Behavior problems with autistic boy in my preschool
09 Mar 2012, 12:21 am
blondeambition wrote:
I feel also that the child could probably also strongly benefit from speech therapy. I have hours and hours of speech tutorials on my free website and links to materials and websites. However, it is all for English speakers. The child could benefit from similar materials in his own language.
Basically, I have found that simplifying instructions, providing reinforcers, showing patience, providing lots of visual supports, providing lots of repetition, and observation of the child in order to understand him and predict a meltdown before it occurs to be helpful. (My older son tenses up, gets grumpy, starts looking around a lot, figits, etc., before he acts out or has a meltdown. If you can spot situations that normally provoke behavior issues or spot signs that the child is feeling very anxious, you might be able to redirect him in time to avoid the unwanted behavior or meltdown.)
Basically, I have found that simplifying instructions, providing reinforcers, showing patience, providing lots of visual supports, providing lots of repetition, and observation of the child in order to understand him and predict a meltdown before it occurs to be helpful. (My older son tenses up, gets grumpy, starts looking around a lot, figits, etc., before he acts out or has a meltdown. If you can spot situations that normally provoke behavior issues or spot signs that the child is feeling very anxious, you might be able to redirect him in time to avoid the unwanted behavior or meltdown.)
Thanks for the links. I'll check them out soon.
We had a speech therapist come in who often works with autistic kids, and she said there was nothing wrong with his speech and nothing she could do to help. I didn't like her - she seemed very unprofessional - but it would be very difficult to find another one in our situation.
The suggestions you make for ways to help him sound like the ways I already use. I can tell what's going on with him (partly because I've been through so much of it myself and I really understand how he feels), I know when he's going to melt down, and I know how to avert it and prevent him from causing trouble. The problem actually isn't so much that I don't know what to do with him. It's that there are 25 kids and 2 teachers, and there are several kids with much bigger behavioral problems than him who require constant supervision. We have to always be watching him to make sure he's not destroying things or hitting kids, but at the same time, we really, honestly, truly can't spare the time to be with him often enough, and the second we turn our backs, something is going wrong.
What we really need is a diagnosis, some kind of formal therapy to help him understand *why* he needs to do certain things (if, in fact, it is possible for him to understand at this point), and some kind of personal assistant for him, at least for part of the day each day. I would love for it to be me, but my job is to teach the kids English (the other teachers only speak Czech so it's my sole responsibility), not just assist the autistic boy, and my boss has explicitly said that while she's glad I'm there to help, she can't have me with him all the time.
The more materials I can gather to show to the parents to push them to get him diagnosed, the better. It would take months for us to get a state worker to come in to work with him, and the state workers are generally not very good. The odds that the person who shows up to "help" us has any experience with this type of autism are next to nothing.
09 Mar 2012, 7:18 am
kotshka wrote:
blondeambition wrote:
I feel also that the child could probably also strongly benefit from speech therapy. I have hours and hours of speech tutorials on my free website and links to materials and websites. However, it is all for English speakers. The child could benefit from similar materials in his own language.
Basically, I have found that simplifying instructions, providing reinforcers, showing patience, providing lots of visual supports, providing lots of repetition, and observation of the child in order to understand him and predict a meltdown before it occurs to be helpful. (My older son tenses up, gets grumpy, starts looking around a lot, figits, etc., before he acts out or has a meltdown. If you can spot situations that normally provoke behavior issues or spot signs that the child is feeling very anxious, you might be able to redirect him in time to avoid the unwanted behavior or meltdown.)
Basically, I have found that simplifying instructions, providing reinforcers, showing patience, providing lots of visual supports, providing lots of repetition, and observation of the child in order to understand him and predict a meltdown before it occurs to be helpful. (My older son tenses up, gets grumpy, starts looking around a lot, figits, etc., before he acts out or has a meltdown. If you can spot situations that normally provoke behavior issues or spot signs that the child is feeling very anxious, you might be able to redirect him in time to avoid the unwanted behavior or meltdown.)
Thanks for the links. I'll check them out soon.
We had a speech therapist come in who often works with autistic kids, and she said there was nothing wrong with his speech and nothing she could do to help. I didn't like her - she seemed very unprofessional - but it would be very difficult to find another one in our situation.
The suggestions you make for ways to help him sound like the ways I already use. I can tell what's going on with him (partly because I've been through so much of it myself and I really understand how he feels), I know when he's going to melt down, and I know how to avert it and prevent him from causing trouble. The problem actually isn't so much that I don't know what to do with him. It's that there are 25 kids and 2 teachers, and there are several kids with much bigger behavioral problems than him who require constant supervision. We have to always be watching him to make sure he's not destroying things or hitting kids, but at the same time, we really, honestly, truly can't spare the time to be with him often enough, and the second we turn our backs, something is going wrong.
What we really need is a diagnosis, some kind of formal therapy to help him understand *why* he needs to do certain things (if, in fact, it is possible for him to understand at this point), and some kind of personal assistant for him, at least for part of the day each day. I would love for it to be me, but my job is to teach the kids English (the other teachers only speak Czech so it's my sole responsibility), not just assist the autistic boy, and my boss has explicitly said that while she's glad I'm there to help, she can't have me with him all the time.
The more materials I can gather to show to the parents to push them to get him diagnosed, the better. It would take months for us to get a state worker to come in to work with him, and the state workers are generally not very good. The odds that the person who shows up to "help" us has any experience with this type of autism are next to nothing.
It sounds like you are doing as much as you can, and what you are already doing is commendable. The parents need to start helping the child at home, and they need to help to secure services.
Even here in the U. S. (at least in Texas) it can be hard to get public speech services for a child whose speech issues would be classified as moderate rather than severe. The speech therapist does not sound very good, and she is probably also under pressure to limit services to the most severe kids due to budget concerns. Moderate speech issues are a big deal, though, when a child is basically mainstreamed in a class of 25 kids.
_________________
www.freevideosforautistickids.com is my website with hundreds of links and thousands of educational videos for kids, parents and educators. Son with high-functioning classic autism, aged 7, and son with OCD/Aspergers, aged 4. I love my boys!
09 Mar 2012, 9:42 am
I assume you know about this (why it's on a website from India, I don't know, but there it is; good for India!) http://www.autism-india.org/worldorgs.html#czech
Maybe they will have strategies and a better understanding of the system - you might find a way to post or email these queries to them while keeping the anonymity of the parents and child to see if they have suggestions (or even language that might help.)
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