

That isn't true. Lots of kids go from PEP to Gen Ed Kindergarten with support, including kids who need support with toileting.

Your post illustrates both that it's not illegal to help kids with changing in a public school that isn't licensed as daycare, and why it's good that these parents came forward and sought the 504 now. That way either some of the existing elementary special ed paras can be trained, or a new paras can be hired. If the parents had simply waited then it would be a more difficult situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS PEP (preschool education program) paraedicator, and we change diapers on 3 and 4 year olds all day long. We also have most of them potty trained by the end of the year

But not all of them. So apparently even with diligent training from a professional, some kids still don't toilet training by K. Interesting.

But very few children who meet the criteria for free sped preschool are then put into Gen Ed kindergarten. I work in a large public ES and the only people in the entire building trained/allowed to change diapers are the sped preschool staff. And their class is full.

That isn't true. Lots of kids go from PEP to Gen Ed Kindergarten with support, including kids who need support with toileting.

Your post illustrates both that it's not illegal to help kids with changing in a public school that isn't licensed as daycare, and why it's good that these parents came forward and sought the 504 now. That way either some of the existing elementary special ed paras can be trained, or a new paras can be hired. If the parents had simply waited then it would be a more difficult situation.

+1, the whole point of PEP is to help close gaps. Some kids may still finish it and be better off in a SpEd classroom, but sounds like the PP working in the PEP classroom has actually seen a lot of success in helping students catch up with their age cohort, at least in terms of toileting. Perhaps the school system OP works in should offer services like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS PEP (preschool education program) paraedicator, and we change diapers on 3 and 4 year olds all day long. We also have most of them potty trained by the end of the year

But not all of them. So apparently even with diligent training from a professional, some kids still don't toilet training by K. Interesting.

But very few children who meet the criteria for free sped preschool are then put into Gen Ed kindergarten. I work in a large public ES and the only people in the entire building trained/allowed to change diapers are the sped preschool staff. And their class is full.

That isn't true. Lots of kids go from PEP to Gen Ed Kindergarten with support, including kids who need support with toileting.

Your post illustrates both that it's not illegal to help kids with changing in a public school that isn't licensed as daycare, and why it's good that these parents came forward and sought the 504 now. That way either some of the existing elementary special ed paras can be trained, or a new paras can be hired. If the parents had simply waited then it would be a more difficult situation.

I’m not in MoCo - I assume it’s different by county. We have zero kids in kinder in diapers in our school.