Derek's Transition meeting

[DereksMom]

We are having Derek's Transition/IEP meeting for next year on June 8th and I have a few questions for the experienced moms.

The school wants to give Derek 2 TA"s (one morning, one afternoon) because that is what works for them, not necessarily what is best for Derek. I personally feel like he should have one consistant person as he has had so many people in his short life so far (dr's, nurses, teachers, consultants) that he needs someone constant to learn from. Transitioning is hard for him also and I think that it would be hard for him to transition from one person to the other in the span of the day, plus throw the teacher in there and god only knows what will happen.

Does anyone have any advice on this or has their child had 2 TA's?? And how did it work??

Hugs

Allison

[christie]

Obviously each child is different and what might work for one may not for another BUT we at one time had 2 different one on one's for Chris and for us it worked well ;D What I liked most bout it was that Chris had to learn to listen and work with more then just one person. Chris has had a one on one from 3 till he was 9 now no longer has one ;D We have experienced it all with assistants, good ones, bad ones, one that worked with him for 2 years in a row, two years that he was shared and alls I can say from my experience, as long as the assistants are GOOD that is the key. Weather you have one in the AM and one in the PM the key still remains if they are good I think all will be well ;D

For us it was a bit confusing at first for Chris as the one on one and teacher assitant shared the job and Chris seem to get confused at first and would search out who he thought was his one on one. But just after a few days he caught on What I like with this arrangement is one seem to work better in certain areas with Chris and the other in other areas, soooo he seem to get the best from both

Chris too was and still can have problems with transistions but I do believe that helped him learn to work with more then one person.

Best of Luck, you know your child best.

CC

[Debi]

I'm going to chime in with Christie here and say that just as a rule of thumb two aides can be a good thing. Our kids DO benefit from learning from different people's styles I think and it's also an important skill to learn.
Allison this isn't the same as school, but close. Gabe has had different workers for his respite and Community living and of course both he and his workers have become very close, very attached. They finally learn his communication style, love hanging out with him.. then leave for other opportunites And of course when he was little he didn't understand at all why this fun person wasn't showing up anymore. But he has always bounced back from that VERY quickly and I think having some different people to learn from at school and in the community ( I always pushed for a variety of aides at school) has been a good thing for him.
Like Christie says, you know your child best but multiple aides per se is not a bad thing.

[ashliesmomheidi]

I have to agree with the other ladies as well

At one time Ashlie had 2 diff. Aides as well and it worked for us as it got her used to diff. people and she had to learn to work with diff. people.
So it did work for us.

[DereksMom]

Thank you so much for your replies. It makes me feel better to know that your children have done well with 2 TA's. I get so frustrated with our school as they are doing it because it is what is in the best interest of the school, not of Derek. The TA that he had this year had absolutely no communication skills and had never worked as a TA, but it was convienient for the school so that is who he got. I dont want to keep this patern repeating as time goes on.

Hugs

Allison