Parenting a Preschooler with Asperger's Syndrome

If your child is diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome at three or thereabouts, you will soon find yourself in the dilemma of whether or not to send your child to a public preschool; even as many parents opt to keep children at home during the preschool years or simply do preschool learning at home, there is copious literature that believes this to be the wrong decision. After all, while preschool is the venue for a lot of basic learning that prepares a child for kindergarten, it is also a training ground for interpersonal relationships, which is of significant importance to a child diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome.

Even as the child may start out at a disadvantage in this realm, there is little doubt that a preschooler will benefit greatly from the social interactions that preschool has to offer. This of course begs the question why so many parents are singularly reticent to enroll an Asperger’s Syndrome child in preschool, and some have suggested that it could be because the condition does not manifest in a predictable manner in youngsters, but instead only gives a number of possible scenarios, many of which may not come to pass while others are indeed amplified.

As a matter of fact, this has led some preschool teachers to eye children with Asperger’s Syndrome as possibly retarded or even as trouble makers, when little could be further from the truth. Such attitudes by those in charge at the preschools has led some parents to cast a nervous eye at the administration of such schools, and rightfully fear that their child will be pigeonholed instead of embraced, and labeled instead of gently directed. This is a very real danger and can prove detrimental to the child diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, especially if the extent of the diagnosis can not yet be predicted.

Parenting a preschooler with Asperger’s Syndrome may appear a mix of a tightrope walk and an uphill battle advocating for the child, and it is a good idea for parents to seek out the help of other parents – perhaps those who have kindergarten or elementary school aged Asperger’s Syndrome children in their homes – for the decisions they are facing. Since children with this diagnosis have normal intelligence, there is little questioning that they will do well from the academic point of view, it is simply a question of the other aspects of the experience that might not make the youngster a good candidate for such a placement.

There is now a new movement underfoot that suggests keeping the diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome confidential and only sharing it on a need to know basis with a school administrator, but not with the teacher in the classroom. It has been found that during the preschool years, the actual problems associated with an Asperger’s Syndrome diagnosis do not come to light fully and therefore there is little value in having the child receiving a label that may follow it for the rest of its scholastic career and also its peer interactions.