Hello all

I hope you do not mind my posting here. I do not have a child with Autism but I am a Special Education teacher in a high school. I have 2 boys of my own, one who is in a play program called Gymboree (www.gymboree.com). They have no classes that include children with special needs of any sort and I made the suggestion that that is something they should look into. Well they told me that if I could come up with some ideas they would be willing to start some classes for children with special needs. I will not be paid for this in any way but I really wnat to try and get more options for parents, so would like to try my best at this. What I was hoping you could help me with are the following things:

Should I combine one big special needs class (communication disorders, physical, dev. challenged) or am I better to have a seperate class for the different types of needs?

Or should I just integrate them in with the mainstream kids?

Gymboree is basically a play and music program with some climbing structures (you can kind of see what I mean by looking at their website). What music/play would most benefit a child with a communication disorder?

I thank you very much for any help you may be able to offer. I know in this area there is just not many options available to parents with children with special needs and it is rather sad....

Janet

__________________