As review from the first post, Jonny lives with his parents and older brother. Both parents work and he spends long hours between his specialized classroom and daycare before going home around 5:30 each weekday. There is little consistency between program's although program staff are assigned to the daycare to teach them strategies that are used in his classroom. Because of the parent's work schedule , the communication book sent home from the classroom does not have much information on how tings are going at home and requests to ask for information may go unanswered for several days.
Jonny 's emotional state is very variable. he can be smiling one minute an become very 'whiny' and upset the next. Although he is not a physical or aggressive child, this behavior can be very upsetting for parents as they try to move through a normal routine after having a long day at work, especially since they do not see their child for very much during the weekday.
Obviously these parents are very overwhelmed with their home responsibilities and raising 2 children, 1 with autism. It appears that beyond environmental complexity and processing for Jonny, as stated in previous posts, that some of his behaviors are learned in order to attain what he wants to do in the easiest way possible over 3 very different settings. The best suggestion is to get all parties working with Jonny at the table again and discuss a plan that is very consistent with all 3 environments. Jonny is going to the school age program in the fall, so really 4 programs should be involved. It has been very difficult for parents to be able to attend meetings, so the chances of this happening are not great, but Jonny's greatest chance of success for next year will be to at least gather the groups that will be involved with him as he starts in the fall.
Marilyn,
ReplyDeleteI have faced similar difficulties with parent's schedules not allowing time to communicate as well as I would like. If the family is strapped financially, they may not feel like they can take any time away from work to attend meetings. They may also feel like they are not trained to be doing what we are doing, that they are too busy to try to fit anything else into their schedules, or that they simply want time to unwind and be a "normal" family when they are home in the evening. I have had some success when making phone calls to families in these instances. I like to start out by telling the family all the wonderful things I can think of about their child. I think that this is important as so far, most of what they have heard about their child is their weaknesses. As I continue to follow up with phone calls of what we are working on and asking about specific skills demonstrated at home, I can usually hear a more welcome tone in their voice and often, and eagerness to discuss their child's particular gains. Meg
Meg,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the sugestions. Sometimes we need to keep trying and trying. You are so right about all the factors that could be affecting a family. When we send communication folders ( this communcation being between parents and staff) we always try to pass on what the child did that day. We have sheets made up that allows us to add commnets as to what toys they played with, songs sang at circle, etc. We really try to stay away form any negative information in those books.This communication folder also goes to his other setting so that is somehwat helpful.
The situation with Jonny is the collarorative factor that is missing inthe carryover piece. Hopefully that will improve soon.
Marilyn,
ReplyDeleteI think that it is wonderful thinking to try and involve all the parties working with Johnny. It appears your commitment will help make this happen.
Kirsten
Kirsten,
ReplyDeleteThe team that works with Jonny actually is very dedicated to helping him manage all the transitions that he needs to make in a day. Although all is not perfect, I think that what has been done so far has really helped. I hope that his transition to the school- age program in September goes well. There wil be less transitions for him then and therefore more consistency across settings.
Thanks for the comment.