Transition
The transition from the old new school to the new new school happened this week with shockingly little uproar. Our daughter took the change like a champ and has surprised everyone working with her with how well she is doing. Everyday we get pleased notes about how funny she is and how happy she seems in the new program etc. (She is still not a big fan of math. This seems to be a family trait.)
So this seems to have been the right program for her after all. We are as pleased as we could be with the teachers and other staff there, they really seem to know their stuff.
A couple of things we did that seemed to work well- first I kept her out of school for the week before she started at the new school. This gave us all a bit of a break from dealing with school and gave her more of a fresh start. Also distanced her a bit from the school she had been going to. Then when we went to visit the school we made sure that her aide (who moved with her from the old new school) was there. I also took pictures of the school and my daughter at the school and the various teachers she would be working with and made her a book about it.
Of course the thing that probably made the biggest difference was that the interpreter they are using for her and the aide who works with her in the afternoon are both from the old new school. Having them move with her was such a blessing that I could just cry. Next year when she goes to high school the aide she has now is planning to go with her, we are strongly advocating for this as it would make the transition to high school sooo much easier. (Plus there aren't a whole lot of ASL native speakers who also want to work with a child with autism. Her current aide is both.) Heck there aren't a whole lot of people who sign AND are willing to work with a kiddo with autism. In the old district they found someone who was willing to work with our daughter and taught her to sign (it wasn't as critical when she started as our daughter was in the Deaf program for the first few years she had that aide and by the time she left the Deaf program the aide could sign very well after spending years surrounded by Deaf people all day long.
So this seems to have been the right program for her after all. We are as pleased as we could be with the teachers and other staff there, they really seem to know their stuff.
A couple of things we did that seemed to work well- first I kept her out of school for the week before she started at the new school. This gave us all a bit of a break from dealing with school and gave her more of a fresh start. Also distanced her a bit from the school she had been going to. Then when we went to visit the school we made sure that her aide (who moved with her from the old new school) was there. I also took pictures of the school and my daughter at the school and the various teachers she would be working with and made her a book about it.
Of course the thing that probably made the biggest difference was that the interpreter they are using for her and the aide who works with her in the afternoon are both from the old new school. Having them move with her was such a blessing that I could just cry. Next year when she goes to high school the aide she has now is planning to go with her, we are strongly advocating for this as it would make the transition to high school sooo much easier. (Plus there aren't a whole lot of ASL native speakers who also want to work with a child with autism. Her current aide is both.) Heck there aren't a whole lot of people who sign AND are willing to work with a kiddo with autism. In the old district they found someone who was willing to work with our daughter and taught her to sign (it wasn't as critical when she started as our daughter was in the Deaf program for the first few years she had that aide and by the time she left the Deaf program the aide could sign very well after spending years surrounded by Deaf people all day long.