OT - Integrated Preschool ?

[virginiamama]

Our family has been presented with an opportunity to have DS3 participate in an integrated preschool program at DS7's school. It combines special needs kids and non-special needs kids. The idea is to help the special needs kids by having them spend time with non-special needs kids. It is the first time our school district has done this. The current preschool program is special needs only. They would have the same "resource" classes as the rest of the school, P.E., library, music, and art. It is three mornings per week. Our district is known for having excellent schools.

My DS is non-special needs and I'm wondering if anyone else has had a non-special needs child participate in a program like this. I'm wondering if it will benefit him as much as a regular preschool would. (He's been going to a nice preschool two mornings a week the school year.) I'm excited about the idea of him spending time with kids with disabilities so that he can become more sensitive and accepting at an early age. I feel bad saying this, but I'm worried that he might pick up behavior problems from some of the kids who have behavior issues. I am hoping I don't get flamed here. I'm just looking for some input. TIA!

 

[drivencrazy]

I would say go for it. I tought pre-school for many years and it is great for everyone to have the children together......... as long as there are enough teachers to meet everyones needs!!

My son is going to pre-school 2 days a week now, he loves it! There are special needs kidos there and "normal" kids there and to tell you the truth, I think that he has picked up more problems from the normal kids (he see's them do something they should not, so he sometimes thinks he needs to try it...) nothing magior and it's not really a problem, but then again he is a great kid and doesn't have issues.

Since this is something new to the school, do you have to pay? Or does the state pay? Is it something you can see going on for a while at this school? If so go for it!

 

[jodifla]

You are awesome for considering this!

I think your concerns are valid. But there are a lot of special needs kids who don't necessarily have behaviour problems. My DS has a severe language comprehension problem. He benefits greatly by being with regular talking kids. The worst behaviour your DS is likely to pick up from my DS is saying, "Nope. Sorry," when he doesn't want to do something (or can't really understand what you are asking him to do!)

 

[Twingle]

They have this at my sons school, and it seems like a great program. We are hoping our twins will go to the preschool next year (school year of '08-'09).

That being said, most of the "special needs" kids that are in the program right now have Down Syndrome. They are very sweet, and honestly, from what I've seen in the class are right on track with all the so-called "normal" kids in there.

There is also one child that is blind, and another child that is non verbal autistic. They have one-on-one aids that stay with them the duration of the school day. I don't know if they are provided from the program, the school, or whatever.

I know that the biggest thing the teachers look for in "normal" students are those children that are very verbal and are more leaders - the ones that can walk up to other children and ask to play with them.

I don't think your son would pick up any worse habits than he would from any other child - although I do know one little girl with Downs that told her mom she didn't have to clean her room anymore because she was "special", LOL!

 

[Tigger&Aidan]

No flames here - I am in the same position as you - DS has been give the chance to be a "peer" in a special ed type preschool program. I was really excited at the chance - hoping that DS would be exposed to different kids and be more sensitive, just like you are saying.

My sister who is a teacher said she wouldn't send him to this school, due to possibly picking up "bad" behaviors. I honestly never even thought of this before she metioned it but it does make sense. Of course, I believe she's mainly talking about uncontrollable type behaviors like head banging, etc. I do realize that he could pick up plenty of bad behaviors at a "normal" school too.

I would definitely reccomend visiting (more than once if you feel necessary) the class before you make a decision. That way, you can get a better feel for what type of class this will be. I have some time before I need to decide, so I haven't toured our class yet....

 

[pierresgirl]

My son is in this program and it is absolutely fabulous! He is 4 (5 next Dec. so the youngest in the class) It is 5 half days and he is a nonspecial needs student. It's in the elementary school that he will be attending in Sept and I felt it would be beneficial for him to do the program since I knew he would be the youngest and wanted the teachers to see if he could make the K transition. I had his review yesterday and she said his abilities are amazing, even better than the older kids who are also non sp.needs. so it's been great for us.

 

[mrstbalt]

At the begining of the school year a friend of mine found out that
her son was going to be in the intergrated K class. She wasn't thrilled
but as the year went on she saw it more as a benefit. Not only was the
K teacher in the class, but the special ed teacher, aid and therapists
including a social worker in the class through out the week. My DD 5 1/2 will be in there next year, currently she is in early childhood, she has autism (mild). It's a benefit for her to be with mainstream kids and ones like herself. The kids get to be with kids that are "different", maybe a little learning lesson?

 

[sl_underwood]

No flames here, you have a genuine concern. I happen to have a special needs child who is actually regressing since he started attending a special needs preschool so I can understand your concerns. That being said, I would love for my son to be able to attend a program with developmentally on track children. I think he would benifit emensely. I also think that your child will learn acceptance and tollerance easier at 4 than at an older age where being popular is a factor. However, there are many ways to teach these things without a school program, it sounds as though he is learning tolerance and aceptance at home and you are modeling appropriate behavior toward others and that will make a difference. Whatever you decide, I am sure you will make the right decision for your child.

 

[macmahony]

My oldest attend a progam like this last year (shortly, because of speech, and she was not accepted until the end of the year). Most of the kids in her class were all speech related, the class was very small, 8 kids, two teachers. That in itself was wonderful, but they did SO much with the kids, much more than the preschool she has been attending. I loved the program, and would not hesitate to send another one of my children to the same program.

 

[Starr W.]

My eldest went to special needs preschool, really helped with his social skills. His teacher was wonderful, so good in fact his younger brother is in her class as a typical student.

Alot depends on the teacher, my youngest last year had a teacher he didn't like(well neither did I, seemed rather cold) and was in the morning with alot of 3 yr olds who all seemed to be speech delayed. He was very frustrated, so we switched him this year to the pm class and asked to change teachers. He's had a ball this year, improved on his fine motor skills(as the OT and ST do alot of group activites with typical children too).

 

[CampbellScot]

Peer modeling is a very important part of special edcation pre school. The Peer models are certainly not brought down in anyway. All the kids get quite a bit of individual attention and lessons are tailored to each child. Your child will be doing a valuable service to the special needs children just by being who he is. His presence will give the other children a peer to model their behavior after. It's good for them to see that not all children screech or rock or flap their hands constantly (all self stimulatory behaviors)...research has shown that peer models have a very positive effect on special needs classrooms, especially for those children who may be ready to transition to regular pre school. When the teacher says "quiet hands" to a special needs child, it's very good for him to see what "quiet hands" look like on a peer, or "nice sitting" or "quiet mouth"...all of those requests are given every day, but often it doesn't quite make the impact it should until children see their peers doing it... It's helpful for them to see children who can and do follow directions when they are given. The social skills benefits are also huge for both sides. Children who aren't very verbal are encouraged to use their words as they see peers doing so. They learn to interact appropriately and positively with other children. It is a win-win situation.

Your child would also benefit from seeing children who are different from he is. And he'll be doing such a good thing, just by being the healthy happy boy I'm sure he is.

good luck!!!

 

[virginiamama]

Thanks so much for your responses. You guys really put the "family" into the family board! I have lots to think about! Now I'm wondering if DS is the right sort of child to be used as a model for behavior!

 

[java]

My children attend an inclussion school. Meaning everyone goes to the same classes together- but special needs are addressed generally outside of homeroom. Meaning during math some go see Miss S. During reading others might go to Mr.B. There are honestly more physical disabilities, vs. behavioral ones. So in a class with a blind child, my 12 year old has become her buddy. (Doesn't hurt that she is awfully cute!) But he will walk with her to classes to make sure that someone doesn't pound into her during the mad dash between classes. He also has a friend with Asberger's syndrom. The boy will sit on my son's lap sometimes. (part of his personal boundaries issues) My son just rolls with it. What has all this done for my son- it has fueled his compassionate nature.
Now that being said. Preschool is a different situation. Kids need a lot of attention at that age. What will be the student to teacher ratio? Really in thinking about it more I would say they will spend quite a bit of time out of the class. I would probably go for it. That is coming from someone without a special needs child- but I have friends that do have special needs children. I wouldn't want them to feel that we didn't want to be around them so I use that same decision making with people that I don't know also.l

 

[Starr W.]

Was just at preschool today, had to bring in a treat for the birthday boy! Superintendent of the district was visiting the class today and read to the kids!

We have 13 kids, 1 head teacher and 2 assistants.

 

[tiggger1]

we signed my daughter up for our towns intergretted preschool.. unfortunetly there were 117 kids in the drawing, she is # 38 and they are only taking 32, so she is an alternate. Im am praying that I will get the call saying she is in..because last year they went through all their alts...I m going to call the school tommorrow to see where she is on the list

 

[Mouse House Mama]

My ds is in an intergrated pre-school. He is not special needs. We think this program is great!!! He gets the added benefit of speech therapists, Occupational therapists etc. because they are part of the curriculum even though he personally has no need for them. The environment is wonderful and I think it is not only good for the children with delays, I think it is great for the typically developing children as well. I have nothing negative to say about it at all.

 

[Becky2005]

Our park district's preschool is like that. Let's see I had my older son go through and he went as a "model" child -- so I had to pay the park district price. OUCH! LOL! He did need speech though that was picked up on with having the speech pathologist in the room (so basically when he turned 4 & went for the 2nd year, I didn't have to go through a seperate evaluation to see that he hadn't improved, she just listened to him doing his show & tell).

THEN, I had my 2nd oldest son go through the same program except this time he was one of the Special Ed kids. He got speech, sensory stuff and eventually occupational therapy through it.

EXCEPT for the fact that some kids rode the bus -- I wouldn't have been able to tell you who was the special ed kids & who were the model kids. Only the kids in the special ed program got to ride the bus (I *loved* the bus -- DS *loved* the bus -- I had a newborn when he started so that was a bonus for us.)

They did it seamlessly -- the main differences were that the specialists were in the classroom (which I actually loved - I should have listened to them more for my oldest DS as they know what they are talking about if a problem appears. I paid much more attention with my 2nd DS!!) and the special ed kids followed the school calendar where as the park district kids had a few different days/times off, plus I think they ended about a week earlier than we did.

Sometimes they would pull a child out for services to the hall if it was too distracting in the room but sometimes they would just include the other kids in the game or whatever they were doing if it was in the classroom since it would be done during free play and kids would want to join.

 

[TAEMom]

It's great that you're getting lots of positive responses about this. Unfortunately, I can tell you about "the other side."

I was thrilled when my youngest DS was chosen by lottery as a "typical" kid for the public preschool (except for the fact that it was very, very expensive) and thought it would be a great experience for him. Since he is the little brother here at home, I thought it might be nice for him to get to be a role model for a change. He started in Sept, and by Nov/Dec, we had pretty much decided that we would not send him there the following year. We gave up and we pulled him out in January, b/c we had a totally miserable child at that time. He was a PM student, but he would wake up in the morning and the first thing he would say was, "Please don't make me go to that school." He also started talking about the town that we moved from a year earlier (when he was only 2) and saying he wanted to go back there! Yikes!

The district (top 5 rated in the state) told us that the NAEYC accreditors hadn't even been able to tell which kids were special needs in the class, so most needs were minor. That was not so. There were severely autistic children, multi-handicapped, and maybe a child or two that was only there for speech. The ratio was supposed to be 60% needs/40% typical. Unfortunately, they couldn't keep enough typical kids in the class to meet that ratio. By the time we left, there were only 3 "typicals" and 9 with needs, and the other 2 typical kids were girls. There was only a teacher (in her first year!) and an aide, and the aide spent most of her time trying to keep one child in the classroom. My guess is that my child was virtually ignored. I know of 4 other children that had similar experiences that ultimately left the school. Unfortunately (and this is obviously a generalization), the parents that seem to like it and stick with it, are also the ones that comment about how nice it is that the 3 yr.old program is 4 day (most are only 2) and how nice that you aren't expected to volunteer (in fact, we were discouraged from volunteering and I hated the lack of connection w/ other parents from the class). My son did fantastic when we switched to another preschool in Feb. that year.

So, bottom line is that I think it matters a great deal how the class is integrated. Other districts have more typicals than needs, which makes more sense from a role model perspective. There was no way that those special needs kids were benefitting from my son being in there - most of them couldn't have interacted with him at all. Also, if you get a new teacher, I think they are often overwhelmed that first year or two.

I know this is not "PC," (and I was an elementary teacher myself), but I have come to believe that mainstreaming definitely benefits the special needs kids more than it does the typical kids. Yes, they will learn empathy and caring, but it might be at the expense of their own academic needs.

 

[mom2001scrapper]

My son was the typical student in an integrated preschool. He benefited tremendously. He was always the shy kid so it left him be the "leader" of the group. It also helped me identify some skills that my son needed to practice before heading to kindergarten.

I work at an agency that has an integrated preschool. I work with the birth to three group who have developmental delays. I am always stressing to parents that all children need socialization whether it be story time at the library or the church nursery.

Visit the school and see the program in action. Maybe you could talk with parents of other typical students and find out their likes and dislikes of the program.

Julie

 

[Rustysmom]

My DS has PDD which is a form of autism and attends an integrated class. I just wanted to say thank you to all who have let your what we call NT (neurologically typical, which sounds better than "normal" LOL) kids be role models for kids like mine.

He went to a special preschool and came out worse than when he went in, so we fought for inclusion. They wanted to send him to a special school for emotionally disturbed children, and I asked them how he would ever learn to behave if he was around kids who had even worse behavior than him? They finally agreed, and as a matter of fact, he was the guinea pig for inclusion in his school. They even filmed him and his class to show how well inclusion works so they could show it to other schools.

At first the parents were up in arms. They had a big meeting to fill everyone in on inclusion and I was so hurt because so many moms were afraid and didn't want their kids exposed to kids like mine. Years later I heard how happy they were about the program, because their kids had the benefit of help from my DS' para (who is supposed to be 1-1 for him, but she helps the other kids too), and from the special ed. teacher.

The NT kids are generally wonderful to my DS. They always help him and look out for him, and I've rarely heard about anyone making fun of him. Maybe one or two kids, but there are always kids like that everywhere. Because he's been around them, his behavior has gotten so much better! He's doing pretty well in school.