Share experiences with me about public school services and homeschooling another child?

[zejh]

Hi, I'm not sure if I have a specific question...  My almost-3-year-old DS has a speech delay and was just given a (mild) ASD diagnosis.  He's got an IEP for the speech delay which involves 4-day-a-week preschool in the fall.  This should actually help with my almost-6-year-old DD whom I'm planning on officially homeschooling this year, since it'll be 4 mornings a week when I don't have to worry about her brother.  She qualified to go to a nearby gifted school, but for other reasons I decided that's not the best choice at this time.  Anyhow, with the ASD diagnosis we'll be adding in ABA therapy in home plus the private speech therapy he already has.  I should mention that there's also a baby who will be turning 1 soon.  I don't know if I have a specific question yet, but I'm hoping just to hear perspectives from anyone who's been there and done something like this and not gone completely crazy?  Thanks!

[PeterPan]

Well I hear a lot of word on the street from people who say the ps preschool was really good for getting more language in their ASD dc. My ds has apraxia as the cause of his speech issues, so that wouldn't have been a good fit for him. But just in general, sounds good, yes. Have you done in-home ABA? My one question would be how disruptive that will be (if he has behaviors, blah blah) and whether she'd be happier going to that gifted school. You won't know that till you get into it. In-home workers were stressful for my ds and stressful for me. They were also good in some ways, but it was a lot of stress. Just depends on how it rolls. My ds needed a dedicated room for his work, so that can be another issue. You may need two rooms, one for the ABA worker and one for you with the 6 yo and toddler. Otherwise you'll need a plan that contains the toddler.

How not to go crazy? Well honestly I let go the in-home workers and went back to doing it myself when I realized my ds was giving ME the crap he was giving them. I was done with that. You can't clone yourself. Some kids will be happy and successful anywhere and some kids won't be. If your ds with ASD is successful in that environment and it's working, you could enroll him all the way. If not, you could flip that and enroll the others.

For us, language is the huge deal that holds up everything else. 

[Mrs. Tharp]

I've done it with kids that age. It's not so bad, mainly because hsing kids at young ages doesn't take long---a little math, phonics, and printing practice daily and you're golden, then reading aloud whenever you can fit it in. I got a lot done with my younger son in waiting rooms while my oldest was in therapy. The biggest hassle was being tied to the public school schedule.