Need input/advice from parents of children with special needs...

[Gena]

Thank you for asking this. You've gotten a lot of good responses from PPs.

Your preschool program sounds a lot like the one DS was in at that age. DS was there as a special ed student, but I know that a couple of the typical kids were identified with issues while in the program.

In our preschool program, the Speech Therapist and OT did some activities that involved the entire class. As I'm sure you know, these therapists have the best toys , so having activities that involved the whole class meant that the typical students were not left out of all the fun. Additionally, it gave the ST and OT a chance to informally observe and monitor the typical kids. If a child was suspected of having a problem, the teacher could say something like, "The OT was working with the whole class yesterday and notice that Joey does X and Y. I've noticed this in the classroom as well. Do you see this at home?..." and start a conversation on the issue. I don't know if that would work with your program, but it's an idea.

As Amy (VClute) said, the discussion should be done outside of pick-up and drop off. Do you schedule regular parent teacher conferences?

[Pepper]

Chiming in to thank you for posting this question...DS1 has lots of stuff going on, and it wasn't until I told his teacher that *I* decided to have him evaluated for sensory processing disorder that she suddenly baecome very helpful...it was so wierd, all she'd say to me was that he'd had a difficult day, he was very aggressive etc but never really offered any sort of help. When I gave her a form to fill out for the SPD eval, she did a 180 all of a sudden and started saying oh we can help you with this....I always wondered it if was b/c she was wary of telling parents that their child could need extra help. Now, I think that was definately the case.

So thanks!