what should I be asking for from the school district?

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My son is 2.5 and newly diagnosed with autism. He's been getting speech and OT from early intervention. The school district assessed him when he turned 2 and offered to give him just speech therapy, but we had to choose between that and the early intervention, and we decided to continue with early intervention. That evaluation was before he had the autism diagnosis.

Our early intervention service coordinator says our school district is especially difficult to work with, and will try to avoid putting him into a preschool class. I want him to attend preschool when he turns 3. I'm wondering what school districts typically provide. How many hours of preschool is typical? Is there some sort of advocate I can hire to help me navigate this process?

I do not know what is typical but I can say what we had here. Regular Pre-k was a full day, and SPED pre-k was a half day. This was better for us anyway b/c he did not want to go potty there and would hold it. We got speech but we did not get OT until 1st grade b/c they needed to see that he was a certain amount behind in fine motor functional skills, and primarily handwriting.

What to tell you to ask for is hard. It depends what your child specifically needs. Speech is almost always needed for pragmatic, social reasons if nothing else. The rest has a lot more variance.

Find an educational advocate (a consultant not an attorney) -- start asking other parents of kids with autism who they use, and when you hear the same name repeatedly (or find out who has succeeded in getting placement in a special needs school), you'll know you've found one of the better ones in your area. If your school district is difficult to work with, the help from an advocate will be money well spent.

You can also try this directory: http://www.hkage.org.hk/files/research/ ... ix%20I.pdf

Also read From Emotions to Advocacy by Peter Wright. It will help you understand the process.