Hi all. I have two young girls going through the diagnosis process, but everyone who's seen my three year old (who this post is about) so far agrees that she is quite severely autistic (no speech, won't eat solids, behaviour problems etc etc).
She has attended a private nursery for a few hours a week for the last year. They've been great with her, and she enjoys going. She is due to move up to their pre-school section after Christmas. I wanted to apply for her to be 'statemented' recently, but was advised to wait until she'd been in pre-school a while, even though I have visited several schools and have found 'the one'!
Her keyworker approached me today, and said that the nursery are doing their annual nativity play soon, in a local church, and what do I want to do about my daughter, as they think the dark echoey environment would upset her, and she wouldn't sit still. I totally agree with this. At first I offered to escort her, then after a bit more talking I suggested that she could simply swap her day at nursery, thus avoiding the nativity altogether. Her keyworker said "OK, thank you". I then spoke to another nursery worker, briefly, who said again that they thought it would be best for her if she wasn't there. Again, I agreed.
When I got home though, I started to feel quite cross. The key worker made out at first that they were doing her a favour, but then by saying thank you surely she thought we were doing the nursery a favour?! Am I wrong in thinking that a)she is being excluded from an event that other children are attending, and that b)surely this would reinforce my initial feeling that she should not be attending a mainstream environment? Am I also being a bit oversensitive about the fact the staff have obviously been discussing 'the problem'?
