I'm curious to find out from those of you with kids in public school how much speech/occupational (or other) therapy they will be receiving at school this year? Also, are your kids going to have aides? For how much of the day? Where are your kids on the autistic spectrum and what grades are they in?
I do have a reason for asking these questions - I may have to push the special ed teachers at school for increased services for my son, and I want to see how our school compares with other schools as far as the services provided.

My little Cody is ASD, with extreme developmental delay. He is 4yrs old with developmental age of approx. 18 months to 2 years old.

He is currantly on his 2nd year of pre-school through the public school system. Cody will be receiving 2 days of speech a week this year and sometimes it might be 3 days if the speech teacher is in town that week or not. There is 1 teacher and 3 aides for a classroom size of 6 kids. The class he is in is only for kids on the spectrum.

He is class is very, very structered. They have a velcro board with little pitchures of differant things on it. In the morning he is to go to his board and take the pitchure of his first activity. Go to that activity put the little pitchure in the box next to the center and then go in to do his work. When he has completed his work for that center one of the aides or the teacher will hand him an orange strip of paper and this tells him to go to the board again. He then puts the paper back where it belongs and moves on to the next thing. This goes on through out the day. They have lunch in the main caffateria with the "normal" kids. (Though my thinking is what is normal for 1 person is not normal for another. So what is actually normal?) This helps with intergration and to get them ready for kindergarden.

Towards the end of the year the kids that are showing that they will be ready for kindergarden next year will be sitting in that room for about 1hr a day. This will help show them what to expect next year, and gives the teacher a chance to get to know them.

Cody is bussed to and from school everyday. He has made a lot of progress since starting school at the end of Nov. last year. I have watched him go from a child that was completly dependent on me and could not speak a word.
To a child who is starting to show some independance from me and speaking 2 word sentences now. He is starting to become more open to the world around him.

I am thinking of asking his teacher for a new psyco-educational evaluation again. Cody is coming up in developmental age very rapidally just in the last few months. It is truely amazing.

Well any I hope some of this helps you out. This is the kind of service that we are receiving here in Lodi, California.

ftbworker

Our daughter is 7, just entering 1st grade. The school is offering a self-contained behavior disorder placement, with as much inclusion in the regular 1st grade as she is able to handle. She is pdd-nos, very social, and very good academically, but she has trouble with transitions, with focused attention, and she is very affected by sensory issues. The 1st grade room has 20+ kids, which is really too much for her without an aide. She would probably just stim a lot.

We have used past failures to help her meet her IEP goals by the school district to get a 1:1 para, and as it looks now, her SCBD room has no other students at least to start the year, so she will basically have 2:1 support until they get more kids. We are hoping that this helps her to more quickly move to a resource room setting because we know that she will learn the best by being able to imitate the typical kids. Last year, when additional children were placed in her SCBD room, most of those kids didn't have an ASD, and our daughter came home with behaviors that she learned from the other kids, so you can see why we want to fairly quickly move her out of that SCBD placement. She also started out on the bus with other kids and by the end of the year was on her own bus with a harness and an untrained aide. This was regression in our view, so we have really been pushing this year for additional training for everyone who will be working with her, using the staff from a behavioral day care center where we sent her this summer that is run by psychologists with experience with all sorts of behaviorally challenged kids. Before kindergarten, we also had her in an ABA program for 25 hrs per week at the local university that we paid for ourselves. Our consultants really know what they're doing. Shown the failures of their own methods and the successes of others, the school district is now open to having our consultants come in and help the transition to 1st grade.

She has also been getting ST and OT since preschool, but it has been very limited, something like 30 minutes for each one every couple of weeks. She needs the OT much more than the ST, though.

Both of my kids are recieveing Speech ( not because they have trouble with words, they have trouble using the RIGHT words.) OT, rescource, PT, and social work. My oldest is mainstream for part of the day, and special ed for part. My youngest (who has less problems) is totally mainstream with an exception of his "specials"

My daughter is starting kindergarten on a limited basis. SHe will attend up to 1 hour 45 mins per day, depending on how well she handles it. She will be in the special ed pre-school the rest of the time. She will attend with one other student and an aide. She gets 2 hours of speech per week and small amounts of OT each day. We have an IEP next week to discuss getting her own aide, she qualifies, and to get behavioral therapy sessions started. We want a behavorial therapist to work with her teachers so they can get a better handle on her behavior. Our IEP will also address the problems my daughter had last year and how we all work together to fix them.

Judy, our youngest with severe autism, attends a special education school and begins this fall in an Autism Impaired classroom (last year her class was designated Severe Cognitive Impairment). This is the first time she will be in a class that has all autistic children her age. Before she was always the oldest in the class and the lowest functioning.

Her curriculum isn't really changing, though. The class is set up with up to 6 students (There have never been more than five, though), one teacher and one paraprofessional. Judy gets speech one a week, OT twice a week, PT twice a week, as well as swim therapy twice a week and adapted PE. Her teacher has a PECS board specific to Judy in the classroom that breaks down her daily schedule, as well as additional PECS pictures to use as needed.

I get monthly progress reports as well as quarterly "report cards" (The state-mandated ones that have absolutely nothing to do with Judy's curriculum and which I consider a big waste of paper and postage). I also attend 2 parent-teacher conferences every year and her annual IEP. I'm very happy with the amount of assistance Judy is getting through school. I just wish we could afford to follow up with the OT and speech at home.

Our oldest, Katie, was diagnosed last year with mild Asperger's. She attends a charter school that has been very accommodating to her needs. We had Katie's first IEP last spring and the administration tried very hard to meet Katie's needs. She will receive speech 3 times a week to help with her conversational skills, daily resource room time to help with her schoolwork, reading, and organization skills, and monthly meetings with the school sociologist to make sure everything is working.

I don't consider Katie as mainstreamed because she was never slated for special education. She has always attended a public school and, until the Asperger's was diagnosed, her only disability was a reading-specific learning disability, which has been addressed in every class she's ever been in.

All in all, I've been very satisfied with how well my daughters' schools have tried to accommodate their educations. I wish everyone were as lucky as I have been with their schools and teachers.

my son is 4 and attends a special-ed preschool thru the public school. he receives speech 3 times a week and OT 2 times a week. he also receives 30 hours of ABA therapy (at home). He has been diagnosed as mild ASD.

My grandson is 5 and has been mainstreamed into a regular kindergarten class for this school year. He originally entered school 3.5 years ago in a PPCD class and was in Headstart last year. He recieved speech and OT services during those years but they have all been discontinued one by one over the last year. The ARD committee here decided that he is not autistic :confused: even though he has been diagnosed by several doctors. We have only had custody since March so I have only just begun to fight ;) . He also has a hearing impairment they have decided his ENT is wrong about! :eek: I have just begun the process of filing a complaint with the state and requesting mediation. We are only 3 days into our school year and already there have been 2 notations in his folder about him not being able to keep his hands to himself and a report from the bus driver (regular bus, even the special ed bus was taken away) that he won't leave the other kids alone. I disagreed with the ARD committee taking away his services in his May ARD and although they are required by law to give me a follow-up within 10 days, I am still waiting 3 months later for the meeting to be set. I believe the main reason they took away his services is because his doctor and I both agree that he does not need to be medicated at this time but the director of special education services wants him medicated. Yes, she has said so! When they first took his bus service away he still lived with his mother and was forced to walk 2.1 miles on a road it is dangerous to drive let alone walk, to catch the Headstart bus. :mad:

My son is 5 and starts Kindergarten in 2 weeks. I just set up the IEP with the school board. Much to my surprise, he will be receiving a great deal of help, none of which I had to fight for. He will have an aide on his school bus. He is in a class with a 3:1, student:teacher ratio. Although it can go up to 6:1. He has access to an educational asst if the class size increases to 6. They plan to gradually mainstream him into the lunchroom with an aide, once he's ready. If not, he can remain in the classroom with the aide. He is going to receive Speech & Occupational Therapies. PT was available but not necessary. He is in a class specifically for Asperger's. It is a full day program. The first half is for cognitive learning, the second half is for social skills. We have the option of reviewing the IEP often and making appropriate changes. In fact we will be meeting again during his first month to modify his plan if needed. I now see why Cherry Hill (NJ) has the highest school tax in the region! But I am truly appreciative!