Diagnostic Classroom.....Anyone's experiences with this?

[waiting2bemommy]

I am wondering if anyone has had any experience with their child going to a diagnostic classroom. Ds has been enrolled for a three week stint in a diagnostic preschool classroom, to start next week. At first I was all for it, but the more I think about it, the more nervous i get.

First, I have heard that it is chaotic. There are up to 12 preschoolers (all with diagnosed or suspected special needs) a teacher, and an aide. I understand that the classroom by necessity is a revolving door of professionals (speech, OT, PT, audiologist, social worker, etc) and that works for me because I feel that the more eyes there are in the classroom, the better. However I also know from experience that the environment can be really chaotic as a result. All of the kids are starting out new together, at the same time, and even in a typical preschool classroom the first month or so is rough behavior wise. I can't imagine what it will look like in there! talk about sensory overload for ds!

The second issue I have is that there is no guarantee that ds will continue to go to school once the three weeks are up. Either way he will be sent back home with me until his eligibility meeting when it will be decided what services, if any, he is offered. I've heard that the special ed preschool in our home school is fairly low functioning. They can send him elsewhere but realistically with the budget being cut and transportation being consolidated I really doubt they will want to bus him across the city to his right program. So..my thing is, it's going to mess him up a TON to be in school for only 3 weeks. The kid has Asperger's for crying out loud, he can't handle change, that's why we're here in the first place! I realize that it's the way the program is set up and I'm not complaining about it, but just wondering whether it is really worth it to go through with this since there is the possibility that after the 3 weeks they will decide he's not eligible and he ends up at home anyway.

I still am having trouble figuring out what of his behaviors will be accepted in the class as normal 3 yr old stuff, and what will scream "problem."

So I would like to hear anyone else's experiences with this. How did your child handle the transition? What was the class like? And what was the final outcome?

Thanks, from a very nervous mommy!

[waiting2bemommy]

bumping this....anybody????

[Rose-Roget]

I don't have experience with this setup.  The goal is for the different specialists to diagnose him in a classroom environment, rather than in a structured environment?  I have a hard time picturing how they are going to get an accurate representation of any of the kids in the classroom if it's as chaotic as you have heard - but I guess that depends on how discrepent it is from a typical preschool classroom. I am not familiar with your whole situation, but have you looked into whether your public school has a special needs preschool program?  Sorry I'm not any help.

[waiting2bemommy]

This is the public schools.

I have other threads but basically to summarize, I took ds to a psychologist and a dev ped. The ped did a one on one eval with him and dx'd him with ADHD and sensory integration dysfunction. the psychologist had us fill out a boatload of forms and evald ds twice in his office before dx with ADHD and Asperger's.

On the advice of both professionals I took ds to the public schools' preschool assessment center. ds passed with flying colors, but that only addressed his academic/cognitive skills and not the social/behavioral aspects so based on his dx and my reports (plus they saw a bit of it in the office) they decided to have ds attend a special needs preschool class which exists solely for the purpose of evaluating kids like him who pass their initial evals but may still be falling through the cracks in other areas. I found out today that there are only 8 and 9 kids enrolled in the two classes so at least there won't be too many.

However I fully intend to go down to the school and observe through the window or something and see how it is handled. If I think it's a chaotic mess, I'm not keeping him in there.

I still feel uneasy about it. But maybe that's just the control freak in me....I can't stand the unknown and it makes me anxious not knowing what to expect from this experience.

[Rose-Roget]

I can understand your anxiety over it.  It's nerve-wracking sending your kid into a new situation, especially when you know they don't transition well.  And then the need to re-transition him after 3 weeks.   At least there aren't too many kids enrolled. 

I'd probably go through with it, but I'd probably also spend quite a bit of time at that window (I know this isn't always feasible).  That way, you could also tell the evaluators what is and is not typical, if for some reason the environment is over- or under-structured and he behaves differently than typical.

I guess it's easier for them to run a program like this where the evaluation can happen for multiple kids all at once, but it's too bad they can't evaluate in the child's natural environment or in a multi-disciplinary evaluation room with maybe 1-2 other children.