Pre-school intervention, early bird scheme?

[LizK]

Hope this is the right forum to post this.

 

My son is 3yrs 8mth has a speech delay and probable ASD. He is due tos tart school next year either Jan or Apr 2006. We have been referred to the area Early Years Intervention Service (preschool education team) by his paediatrician. My understand is that the Early Years team will do home visits, liase with his SALT and come up with a plan to ease his transition to school and assess what additional help he will need there. He attends day nursery 2 days a week and we are having input from the area SENCO that covers the nursery. Unfortunately due where the the city/county boundary fall nursery is in a geographically different locality to our home so a different team is involved there.

 

This morning I was speaking to the lady who runs the local NAS branch and she mentioned the Early Bird Scheme. I've never heard of this before but she said it was a scheme for children with ASD that involved home visits and group meetings. I am now wondering is this essentially what the Early Years team does or is it something different?

 

Can anyone shed any light onto this?

 

Liz x

[sarahjane]

Hi my son who is 6 has just been diagnosed and we were offered a place on an earlybird scheme or a help programme. I have opted for the latter as it seems more relavant to H. But the early bird scheme seemed v good to. It is run by the NAS and is a 3 month programme for parents of pre school children with an asd 2 places are allocated to each familly, and a series of session on understanding asd are held. They are run by professionals trained by nas. It is different from the early years team

The help programme is also run by the nas and is aimed at parents who have had a diagnosis in the last 18 months and there are different sessions depending on the age of your child and it caters for up to adults. I will let you know how we get on hen it starts but can't wait!

[Sallya]

The Early Years first visiting team are different, they come into the pre-school/nursery to share strategies/ disscuss what is going well and aid transition into first school/ pass records on to first school.

[smallworld]

Hi,

we did the earlybird course late last year I can recommend it for your age child. We found it very useful and a great chance to meet other parents and professionals.

In our area, the early years team are called 'pre-school inclusion'. Know wonder we're all confused as to who does what !

 

wac

[baddad]

Hi liz -

 

I'd agree with the others here that early bird is a very good and useful programme, but a couple of words of caution... The stuff they talk about and strategies they suggest are very 'orthodox' and (some might say) stereotypical. Certainly worth attending, but take on board the bits you find useful rather than trying to pigeonhole (excuse the pun) your kid into the nice, standardised, early-bird box. How much you get out of the programme depends on where you are on the ASD learning curve, but even if youre a good way along it there's still mileage in EB as a 'refresher' course. Two things they push (or did in 'my day') really hard are rigid timetables/structure and PECS. These two things have never applied to my son, and this became a major bone of contention... I've said this before, but sometimes the attitude of professionals is "This is how we do it" (and then blame the kid if it fails) rather than, "This might apply and be useful"...

Trust your instincts, not theirs - you're the expert as far as your littlun's concerned

L&P

BD

[oracle]

I have to agree with Baddad here Early Bird is certianly worth attending so long as you then adapt it to your own child and do not try to adapt the child to the programme. Some of the things in the programme are right for some children but not for all.

 

I have to say that I personally believe that while structure and routine may well be necessary for our children we have always tried really hard to introduce flexibility into our day. I think that they hang so much on the 'structure' peg because it really helps the schools that they children will attend.

 

We have one parent in our group whose child was very verbal and they were being told that they MUST use pecs - when there was really no need for this system. Pecs can be useful even for a verbal child because sometimes when they are stressed and unable to communicate they can use pecs. But to be forced to use it just because it is part of the programme is silly.

 

In our area Early Bird is used for younger children with a dx while Help is for parents who have an older child.

 

Carole

[smallworld]

I've always argued that our lack of structure and routine is what has prevented our youngest son from becoming more rigid in everything. At home he's quite happy with doing/eating whatever and whenever, but school seem to thing that he is distressed by any change in routine. I get the impression that the experts think I'm talking **** and don't realise how much 'routines' could do for us ?!

We were lucky with our Earlybird experience, the course leaders weren't 'rigid' about the exact content set in stone in their guide.

[oracle]

When Matthew was in school his routines and structure was very rigid. But we soon realised when we took him out that when his stress levels were not high his need for all of this 'structure' was not needed. I am often looked at with great scorn in meetings with professionals when I state that we have a son with autism who does not thrive on routine. Matthew now loves the challenge that each new day brings, and most of the time, although not all, he is very flexible and willing to go along with last minute plans. We have no set routine to our working day and nor do we want any. There are a couple of his routines that he still likes to keep and they are bed time routines. This is brilliant for us as they occur at the end of the day.

 

The biggest routine that we managed to lose altogether was his morning routine, which had to be followed to the letter. Now he strolls down the stairs and just goes with the flow. Before he had to be carried down the stairs, sat on the sofa, curtains and blinds then opened, gas fire switched on no matter how hot it was, and then finally he sat and waited for me to say his breakfast was ready. I timed him one morning and he sat there and waited for almost an hour before he started looking for me and asking where his breakfast was. I found this scary. If I tried to come back into the Sitting Room without the breakfast he was hysterical. Once the tray had arrived we could get on with the day. Now he is very flexible. I do not believe that rigid rountines really are the order of the day. Given the right environment I think that it is Ok to try and teach flexibility. I have found that it has opened many more doors for Matthew to enjoy.

 

Although I do relaise that routines and structure are important for some children with ASD. My eldest is still most unhappy if his routines are changed without prior warning or notice. But as parents I believe we have a duty to test the boundries and see what is possible and what is not with our children. Otherwise how can we tell what our children are capable of adapting to?

 

Carole