Another red shirting question

[KC thepouchh8r]

I probably have zero chance of making a case for red shirting for a kid who's doing well in the classroom behaviorally/academically and has a January bday, right? I know a lot will change in a year but I can't imagine her being anywhere near socially/emotionally ready in another 16 months.

[hopecounts]

When is the cut off for your district?
Cut off here is Sept. 1 so a Jan bday being red shirted would be unheard of locally.
I personally dont see a problem with late BDays redshirting but think extreme redshirting is problematic.
This is where the IEP comes into play to help her be successful.
I will also say the amount of progress DD has made this past 6 months has been amazing, if you asked me last spring if I thought she'd be ready for kindy in the fall I'd have said no but now if we didnt have such a great set up at,her ABA school I'd feel pretty comfortable with her starting in the fall so as hard as it is to believe what you see a year from now may be an entirely different situation then you see now.

[KC thepouchh8r]

Jan 22, 2015 10:03:58 GMT -5 hopecounts said:

When is the cut off for your district?
Cut off here is Sept. 1 so a Jan bday being red shirted would be unheard of locally.
I personally dont see a problem with late BDays redshirting but think extreme redshirting is problematic.
This is where the IEP comes into play to help her be successful.
I will also say the amount of progress DD has made this past 6 months has been amazing, if you asked me last spring if I thought she'd be ready for kindy in the fall I'd have said no but now if we didnt have such a great set up at,her ABA school I'd feel pretty comfortable with her starting in the fall so as hard as it is to believe what you see a year from now may be an entirely different situation then you see now.

I hope you're right. She's made lots of progress in the classroom. She's using language to communicate, completes simple worksheets ( like color all the triangles blue, squares red, etc). I don't know what kind of Iep goals we could add to address emotional development.

[hopecounts]

Jan 22, 2015 12:31:43 GMT -5 KC thepouchh8r said:

Jan 22, 2015 10:03:58 GMT -5 hopecounts said:

When is the cut off for your district?
Cut off here is Sept. 1 so a Jan bday being red shirted would be unheard of locally.
I personally dont see a problem with late BDays redshirting but think extreme redshirting is problematic.
This is where the IEP comes into play to help her be successful.
I will also say the amount of progress DD has made this past 6 months has been amazing, if you asked me last spring if I thought she'd be ready for kindy in the fall I'd have said no but now if we didnt have such a great set up at,her ABA school I'd feel pretty comfortable with her starting in the fall so as hard as it is to believe what you see a year from now may be an entirely different situation then you see now.

I hope you're right. She's made lots of progress in the classroom. She's using language to communicate, completes simple worksheets ( like color all the triangles blue, squares red, etc). I don't know what kind of Iep goals we could add to address emotional development.

Social Skills group, Social Skills therapy around emotions (are we talking emotional regulation issues or general social/emotional skills?) most likely with the counselor or SLP.
If its emotional regulation you can do a BIP to assess what is going on around melt downs and see if accomodations can be made to allow her access to the classroom.
Or she may be in a self contained ASD room or a hybrid class where they are set up to assist her.
It sounds like she is doing really well so she may make progress in this area by then and its less of an issue.

[mrsbuttinski]

I'm thinking snowball's chance in hell.

Given how subtle her presentation is and how well she's responding to the program you have in place for her I would expect her teachers expect her to transition to kindie fairly well.

What does socially and emotionally ready mean to you? She seems to be interacting more with peers and she's separating to attend preschool and attending to some of the tasks that other kids are still avoiding. She may surprise you.

IEP services might include social skills instruction like basic MGW stuff around identifying her own emotions and recognizing them in others.

[KC thepouchh8r]

Jan 22, 2015 13:58:34 GMT -5 mrsbuttinski said:

I'm thinking snowball's chance in hell.

Given how subtle her presentation is and how well she's responding to the program you have in place for her I would expect her teachers expect her to transition to kindie fairly well.

What does socially and emotionally ready mean to you? She seems to be interacting more with peers and she's separating to attend preschool and attending to some of the tasks that other kids are still avoiding. She may surprise you.

IEP services might include social skills instruction like basic MGW stuff around identifying her own emotions and recognizing them in others.

She acts like a maybe two year old. She still requests to cuddle at school with teachers. When you give her an open cup with water she will drink 3/4ths, pour the last 1/4 on the ground and giggle. It's tough to explain but she is so very immature.

[hopecounts]

Jan 22, 2015 16:34:00 GMT -5 KC thepouchh8r said:

Jan 22, 2015 13:58:34 GMT -5 mrsbuttinski said:

I'm thinking snowball's chance in hell.

Given how subtle her presentation is and how well she's responding to the program you have in place for her I would expect her teachers expect her to transition to kindie fairly well.

What does socially and emotionally ready mean to you? She seems to be interacting more with peers and she's separating to attend preschool and attending to some of the tasks that other kids are still avoiding. She may surprise you.

IEP services might include social skills instruction like basic MGW stuff around identifying her own emotions and recognizing them in others.

She acts like a maybe two year old. She still requests to cuddle at school with teachers. When you give her an open cup with water she will drink 3/4ths, pour the last 1/4 on the ground and giggle. It's tough to explain but she is so very immature.

That kind of thing we address with ABA. 
Does her team have any suggestions for extinguishing that type of behavior?

[mrsbuttinski]

Jan 22, 2015 16:34:00 GMT -5 KC thepouchh8r said:

Jan 22, 2015 13:58:34 GMT -5 mrsbuttinski said:

She acts like a maybe two year old. She still requests to cuddle at school with teachers. When you give her an open cup with water she will drink 3/4ths, pour the last 1/4 on the ground and giggle. It's tough to explain but she is so very immature.

It would be expected that a bright child with ASD who is four would have the emotional/social maturity of a two- it's that maturity delay of 1/2 of chronological age I talk about. The school should be able to manage this. Plus, by the time she's six, she may only be at the level of a three in terms of maturity. 

That said, behavior mods could go a long way to teacher her to make different choices around the water and understand that a request sit on the teachers' lap is OK in preschool but not in kindie. DS's pre-K co-teacher was a crunchy sort of earth mother who spent part of everyday with my kid nesting in her lap. He never did it in kindie or beyond; this was pre-dx so I just told him it wasn't something that was Ok to do in kindie.

[KC thepouchh8r]

Jan 22, 2015 18:06:39 GMT -5 mrsbuttinski said:

Jan 22, 2015 16:34:00 GMT -5 KC thepouchh8r said:

She acts like a maybe two year old. She still requests to cuddle at school with teachers. When you give her an open cup with water she will drink 3/4ths, pour the last 1/4 on the ground and giggle. It's tough to explain but she is so very immature.

It would be expected that a bright child with ASD who is four would have the emotional/social maturity of a two- it's that maturity delay of 1/2 of chronological age I talk about. The school should be able to manage this. Plus, by the time she's six, she may only be at the level of a three in terms of maturity. 

That said, behavior mods could go a long way to teacher her to make different choices around the water and understand that a request sit on the teachers' lap is OK in preschool but not in kindie. DS's pre-K co-teacher was a crunchy sort of earth mother who spent part of everyday with my kid nesting in her lap. He never did it in kindie or beyond; this was pre-dx so I just told him it wasn't something that was Ok to do in kindie.

We are crunchy too so we have created a cuddly monster. she doesn't even do it when she's out of sorts and needs regulating. She's just a cuddler and super afectionate kiddo.

I know the social/emotional stuff is always going to be an uphill battle but I feel she hasn't made the kinds of gains with peers. She parallel plays and joins in if it's something highly motivating but otherwise she ignores peers and doesn't seem excited to see other kids. There's just no interest. I see kids far lower functioning than her that may act more inappropriately but there's at least some level of interest. Besides her parents, grandparents, sibling, staff at school and flirting with much older men she has zero social interest. I worry that the shift in k is less social/play more academics and I feel that the extra year of preschool to focus on the social aspect might help.

They are working with open cup and she definitely has shown improvement. It's just lots of little things like that which makes me feel she's not mature enough. I know it's silly to dwell when she has a year plus to go. I just can't imagine her changing in those regards so drastically.

[mrsbuttinski]

Jan 23, 2015 9:21:33 GMT -5 KC thepouchh8r said:

Jan 22, 2015 18:06:39 GMT -5 mrsbuttinski said:

We are crunchy too so we have created a cuddly monster. she doesn't even do it when she's out of sorts and needs regulating. She's just a cuddler and super afectionate kiddo.

DS spent an hour or so sitting on my lap every morning of his life until he was five and went to morning Pre-K. He probably sat on DH's lap and allowed himself to be carried even longer.

I know the social/emotional stuff is always going to be an uphill battle but I feel she hasn't made the kinds of gains with peers.


But if you consider her "adjusted age" related to the social and emotional delays, that makes sense. She's more like a two and twos tend to parallel play with some progress toward associative play. Associative is that place where kids play together with something, but each is kind of doing their own thing. Like two kids playing with blocks and one's building a wall while the other makes a fort. Cooperative is when they make a plan and work together to follow it.


She parallel plays and joins in if it's something highly motivating but otherwise she ignores peers and doesn't seem excited to see other kids. There's just no interest.


That's the hard part to address, sparking some desire to interact and enjoy the company of peers. You can teach social skills, play scripts and social thinking until the cows come home, but if she doesn't care about kids you aren't going to have the fix you hope for. Some kids just more aloof and disinterested. In the old days when there were both Aspergers and HFA as diagnostic options, a child who avoided peers and didn't care to interact. I have friends with kids who have an HFA dx, they are different that DS who desired friends and was more inappropriate than aloof. A few of these loners became a little more outgoing and open to relationships as they hit puberty/high school and found other quirky kids who have similar interests.


I see kids far lower functioning than her that may act more inappropriately but there's at least some level of interest. Besides her parents, grandparents, sibling, staff at school and flirting with much older men she has zero social interest. I worry that the shift in k is less social/play more academics and I feel that the extra year of preschool to focus on the social aspect might help.

If she were mine, given what you've shared, I might look into RDI or even Floortime. They seem better at sparking curiosity about play and peers and teaching that both can be fun and rewarding than other tx for ASD. DS did Floortime with me to gain play skills and then CSIT which overlaps RDI a great deal. This is something we, and most I know who've done it, add on privately and reinforce through playdates, camps and activities. 


Have you toured your local kindie? We just had education week here when you can go into a classroom and be a fly on the wall. DS's full day indie kindie serious academics in the am, but social times built into am recess and snack, after lunch the did recess, specials and free play centers. In some places kindie can be pretty social- in fact often it's more structured social which might act as a safe scaffold for your DD to practice social skills.

They are working with open cup and she definitely has shown improvement. It's just lots of little things like that which makes me feel she's not mature enough. I know it's silly to dwell when she has a year plus to go. I just can't imagine her changing in those regards so drastically.

It's not silly. DS's psych always said to be looking 5 years out to where you want your kid to be and work on building the skills she'll need to thrive there. Sometimes when I feel hopeless about progress that seem glacial, I look back instead of forward at what DS has more recently mastered. Goals come slower because DS is older, but in the last year he's gotten the experience of working long hours and is finally driving indpendently. Both long term goals we worked toward.

That's said, it's the nature of ASD that you DD will probably never be "mature enough" relative to expectations and the abilities of her classmates for her grade. It sucks. I get it. I send my son to college as a junior knowing in my heart that he's "ready" to kick ass as a 11th grader. 

[KC thepouchh8r]

Jan 23, 2015 10:17:02 GMT -5 mrsbuttinski said:

Jan 23, 2015 9:21:33 GMT -5 KC thepouchh8r said:

We are crunchy too so we have created a cuddly monster. she doesn't even do it when she's out of sorts and needs regulating. She's just a cuddler and super afectionate kiddo.

DS spent an hour or so sitting on my lap every morning of his life until he was five and went to morning Pre-K. He probably sat on DH's lap and allowed himself to be carried even longer.

I know the social/emotional stuff is always going to be an uphill battle but I feel she hasn't made the kinds of gains with peers.


But if you consider her "adjusted age" related to the social and emotional delays, that makes sense. She's more like a two and twos tend to parallel play with some progress toward associative play. Associative is that place where kids play together with something, but each is kind of doing their own thing. Like two kids playing with blocks and one's building a wall while the other makes a fort. Cooperative is when they make a plan and work together to follow it.


She parallel plays and joins in if it's something highly motivating but otherwise she ignores peers and doesn't seem excited to see other kids. There's just no interest.


That's the hard part to address, sparking some desire to interact and enjoy the company of peers. You can teach social skills, play scripts and social thinking until the cows come home, but if she doesn't care about kids you aren't going to have the fix you hope for. Some kids just more aloof and disinterested. In the old days when there were both Aspergers and HFA as diagnostic options, a child who avoided peers and didn't care to interact. I have friends with kids who have an HFA dx, they are different that DS who desired friends and was more inappropriate than aloof. A few of these loners became a little more outgoing and open to relationships as they hit puberty/high school and found other quirky kids who have similar interests.


I see kids far lower functioning than her that may act more inappropriately but there's at least some level of interest. Besides her parents, grandparents, sibling, staff at school and flirting with much older men she has zero social interest. I worry that the shift in k is less social/play more academics and I feel that the extra year of preschool to focus on the social aspect might help.

If she were mine, given what you've shared, I might look into RDI or even Floortime. They seem better at sparking curiosity about play and peers and teaching that both can be fun and rewarding than other tx for ASD. DS did Floortime with me to gain play skills and then CSIT which overlaps RDI a great deal. This is something we, and most I know who've done it, add on privately and reinforce through playdates, camps and activities. 


Have you toured your local kindie? We just had education week here when you can go into a classroom and be a fly on the wall. DS's full day indie kindie serious academics in the am, but social times built into am recess and snack, after lunch the did recess, specials and free play centers. In some places kindie can be pretty social- in fact often it's more structured social which might act as a safe scaffold for your DD to practice social skills.

They are working with open cup and she definitely has shown improvement. It's just lots of little things like that which makes me feel she's not mature enough. I know it's silly to dwell when she has a year plus to go. I just can't imagine her changing in those regards so drastically.

It's not silly. DS's psych always said to be looking 5 years out to where you want your kid to be and work on building the skills she'll need to thrive there. Sometimes when I feel hopeless about progress that seem glacial, I look back instead of forward at what DS has more recently mastered. Goals come slower because DS is older, but in the last year he's gotten the experience of working long hours and is finally driving indpendently. Both long term goals we worked toward.

That's said, it's the nature of ASD that you DD will probably never be "mature enough" relative to expectations and the abilities of her classmates for her grade. It sucks. I get it. I send my son to college as a junior knowing in my heart that he's "ready" to kick ass as a 11th grader. 

We did floor time through EI and she did well with it. I've carried over a lot of the principles. She's always been pretty strong with play skills. She has very age appropriate interests--my little pony, dress up, plays appropriately (and unscripted) with dollhouse, etc. It's funny at school she engages teachers/therapist in play all the time or doesn't mind when she's doing something and they join in. When they try to get a peer to join more often than not she loses interest. She also seems to act out friendships between her dolls. It's interesting this hasn't carried over to peers at all.

I think the part that's tricky is that I don't have a clue where kindie will be for her. Its likely to be an inclusion model classroom but it's not at our home school. I've asked her teacher where she thought and she said she honestly didn't have a clue.

[mrsbuttinski]

I wonder if she's one of those oddly observant kids who notices what the kids around her are doing which allows her to act it out with dolls. But that she doesn't self identify as a kid at all so she isn't especially interested in interacting with them. DS much preferred an indulgent and predictable adult or older teen to interaction in the chaotic world of young children. I can remember him sitting in the car outside of preschool telling me he wasn't like those other kids and describing them almost as one might a recently discovered Amazonian people living in the stone age.

It's funny, because he knows all about what's going on in his peers relationships- who's friends with who, who's on the outs, who's girlfriend is a keeper and which girls the other guys think is a PITA, who got beat up at a party because he ot drunk and did some other guy's girlfriend. But he says it's not for him right now. He likes girls, he talks about dating one day, but he's no closer to that as a goal than he was at 10.