preschool benefits

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Hi all! Although my son will be 3 next week and is all set to start in an integrated preschool program (Avon public schools) at the end of the month, I'm starting to have second thoughts about whether it's a good idea. He's going to start out doing just an hour, 4 days/week. When he met his teacher (without kids in the classroom), he did fairly well (i.e., no scripting, no "crashing" into the floor, he played appropriately with toys, sat at a table, and used 3-4 word phrases which is good language for him). But, when we went to the classroom for 15 minutes while the other children were there (there are 4 on an IEP and 4 typical peers, 1 teacher and 1 aide), his scripting increased dramatically, he couldn't sit still for circle time and was obviously overwhelmed and overstimulated. Now, I know he's barely 3, hasn't had the chance to acclimate himself to the school setting, but . . . my

questions are these: (1) what are the pros and cons with doing this kind of preschool? (2) could it be more harm than good? (3) does anyone else have experience where their child got used to the setting over time or didn't, and for that matter, how do you know that the child isn't just withdrawing instead of complying (4) how does the preschool help the autism or is it just that a child with autism is entitled to go to preschool and this is all that's available (we are on the waiting list for Middleburg, so that's not available right now). The thing that got me thinking about this was seeing the aide try to (gently) restrain by grabbing him every time he got out of his chair during circle time, which was every few seconds. He cried and cried and disrupted the class. One of two things will happen going forward - he'll cry and she'll repeatedly pull him back into the chair or he'll eventually give up and withdraw

into his autism world. Neither of which is desirable. Is that negative outcome worth the possible benefits of parallel playing next to typical peers and learning to attend to a teacher-directed task? Probably, no one but myself and my husband can answer these questions. I'm just curious if anyone else has thought about these things too. Thanks in advance, Eileen

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