Originally Posted by NJDad:
My son is almost 2.5 and has a speech delay. He's been in a daycare for the last 8 months. 2 months ago he was diagnosed with mild autism, although we are still not 100% sure that he has it. We found a speech therapist who works with him 8 hours a week. The 4 hours (3-5) in the daycare have become an issue. In the home she is wonderful, and our son always responds to her. The daycare is highly regarded and we know people personally who had all of their kids attend. Yet there is a constant battle between her and the daycare. She complains about how they are not in control of the kids, and they complain how she is disruptive for the classroom. She cant pullout our son away from the group because its 2 full hours and he gets upset if he cant be with the group. For a classroom of 12 is it normal to have only 2 teachers, how can they potty train all 12 kids? Is it not normal to have a therapist in a classroom for 2 hours?
I'm licensed to care for 6 children at any given time so 2 teachers for 12 kids seems more than adequate to me. I'm not sure if it's normal or not to have a therapist in a classroom for 2 hours at a time but I know in my day care, it would make things difficult. I've been doing day care for 25 years and it doesn't matter which group of kids I've been caring for....Whenever another adult joins us, the kids, as a whole, tend to lose their minds. Even the usually well behaved kids seem to act out. This happens whether it's a parent who comes in off-schedule to pick up their own child, a licensor who comes in to inspect or a therapist who comes in to observe a specific child. The kids seem to morph into little beings I've never met before!
Based on that, it wouldn't surprise me to hear that the therapist's presence in the classroom is disruptive and that it looks to the therapist that the teachers in the classroom have no control. Has the therapist just started going to the classroom to work with your son? If so, maybe the kids just need to get used to her presence there? Have the teachers explained how the therapist is being disruptive? Is she talking too loud when working with your son? Does she plan activities with him that seem fun to the other kids? Are the other kids allowed to join in the therapy sessions at all? Is there a more private area in the school or day care where she can go to work with your son if she can't include his classmates? Although I wouldn't refuse to have a therapist come in to my day care to work with a child who needed that extra help, I have asked parents to consider alternatives because of how disruptive it can be to my program. So far, they've been able to schedule therapy on their own time and not during the time their children are in my care.