• Replies 3 replies
  • Subscribers 65 subscribers
  • Views 601 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Looking for some Early Years advice?

Mrs T

Hi all, 

I am a Senior Nursery Nurse from Scotland, currently based in the toddler room of a small private nursery. I work with children aged 18 months - 3 years. I have worked in childrcare for 10 years, and 2 years supporting adults with a variety of Additional Support Needs, including ASD, however I have no experience of ASD in children and none of my collegues have been much use.

Here's my current situation - 

I have a little boy (not quite 2 years old yet) who is showing signs of being on the spectrum. Parents have already taken concerns to health visitor and we have a child planning meeting set for the middle of May. The child is non verbal, only takes part in solitary play and shows little to no awareness of his surroundings. Also his home language is Polish (creating a language barrier from the get go) but according to mum, is unresponsive to either language. 

As his key worker, I would like to put some strategies in place before the planning meeting, as other staff in the room are really negative towards his behaviour and I feel this is impacting on the child's learning experience. I have spoke to the owner and she is willing for me to implement anything I feel will support him.

Can anyone offer any advice on strategies suitable for this age of child? Something either 1:1 or to encourage inclusion. His only two interests are lining cars up and Peppa Pig.

Thank you so much for any help you can give.

Mrs T

Parents

  • I've been in a similar situation myself. I worked closely with a 2 year old autistic child for a short while. He also didnt like to speak, or interact with other children. He wouldnt even play alot of the time.

    I was a new worker when i was introduced to this little boy as well, so th first thing i needed to do was build a relationship with him, which to my surprise was easier than i had originally thought as he took a liking to me. I found out his interests were cars, anything that went 'round and round' like wheels, bead toys, abacus etc. and looking at pictures. After working closely with him on a 1:1 basis, he began to make small utterances which was amazing since he'd been mute the whole time until this point.

    sitting down with him in a quieter/less busy area helped too. After talking to his parents, they brought in some photos of family he is very familiar with -as we requested, and we worked on a scrapbook together. He gradually started making more sounds and then started saying words when he looked through the photos! It was amazing to see his little face light up when looking at pictures of his family.

    We slowly encouraged other children to play closer to him and he actually became comfortable with this very quickly and would even take an interest in oter children's play, he would watch, point and smile at them. which was a massive step forward.

    As for activites, anything to do with cars or thing sthat spin he would want to engage with, sometimes it was hard to encourage him to do this when other children were at the table, so we made smaller groups, sometimes even just one child would join us, and we would do the activity in very small groups this way. But of course we can't stop other children from wanting to be involved, so if it got too much for him, we could take him to the quiet area where we could work with him 1:1 and invite other children too to slowly help promote inclusion. This helped, but was a slower process.

    I hope this helps a little. I only worked with this little boy over a few months so unfortunately i dont have alot of ideas/experiences to share. but I hope this has helped even the slightest bit :)

Reply

  • I've been in a similar situation myself. I worked closely with a 2 year old autistic child for a short while. He also didnt like to speak, or interact with other children. He wouldnt even play alot of the time.

    I was a new worker when i was introduced to this little boy as well, so th first thing i needed to do was build a relationship with him, which to my surprise was easier than i had originally thought as he took a liking to me. I found out his interests were cars, anything that went 'round and round' like wheels, bead toys, abacus etc. and looking at pictures. After working closely with him on a 1:1 basis, he began to make small utterances which was amazing since he'd been mute the whole time until this point.

    sitting down with him in a quieter/less busy area helped too. After talking to his parents, they brought in some photos of family he is very familiar with -as we requested, and we worked on a scrapbook together. He gradually started making more sounds and then started saying words when he looked through the photos! It was amazing to see his little face light up when looking at pictures of his family.

    We slowly encouraged other children to play closer to him and he actually became comfortable with this very quickly and would even take an interest in oter children's play, he would watch, point and smile at them. which was a massive step forward.

    As for activites, anything to do with cars or thing sthat spin he would want to engage with, sometimes it was hard to encourage him to do this when other children were at the table, so we made smaller groups, sometimes even just one child would join us, and we would do the activity in very small groups this way. But of course we can't stop other children from wanting to be involved, so if it got too much for him, we could take him to the quiet area where we could work with him 1:1 and invite other children too to slowly help promote inclusion. This helped, but was a slower process.

    I hope this helps a little. I only worked with this little boy over a few months so unfortunately i dont have alot of ideas/experiences to share. but I hope this has helped even the slightest bit :)

Children
No Data