When you have your first child you never picture yourself contacting the special ed department to enroll him in school. Eli is only three so I am currently in the process of enrolling him in a developmental preschool at one of our local elementary schools. I really went back and forth with the idea of doing a developmental preschool versus a private preschool/headstart. I always think, does he really need it? Will this be too much for him? Will he learn enough in this class?
One of the pros of doing a developmental preschool, first and foremost, is its free. I’ve written before about us being a struggling one income family, so every penny saved helps a lot. Also, this developmental class has a school Speech therapist and an occupational that will come in and do rotations with all the kids. So, since he will be in school half the day, he will be missing out on some of his other therapies, this way he can still get some services while attending school and get other therapies after school. Also this class will have a mix of delayed children and average developed children so they call all play off and learned from each other. The averagely developed children will act as a model for the delayed children so they can see how something should be done.
There are no real cons of putting Eli in this class; he will be with other children like himself, he won’t be as behind as he would in an average class, he will be getting extra therapy, and they also help with potty training. I just never thought I would be enrolled my son with the special education department, and to be completely honest it’s sad. My dream is that in the next two years Eli will be brought up to speed and will be able to be in a regularly functioning kindergarten and will be able to move through school like the rest of his fellow students. I will be trying everything I can to get this kid up to speed so he won’t have to struggle through childhood.
Mastering Motherhood 
With my 4 I found socialization with kids with similar problems helped but they really blossomed with mature nurturers. Mine are all girls & do well with boys, crossing gender lines can reduce the expectations of social competence, kids put done anomalies to gender differences and can be forgiving. Quite frankly the best thing we did was let good teachers deliberately match our various children with kids they selected & gave an age appropriate Autism talk to. My younger 2 move between social equals to protected/nurtured when they need it, its ideal.
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