What Happens Next? Follow-Up From the Children's Toddler School Program.

Akshoomoff et al. (2010) checked in on kids who once attended an inclusive toddler program for autism. They used a simple case-series design to see how the children were doing years later.

The team looked at diagnosis, language scores, classroom placement, and parent stress. No new treatment was tested; they just tracked what happened after the early program ended.

Most children still carried an autism diagnosis, yet their thinking and language scores landed in the average range. Six out of ten were in general-education elementary classes.

Social skills stayed weak and parent stress stayed high. The picture is mixed: good cognitive gains, but social and emotional needs linger.

Goldstein (2002) and Cui et al. (2023) both list proven language tools like milieu teaching and social scripting. The toddler program used similar everyday methods, so the later average language scores line up with those reviews.

Faso et al. (2016) watched verbal autistic preschoolers in inclusive rooms and found most teacher questions were simple management ones. That helps explain why Natacha’s kids still struggled socially: inclusive seats alone do not create high-quality social input.

Beadle-Brown et al. (2002) followed youth with autism and severe ID for decades and saw social status barely shift. Their grim stability pairs with Natacha’s finding that social gaps remain, reinforcing that social instruction needs its own long-term plan.

Early inclusive care can lift language and cognition, but it is not a finish line. Keep social-skills goals on the IEP even when a child moves to general-ed class. Add peer-mediated interventions and parent stress supports from day one. Average test scores can hide real-life struggles, so keep measuring social participation and caregiver burden long after the toddler years.