Hi girls,

I don't have a child with any kind of spectrum disorder or other special needs, but I do work with a few, and I was wondering if some of you might be able to give me some suggestions of what kinds of strategies we can use with these beautiful special little people.

We have three little boys who have been diagnosed with autism and have varying degrees of autism. Naturally each one is very different to the other and what works with one doesn't work with the others. On Mondays we have two of the boys at the centre, with only one support worker, which make it pretty tought to help them both. We use visual boards and cards with all three boys, as well as some of us using a bit of makaton to try to communicate. All three boys are bilingual, with one not speaking english at all (he actually rarely vocallises at all).

I will firstly ask about this one little boy who has just started at our service. He is 4y.o. He comes twice a week. He has just recently been diagnosed with Autism. He doesn't speak English and neither does his mum, so this is an extra challenge for us to deal with as it makes it difficult to find out what things work for her at home. They do have a social worker (I think??) who works with them, and who has been to our service to translate and give us information, but it's the day to day questions we struggle with. I'm not sure if mum has many strategies to help her son at the moment, and she might be struggling a bit. She has asked us to toilet train him, but is not willing to do it at home. At the centre he is really difficult to change his nappy, but at home apparently he is ok. He won't sleep at our centre, but at home has 2-3hr day sleeps. We use visuals with him to try to help with communication, as well as trying to introduce some makaton to him too.

I have no idea what to actually ask, other than can anyone think of any strategies we could use within our service, keeping in mind we are a long day care centre with up to 19 other children in the room to care for, two full time carers and one special need worker who is there for 4hours.