Did your school treat DC differently with a diagnosis?
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Anonymous
| DS is 4 and all year all the teachers at his preschool have been telling me how sweet, kind, etc. he is. I always used to find one of them talking with him when I would go to pick him up. They never raised any concerns about him being aggressive with other kids or them. He's very verbal, pretty good with self-care skills, just lacks social skills with other kids and is stuck on his own interests sometimes. About a month ago we told the school that DS had received an ASD diagnosis. Since then, I've been getting emails from the teachers, I was asked to come in to talk about his behavior, and I just got pulled aside again today. This has never happened in the 8 months before this. They're saying now that he started hitting a teacher. I have no idea what is going on because nothing has changed in our lives in the past month or at school that I'm aware of that would provoke a major behavioral issue. I'm not discounting the possibility that he's acting out in some way and we're on the waitlist for ABA. In the meantime, I've tried to gently suggest to them that when he's overwhelmed it's not a good time to "talk" to him because that just agitates him more if you say things like "look at me" when he's overstimulated already. I don't know if they're overreacting somehow now that he has a label or if I'm overly sensitive, but it just seems so strange that since we told them about the diagnosis, they're suddenly wanting to tell me every little thing he does. Part of I think what's upsetting me is that he isn't generally an aggressive kid and when I volunteer I see other kids hitting/kicking/etc. so I wonder if they're parents are getting these emails and getting called in. The year is almost out so I'm not going to raise a big issue or anything but I kind of regret telling them - it could be coincidence I guess but it really seemed to coincide with a total change in their attitude towards DS and us. |
Anonymous
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I think it is pretty unusual for 4 year olds to be hitting and kicking at preschool, in general.
Could it be that everyone else is aging into better social skills and he is stuck? |
Anonymous
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If your child is hitting a teacher (or anyone else), the school is going to tell you whether he has a diagnosis or not. So yes, you are being oversensitive.
The change in attitude probably has more to do with your child's emerging behavioral issues than the diagnosis itself... so it would have occurred whether or not you told them about the diagnosis. It sounds like the preschool is unable to handle your child. If your child is going into K next year, I would get him an IEP ASAP. |
Anonymous
| He still has a year before preschool and we're getting an IEP and possibly transferring him to a public preschool with more services. Just to clarify, he's not kicking teachers, but I hear what you're saying and I agree that it's not normal which is why we're working on it. I guess it's just strange to me that everything was fine all year and then in the last 3 weeks, all of a sudden I'm getting all this feedback. Guess it is just a coincidence. |
Anonymous
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You are not imaging it. They often bring out worse behaviors because now they are trying to "fix" him -- typically in all the wrong ways. |
Anonymous
| imagining ^^^ |
Anonymous
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16:23 My child has ASD and he was diagnosed when he was 4 in preK. Got IEP. Everything went smoothly for preK, K and 1. Starting 2nd, we had all kinds of behavioral issues and I thought maybe the school and teachers were "out to get us". Maybe. After all we had 3 yrs of "everything is fine".
Turns out that DS is growing, maturing and changing and he needs different supports/services. He had outgrown what use to work in preK, K and 1st. So we tweaked his IEP and everything is fine again and happy kid and happy school/teachers. Good luck to you! |
Anonymous
| Maybe they weren't telling you before bc they thought he would outgrow them--i but now think you might want to know so you can work on the behaviors with your ABA therapist. |
Anonymous
You'd be surprised to see my DS gen ed kindergarten classroom, that's 5-6 year olds, many of whom are prone to meltdowns and crying from time to time. As far as I know, we only have two SN kids in that room |
Anonymous
I agree, change his IEP goals. |
Anonymous
| Maybe they are trying to help you by giving you things that can be used on his IEP to justify services. Get their accounts in writing and take it to your IRP meeting to talk about the kinds of supports and services your child will need. |
Anonymous
| OP here - thanks all. Just to clarify, we don't have an IEP yet. We're working on that through the county but our meeting is in July (earliest available). I agree that the social demands are getting more complex and that's what actually prompted us to seek out a private eval. I guess I'm just skeptical that the demands have suddenly changed so much in a month that I have to hear about it all the time when everything was fine up until then. They also emailed me last week to say he had a "good" day. He's had 200+ good days, why are they emailing now? I'm SURE they don't send that to all the parents. I don't perceive they're trying to help us by flagging the issues because they're not keeping a record or anything, just catching me before or after school or sending emails. I know I'm feeling overwhelmed and raw since the diagnosis so I could be overreacting, I just wish they were more supportive instead of suddenly flagging all these new "issues." They seem very anxious to me and it feels like one more thing to manage right now. Anyway, thanks DCUM for letting me vent. |
Anonymous
Meltdowns and crying-yes. Hitting and kicking? Rarely. |
Anonymous
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Four is still very young and there are a wide range of behaviors present and kids' "personalities" change all the time and they often go rapidly through stages that come and go.
I've seen NT kids go from being the little angel in the class to being defiant for one month and then back to being a little angel again so I wouldn't be surprised at the change in behavior per se. It isn't unusual for ASD kids to be more delayed than other children so a typical 2 year old to start and then "grow out" of his or her hitting phase it may happen to an ASD child when they are a bit older. |
Anonymous
Last time I was at indoor recess for my DD's class I saw three boys in three separate incidents hit or kick a classmate. It wasn't super aggressive and they stopped after one hit or kick but it definitely still happens at this age and it happens regularly.
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