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Times article http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_...icle4876937.ece the reporter wasn't all that good and actually linked autism with watching too much tv (and i have had feedback from Baron_cohen and Gina Owens who both are as gobsmacked as myself wonder where she got that idea...) but other than that we are all pleased with the results!

oops that wasnt me i swear!

Hello all, Many of you know I am doing a degree in psychology as part of trying to get better understanding of my children?s needs and better provision in school - as a part of my cog psyche course I have to do a "real" experiment investigating the way people think about a sequence of events. So I made a little online game and would be very grateful if you all gave it a go: www.mewitsend.org It takes about 5 minutes to complete and is just very silly ? plus it takes NO personal info whatsoever! Completely anonymous! Why am I releasing it to the world? Well, the claims of most psychological experiments have less scientific validity than a cosmetic company's claims about the effectiveness of their anti-wrinkle creams. Mainly due to the fact that most psyche experiments use only 6-24 participants. Clinical psychologists also have a tendency to be naval gazing and complain endlessly of how they can?t reach participants to get real evidence. I don?t believe this is true and want to show them that they can get some REAL numbers if only they apply a little creativity. [Evil me] So if you can all go to mewitsend.org and give it a go that would be GREAT! Even better if you then got all your friends to do it too! For legal/permission reasons I am not permitted to use under 16 year olds ? If you press the ?I am under 16? button - the site will grab your IP and then block you from going any further - so click it AFTER you have taken it if you absolutely must! lol THANKS! GB Tyrrell

Hello all, Many of you know I am doing a degree in psychology as part of trying to get better understanding of my children?s needs and better provision in school - as a part of my cog psyche course I have to do a "real" experiment investigating the way people think about a sequence of events. So I made a little online game and would be very grateful if you all gave it a go: www.mewitsend.org It takes about 5 minutes to complete and is just very silly ? plus it takes NO personal info whatsoever! Completely anonymous! Why am I releasing it to the world? Well, the claims of most psychological experiments have less scientific validity than a cosmetic company's claims about the effectiveness of their anti-wrinkle creams. Mainly due to the fact that most psyche experiments use only 6-24 participants. Clinical psychologists also have a tendency to be naval gazing and complain endlessly of how they can?t reach participants to get real evidence. I don?t believe this is true and want to show them that they can get some REAL numbers if only they apply a little creativity. [Evil me] So if you can all go to mewitsend.org and give it a go that would be GREAT! Even better if you then got all your friends to do it too! For legal/permission reasons I am not permitted to use under 16 year olds ? If you press the ?I am under 16? button - the site will grab your IP and then block you from going any further - so click it AFTER you have taken it if you absolutely must! lol THANKS! GB Tyrrell

always take a friend, if PP are not useless in your area (as they so usally are) ask that one of them accompany you. ask your friend to take copious note of the conversation and then write up those notes and send them back to the person you had the meeting with so that you create a paper trail - and it is not he said she said!

if you dont et any joy from her boss, send a copy to the lea and the ed psyche who interviewed you in the staementing process - the farther you spead the sh*t the harder it is to cover it up and deny it exists!

Gifted and Talented is a VERY HIGHLY DESIRED LABEL!!! recent governmenrt inititatives creating a partnership with NAGTY based on the 11+ test scores - this is now being used to rank children in year groups. this is a recognition that is absolutely essential to your child's education. ASD kids are above average intelligence - but with limited capabilitites of comunicvation. Also - they bore VERY easily. When bored they create distractions. Then get sanctioned and their education suffers and they get limited teaching time hense poor base skills. It is the teachers who thought our children were slow, lazy and subinteligent in the first plae that got our hildren where they are today... More importantly NAGTY is a government recoginsed organisation which you can use to say - Stop treating my kid like he/she is an idiot! It also says my child is smart - but has no base skills - and clearly lays the blame in the teacher's lap. Even better! NAGTY is focused on the children. My dd is a memeber and has had more support from the other children (every one i have met so far has had an SpLD!) and is now happier with her dx and has made friends for the first time!

letters to teachers should be brief and not include any emotion. you can say that you are: distressed dissapointed that this situation puts you and your family under stress but not: angry upset crying unhappy why? the first set of adjectives sets up and uses legal terms which ring certain bells and MUST be dealt with the second set actually plays into the hands of teachers/eps as beign an Hysterical parent which they are to distance themselves from make it brief 1-2 sentences outlining the problem 1 sentence on how distressed you are that no/whatever action has been taken 1-2 sentences on what solutions you thinks they might consider 1 sentence requesting a plan of action by a set date of your choosing. ALWAYS send a copy to your SEN govenor/chair of govenors - if you dont tell them what is happening the school does not have to. Informal exclusion - the school CANNOT by law call you and ask you to take your child home for any other reason than imediate threat of serious physical harm your child may perpatrate on another or infectious illness. They must apply a strategy to deal with your child IN SCHOOL. What you should be focusing on is how they deal with your son when he becomes upset and creating a strategy that they can apply that will work.

Hello, Have just finished uni course in child devlopment - ASD stands for Autism Spectrum Disorder. PDD stands for Pervasive Developmental Disorder. The terms ASD and PDD are NOT a diagnosis. ASD and PDD are used to describe the greater class of conditions to which autism belongs. Studies sugest ASDs/PDDs are inherited/genetic developmental disorders affecting the way the brain processes information and a person's ability to inhibit/filter certain types of behavior. All human brain development goes through a process called modularization where areas of the brain specialize, from birth, to deal with specific types of cognitive (thought) processes. For example, in a Neurologically Typical (NT) brain, language will be modularized to areas of the left hemisphere; in a non typical brain, language may be modularized equipotentially - or in several areas and several locations all over the brain. There is strong evidence that autism is linked to equipotentiality of the cerebellum (the part of the brain that deals with motor functions) and the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that deals with short term memory and inhibition/filtering of sensory input). Basically, people with ASD use more areas of the brain at once than the NT individual. This goes towards explaining why ASDs generally have higher IQs and hyper sensitivity of the senses. The fact that our brains work DIFFERENTLY is not a bad thing. There was also ONE study done on brain weight at birth which showed that 90% of the infants with autism also had atypically larger brains. This was a limited study done with very small numbers so no great validity there. The suggestion that austism is cuase by tramatic births has largely been debunked - due to the great variance in types of births occurring, although MMR is still being debated. Associated Co-occurance - these are disorders sharing the same locations in brain physiology, symptoms and studies have shown where one disorder is present there is a high occurace of associated disorders. Dyspraxia, Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Dyscalculia, ADHD, ADD

no they can't - so BE HELPFUL! email the class teacher and suggest a date and time (usually 5-10 minutes after the end of a school day) when you will be happy to review the IEP as it is four mothns past review. you need to: Contact your Local Authority (LA) or Local Education Authority (LEA) and ask to be sent a copy of the following document: Matrices for School Action, School Action Plus and Criteria for Statutory Assessment. here is a copy of Cambridgeshire's document: http://senpartnership.com/docs/Assessment_Matrices.pdf your LEA will have their own version and that is the only one the school will adhere to so contact your local LEA This document outlines education and behavioural targets and attainment levels for every SpLD for each Key Stage, the criteria for movement from SA to SA+ and for exactly what criteria the LA/LEA will issue a Statement. This document also lists what support the LA/LEA expect (not suggest, but expect) schools to provide. Review the Matrices document and compare your child's attainment levels to their criteria to see what level of support you think your child needs. If your dd's needs/deficits match criteria for SA, but not SA+ then you dont have a hope in hell of changing it. BUT if they match SA+ or even Statement, then you can insist.

oi vey! 1. your child's class teacher will write and review the IEP with you. If you dont agree with the IEP - dont sign it! 2. keep a copy of your child's IEPs (ther should be one for each term) 3. email your child's class teacher and senco from now on - and print them out. this becomes written evidence. from now on screen all your phone calls (let the answering machine pick up) - and never answer when the school calls now you want to write a short, BRIEF polite email asking your child's class teacher if your dd has reached last year's targets and what she/he/it thinks this term's targets should be. asking her to respond via email as are currently away from the phone a lot. if/when the class teacher says that targets have not been achieved - write the SENco a short, BRIEF polite email informing her/him/it of your concerns and ask what she suggests - again asking her to respond via email as are currently away from the phone a lot. aviod face to face meetings. dont get into a slanging match. hopefully one or all of them will slip up and you will be able to show the emails to the EP. In the meantime - apply for a dianosis of asd/dysleia through your GP asking him to refer you to the local NHS child pyshe unit. Tell them you are currently indispte with your school. They will do an independant review. This will take MONTHS, but if you wait for the school to come round it will be YEARS!

I was worried at first as well, but most sumer camp places are used to haveing children who are AS. They have inclusion laws a nd regulations as well they must follow. My ds attened a sailin camp this last summer at the age of 11 for a week and there was no problems. Having a formal diagnosis is not a handicap. If anything it has opened doors for us. As to that IEP! those targets are WAY TO LARGE! and too complex! Target = Stress - Need to recognise signal of stress, both by child and by teachers. Strategy/resources = Apply ?rage cycle? management* with direct re-enforcement in Social Skills group ? i.e. what is done in class is discussed in SS Exit Criteria = Demonstration and acknowledgement of stress signals. Child is able to communicate the onset of stress to an adult (who listens and he can trust to help) *?rage cycle? management is a strategy that teachers are aware of. sen kids go through what are called rage cycles. there is a clear "rumbling" stage where the child can be seen to be getting upset, this is an oppertunity for the teacher to see to the needs of the child, use distraction or to correct what may be going wrong before the child "melts down" or has a full tantrum. SMART targets must also be NON SELF POLICING. the emphasis must not be on the child to solely correct their behavior but on the adult to circumvent undesirable behavior and model acceptable behavior.

Hello! I haven't been around much as have been battleling DD's old school, settled DS into new school (which is soooo much better!) and finishing first year of psychology degree with the OU. I have been also working on setting up a series of websites to collect relevant info from all over and get teachers, psychologists and parents all on the same page. I have the menu/look and feel of the first site for parents - senpartnership, set up and would really love some feedback on anything I may have missed out. http://senpartnership.com/front.html http://senpartnership.com/home.html http://senpartnership.com/school.html http://senpartnership.com/psyche.html negative comments also welcome!

all teachers have email these days. inquire from the office the name and email address of the Chair of Govenors and the SEN Govenor. WRITE a very brief email to the SENco - not more than 4 or 5 sentenses - stating the comments of the teacher and how disapointed and distressed you were at hearing them. Close by asking when provision will be instated and the details of what the school will provide. CC (copy) the email to the HT, the chair of govs and the sen gov! basically, there will be 4 people asking said teacher - "What did you do!" Invovlving the governing body will ensure that the HT cant make your child disapear.

and this Pupils with special educational needs (SEN) 45. Statutory guidance on identifying, assessing and making provision for pupils with SEN, including those with behavioural, social and emotional needs, is given in the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice. Schools must have regard to this guidance. School governing bodies have a statutory duty to do their best to ensure that the necessary provision is made for any pupil who has SEN. Early identification and intervention, accurate assessment and the arrangement of appropriate provision to meet pupils' SEN usually leads to better outcomes. 46. Other than in the most exceptional circumstances, schools should avoid permanently excluding pupils with statements. They should also make every effort to avoid excluding pupils who are being supported at School Action or School Action Plus under the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice, including those at School Action Plus who are being assessed for a statement. In most cases, the head teacher will be aware that the school is having difficulty managing a pupil's behaviour well before the situation has escalated. Schools should try every practicable means to maintain the pupil in school, including seeking LA and other professional advice and support at School Action Plus or, where appropriate, asking the LA to consider carrying out a statutory assessment. For a pupil with a statement, where this process has been exhausted, the school should liaise with their LA about initiating an interim annual review of the pupil's statement. 47. Where a child is permanently excluded, the head teacher should use the period between his or her initial decision and the meeting of the governing body to work with the LA to see whether more support can be made available or whether the statement can be changed to name a new school. If either of these options is possible, the head teacher should normally withdraw the exclusion. 48. It is extremely important that parents of children with SEN who are excluded from school receive advice on the options available for their child's future education. Schools might usefully advise parents that advice and information on SEN is available through their local SEN Parent Partnership. The Parent Partnership should also be able to provide details of voluntary agencies that offer support to parents, including those that can offer advice concerning exclusions.