Yes, all this was done in a social skills group setting. There are four kids in the group, age ranging from 5-7. Much of what they are working on depends on group game playing, and I don't think you could do it one on one. Two siblings might work, though! I'm not sure which book in their product line would lend itself best to a home group type curriculum. I have "Thinking About You, Thinking About Me," but it isn't a curriculum - more of an overview of the method. I also have "You are a Social Detective!" which is a simple book with lots of visual elements and cartoons, kind of an introduction to social thinking. What they are working on in the social skills group is much more comprehensive. Is that $1,800 for the entire school year/36 weeks of classes? If so, that's not too bad a deal! Our group costs $85 per hour session. We're signed up with a charter school independent study program, which picks up the tab.

To include an example of an exercise they use in the Social Thinking program: They ask kids something along the lines of "How much do you like...cheese pizza?" on a scale from 1 to 5. Going around the room, some kids like cheese pizza a 5. Some like it a 4. Some like it a 1 (don't like it at all). For my son, it was a totally new and freaky concept that, while he loves cheese pizza (a 5), some kids don't like it (a 1). The social skills group will then continue to work on perspective taking and gathering information about other people in order to predict likes and dislikes...which is an important skill to have for conversation!

I really like the Social Thinking line of curriculum - it addresses broader issues than conversation, but works on a lot of the skills necessary for social interaction of any kind. In our area there are a variety of social skills groups available which use this curriculum. My 6yo attends a social skills group using this approach, and it has been really fantastic! "Thinking About You, Thinking About Me" is kind of the general overview. http://www.socialthinking.com/books-products/products-by-age-range/k-2nd-grade

Thank you so much, all, I have a lot to think about! I wouldn't feel comfortable revising the IEP unilaterally to cut back on therapy time. That seems like it would make for a poor working relationship with his (awesome, gifted) therapists. Previously, the IEP meetings have mostly gone along the lines of: therapist makes recommendation, school says "OK! Whatever the therapist says!" I will talk to his therapists more in the fall about what the *necessary* number of therapy hours is, as opposed to the *ideal*. I'm not sure I emphasized to them how little time our current schedule leaves us. And, I'll up my game as far as car schooling!

@Crimsonwife...Hmm, you're probably right! I'm sure that the school would be happy to cut services,. I can't see having a good working relationship with the therapists after overriding them in that way, though. Maybe I should lay out my concerns to them more clearly, prior to the IEP meeting. @OhElizabeth...it isn't just the younger kids in tow, it's that our current schedule means that therapy comes first, academics come second. When our ds was younger, that made total sense. Now, I'm not as sure. I guess he is young, and can pick up science, history, and all that later. It's just depressing that his experience with schoolwork isn't more fun. We're always in "Hurry up, we need to get to our speech/OT appointment!!!1!" mode.

My ds is 6, going on 7. He is on the high functioning autism spectrum, and has been receiving speech therapy and occupational therapy through the school district since age 3. In many ways, we are incredibly lucky. He is signed up with an independent study program through a California charter school, so the school district pays for his therapies (with private therapists), and I get to teach him at home. He has made rapid, wild, incredible progress over the past few years! Which is awesome! His language delay is basically gone, he's working at grade level in most subjects, his handwriting is age appropriate. Most of the issues he now has are more the kind of lifelong issues for many people with autism...lack of coordination, an inability to guess what someone else is thinking or might want, resistance to change. We added in social skills classes recently, which are going well. Totally what he needs. Now that he talks to just about everyone, he needs help with social thinking skills to understand, say, that other people have a different point of view, different interests, different likes and dislikes. However, I'm torn about the benefits of continuing the speech and occupational therapy. They are free (to us). Unfortunately, we have to drive long distances (with three young kids in tow) four days a week to reach the therapists, leaving very little time to focus on school work. We kind of have to rush through school work in the morning, leaving me feeling stressed and ds feeling pressured (and more likely to dig in his heels). We cover reading, writing, and math every day, but we hardly have any time to spend on "fun" topics (science, history, languages, music, art). ds' younger sister is supposed to start kindergarten this fall, and I'm planning on homeschooling her as well, but again, am worried about time constraints. I can't enroll my dd in classes, because of her brother's therapy schedule. My toddler spends lots of time in car seats and waiting rooms. I'm sure this scenario is familiar to many of you! I see progress occurring in the social skills classes. But for the speech therapy and occupational therapy, after all the rapid progress which occurred as recently as last year, now I'm seeing...very slow progress. Most of the things they are addressing now are things which will always be with us; the lack of coordination (OT), and conversational skills (speech therapy). I'm not complaining, and he could absolutely use practice and reinforcement in addressing all these areas. But I'm not sure the time tradeoff is worth it any more. The therapists will recommend keeping him on the current four day per week schedule at our next IEP meeting. I've brought up the topic, and that is what they plan on recommmending. So, if I wanted to stop with the speech therapy and occupational therapy, I would have to cancel the IEP completely. Which I'm afraid of doing! What if we end up wanting to resume speech/OT further down the line? We'd have to go through the evaluation process through the school all over again. How/when do you decide to stop with therapy? I've asked both of his therapists, and they basically feel that as long as there are deficits, we should continue to address them. But there will ALWAYS be deficits in a child with autism compared with a neurotypical kid, so... :confused1:

If you have Hulu Plus or Amazon Prime, there are a few dozen Mr. Rogers episodes you can stream for free. My four year old (PDD-NOS) is a visual/gestalt learner, and has picked up some really neat things from watching these. For instance, he now greets new people with "Hello, pleased to meet you!" His conversational skills often peter out after that point, but it's a start... Mr. Rogers seems well designed for the special needs learner. The episodes are slow and gentle in pace, both appropriate and inappropriate behaviors are modeled and discussed, emotions are displayed and explained using simple language. I also love the emphasis on community, how we interact with people in our community, and the repetition of greetings, small talk, and good byes! It's just the ticket for the kiddo who has been told a million times "Say hello! Say thank you! Say goodbye!" but only seems to grasp the concept of polite human interaction with a video model.

Is this just a nutty idea? I have a 4 year old son, diagnosed with PDD-NOS. He has gross and fine motor delays, and a speech delay (mostly just with pragmatics now), but he has a great visual memory. His younger sister is 3, neurotypical, really advanced when it comes to language and, well, everything else EXCEPT visual memory. We lucked out in getting a really great autism preschool placement through the public school system. But since he will be turning 5 in October, now they want to move my son into kindergarten. I REALLY don't see the point of rushing him through the California kindergarten curriculum before his language and fine motor skills have more time to develop. In his current preschool, they use the TEACCH method, visual scheduling, do lots of hands on activities for math, literacy, and art, and have a very music, rhythm, and rhyme based "curriculum." It works great for my son, and I want to set up something like it at home to do with him and his sister. I was thinking a workbox system, along these lines, for both of them, with a mix of fine motor tablework, academic (three Rs only), and art activities. This would be mornings only, to free up afternoons for speech/OT appointments, field trips, playdates. Has anyone set up something similar? Am I going to scar him for life by having him work at his little sister's level? Right now he is more or less oblivious to things like age or grade... Finally, what would be a good reading program for a kid who has learned phonics and can sight read some words, but has no interest in sounding out words?

My almost four year old was recently given an educational assessment of high functioning autism (still on the wait list for a medical diagnosis). He has been getting speech and OT through the public school system for the last year. Now they are offering him a five day a week, three hour a day "special day class" for 3-5 year olds; there is a teacher and three aides for nine children (with varying degrees of high and low functioning autism), and the class is at various points during the week participating in activities with a side by side normal preschool. He will still get OT and speech therapy on an individual or two child - one teacher basis. His main areas of delay are language and social - the latter is what the school district claims the special day class will primarily help to address. The description of the class sounds great - it sounds like a regular preschool, basically, with additional structure and supervision to make sure that kids on the spectrum can participate. However, I'm worried that the whole school experience will make my son stress out and withdraw (even a one hour speech therapy class ends up with some stress before and after, not sure how he would handle a three hour a day class with twice as many kids!). Has anyone tried the public school route at the pre-K level? Was it helpful? Did you get any resistance from the school district when/if you went on to homeschool your child? This is in California, in the West Contra Costa County School District, if that helps!

This is great, thanks! One problem is that although he uses some phrases during his imaginative play, much of it involves him physically acting out the role of the main character in, for example, an episode of Curious George (or the entirety of the book "Harry the Dirty Dog," or what have you). Maybe I can just try adopting the persona of the Man in the Yellow Hat, and see if I can get involved in the story line, hmmm...

Thanks for the insight! I think that's what we need to start doing...playing his game, rather than trying to start new ones of our own. ETA: When we try to engage in his play, he seems kind of baffled - not really hostile to having us play along with his script, but also not really sure how to respond. He usually humors us for a bit then goes back to whatever he was doing before. I haven't been terribly persistent, though, so we'll see how it goes if I am!

Thanks for the recommendations of the More Than Words guide - that looks perfect! We'll be ordering that! And we'll also be looking at the Floortime and RDI methods as well. Are either of those methods possible to implement at home, with minimal guidance from an outside therapist? regarding outside testing: he has been on the waiting list at the local children's hospital for almost a year for autism screening. Also, I'm taking my son for a private speech evaluation this week. Still no IEP meeting date set, but it seems likely that the school district will want to put him in a special ed preschool setting, with a class size of 8. I'm really, really doubtful that this is would be a good move for him - his speech therapy is currently in a class of 2-4 kids, and he is pretty distracted in that environment. Also, it sounds like the focus of the special ed preschool will be on classroom readiness (planning to homeschool him through a public charter program, so not applicable), and social skills (which is not a particularly deficient area with him - he is totally fine socializing with same age kids). Ugh. Really, he finds the whole school setting pretty distracting, and sometimes upsetting (lots of bright fluorescent lights, crowded halls, noisy kids, who wouldn't?!). The more distracted and over-stimulated he gets, the more likely he is to retreat to a zoned out state. On the other hand, although we could afford to pay for one on one speech therapy (thanks to a local low cost university program), that would be absolutely it. We would not be able to afford any other kinds of therapies on top of that, and I just don't know what he needs, exactly, to help him connect a bit more and motivate him to talk.

Hi to everyone here! I've been perusing your archives and am just amazed at all the wisdom and insight you all possess! I wonder if I could bend your ear about my oldest son. He is almost 4, and has been receiving speech and OT through the school district for a year now. He was *finally* evaluated by the school psychologist this month, and she thinks he has high functioning autism. We've been on the waiting list for the local childrens' hospital for about a year for an autism evaluation, so hopefully soon we should get a second opinion. Although he has made lots of progress in speech therapy, he really seems to find talking almost painful. He speaks in 3-4 word sentences now, but often pauses between words, and really seems to have to work hard to access vocabulary. His pronunciation is also fairly clear for individual words and short phrases, but often gets slurred for longer sentences. Often he'll try to tell us something, get part way into telling us "The kitty...is..." and then just give up and ask us to come look at what he is talking about instead. Also, he spends about half the day in total space cadet mode when it comes to imaginative play. He has an incredible variety of scripts that he runs through (mostly from books and movies) which he acts out and narrates constantly. Oddly enough, he can repeat long phrases from movies and books pretty clearly. My problem is retrieving him from his imaginary world to the here and now to work with him on his speech and OT "homework" - I have to basically turn his head physically to look at me to get his attention, and then if I try to get him to talk (or to balance on one foot, or skip, etc.) in a way that he finds too novel or stressful, he retreats back to la la land. He is really open and talkative as long as we are just playing a new game...but the instant he figures out that I'm trying to get him to talk, he becomes very resistant! He is actually a really sweet guy, gets along great with neuro-typical children, and is really empathic and emotionally connected to those he knows well. His visual skills are strong (excellent memory, and, per the psychologist, he is years ahead of his age when it comes to pattern recognition, puzzle solving type stuff). Until he was three or so, the differences between him and his peers were not terribly clear - but now most kids can carry on a conversation about "when, why, and how?" questions, while he is still stuck on "who, what, where." There is obviously a bright young man in there, but I'm having trouble interfacing with his fantasy world to teach him about ours! Any tips??