@A MyAutismTeam Member You can try asking your pediatrician, state benefits departments can also point you in a direction. You can even ask in a state reps office. The ADA office would help. I didn't know anything when I started with my daughter, eventually it got so bad I just started telling everyone I met my story. I stumbled upon this lawyer, who said she had a friend, and that is how I met my advocate. Later on down the line, I cancelled my Forensic Accounting plans, and went for school for education. Now I advocate for others...I got sick and tired of being the only one at the table who didn't know the laws or what my child was entitled to, especially when it came to 4-5 department heads and staff members seeming to breeze through these 40 page IEPs.

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A MyAutis...

My son always had an iep from preschool on but was separated from the typical kids in kindergarten. It was awful. Obvious they couldn't provide the services he needed at the public school. We got an advocate and everything changed. My son is now in a great private school that makes him so happy and he's doing really well there now. Hope that helps?:)

My district really did a disservice to my daughter, despite me telling them what I saw and how she was, they were determined to label her as ADD, ODD, and ED. None of those fit her but I was at the mercy of waiting for the development peds diagnosis, which was a very long waiting list. The wait was over, and the diagnosis came back...I am the proud mother of a daughter with Aspergers. Let's just say the district did not want to admit they were wrong, nor run the risk of acknowledging that they may have not only placed her in detrimental classrooms, but at times were done right abusive. They settled, offer us an out of district placement and comp ed. The placement was with NHS Autism schools, Lily did phenomenol. She was able to undue the behaviors taught to her in a very aggressive ES classroom as well as learn some socializing and coping skills for dealing with stressors. (She has sensory processing issues, related to light and sound, as well as often being hypersensitive to touch.) So our experience in an Autism setting was p ossitive, she has returned to a gen ed population because academically she needs the challenge (153 IQ). There are definitely classrooms/schools that understand varying types of ASD supports, and then there are schools that do Not! The most common way for me to spot these classrooms are seeing that they are filled with aids, that go through the motions. They are also focused on the lower functioning children on the spectrum, and heavily focused on preventing things like stimming and the like. Some of the classrooms that I have seen work really well have a variety of staff, specifically familiar with AS, and not just Special Ed. Aids in the classroom have a repoire with the children, and the ones they work with the most; well, they have little trinkets or strategies that they have discovered on their own, to work with that particular child, and are willing to share. These staff members actually look sad at the end of the day to have to leave. Behaviors are recorded but are constantly positively reinforced, and rather then losing patients with stimming, identifies it and diverts attention to something else, as opposed to the all to common "Quiet mouth!" I like the classrooms that employ a mix of strategies and incorporate ABA. Some places I see use ABA and it almost becomes a drill, once they consider something mastered, they move on never to return, and they live food rewards...let's face it, I'd do anything for an M&M too! So I am always careful of how I see them use the ABA method. As for an inclusion environment, I've seen them work really well too, especially if it's a true coteaching model, or if the teacher is dual certed for both gen ed and special ed. I would explore Gen ed, before moving to AS classrooms, just for the opportunity to have my child around a variety of different ability students, (maybe even in the hopes they can help teach at least 20 kids tolerance and acceptance).

I transferred my daughter to an ABA-based school when she was 7 and in second grade. She has made great progress, but we also have ABA therapy privately. Some folks have had luck in public school, but that has not been my experience. I would never send her back to public school.

Thank you! I was a speech therapist before having my son. I never knew the stress from the parent's side. Thanks for the help.