Amazingly, It's Tough to Find a Good Preschool for a Child with Autism
Tuesday July 8, 2008
An unsurprising study by the American Association of Pediatrics finds that parents with preschool-aged children on the autism spectrum are more likely that parents with typically-developing children to have a hard time finding childcare. The article states: "Thirty-nine percent of the parents of children with autism spectrum disorder reported that child care problems had greatly affected their employment decisions, compared with 16% of the children at high risk and 9% of those who were typically developing."
These findings follow an almost-equally unsurprising study which shows that families coping with autism have less money available: "CONCLUSION. Childhood autism is associated with a substantial loss of annual household income. This likely places a significant burden on families in the face of additional out-of-pocket expenditures."
The most recent study abstract concludes with this statement: "Developmental problems and autism spectrum disorder are associated with higher use of child care services and higher probability that child care problems will greatly affect employment. These findings warrant evaluation of the community resources available to families with children with special needs."
Good idea.
Comments
You know, it’s just not those who have kids with autism that have these issues. Many other disorders also make these things just as difficult. Many times general Pre K and day care are not expereinced enough or have the man power to provide the care that’s needed, and that’s true not only of autism, but would be true as well for Down Syndrome.
My child, oh, at about age 3 or 4 could not maintain general day care. Not because of his behaviors, but because the law has it ages have to be kept together, like all 3 year old in one class, a 3 year old could not be in the toddler room. They could not provide for my child who was not potty trained, and the room he had to be in for age appropriate didn’t have the wipes and so on. So what happened was he got a raw backside all the time. They always forgot my child was not potty trained.
This greatly effect my job choice but so did the lack of sleep he could tirelessly maintain.
Where there is a lack of and hardly not talked about enough, is child day care and Prk K equipped and trained in many disorders of which could handle our kids under any situation. There’s a few around the USA created by parents who went through this very same thing, but there’s hardly enough in my opinion.
my son went to a typical preschool with a full time one to one aide and we did aba at home. He turned off some kids but he did also make some friends, 2 of whom remain his good friends today (he is now 7). we live in ny state and this was all paid for (not the school, just the aide and the aba). It worked out well for us as my son was really influenced in his play by his typical peers.
Here is the thing about autism and other disabilities. there is an idea that people are being nice to do anything for them. Nice. I myself have been told that I ought to be greatful to even get porr service by someone who was employed to work with at a disabled support industry. I went through job counciling by the state. I had two councellors. The first was a little girl who was serving community service. She was there because she had been caught with drugs. When she served her time, I got another guy. he was a pharmacist who had been caught taking pills from work. He was supposed to oversee me and train me how to work at movie theatre. He went and watched movies on YOUR dime. He one day did not show up. Last i heard, no one knew where he was…
This is who government is paying for.
Openly rude people without qualifications.
Paying too much you bet. SO here is my idea for you. Instead of going on and on how way too much money is spsent. How bout DEMANDING that the govt go to proffessionals and ask what is needed for child. You think so and sso much dollars is too much to spend for education autistic child,. Gee public education starts at 8 and ends at 3 for “normal children” should it not be the same for children with autism. the same argument you saw for autistic trained teachers can be relevant for your child as well, how many [people want to lower the standards of care for your child
Demand no bs. demand that the govt not spend money to waste times. i lived here for ten years with out public transportation. No handicap service………….. but people were paid to take polls, then more polls, and do nothing…
then more polls
The handicap industry is one that done wrong, can still be very cash bennificial to people.
why dont we make sure what we are paying for is what we are getting and what is needed
It looks like you guys are really interested in the challenges that children with autism face. When I was looking for autism blogs and articles I found this really good one on the Pitch website. It is about one of the best school districts in MO being accused of abandoning its autistic students. Here is a link if you would like to take a look…http://www.pitch.com.