Sally44

Yes, I think it is down to literal interpretation of language (Semantics and Pragmatics) and concrete thinking. If I catch him saying something in the next couple of days i'll post it.

Getting him to join in, or start, or sustain a conversation is where we are at the moment. He can talk at you for a very short length of time, but doesn't always want or wait for a reply. Maybe once a week we will have what I would consider a lengthy conversation by his standards. This week it was about an operation I am due to have (when I have built up the courage to go ahead with it). He was asking about when it would be, would I have a hole, could I cover it up so he wouldn't see it, would I have stitches, would it hurt, would I stay in hospital for a long time, how many days before it happens. That is a marathon for him. Sometimes, at bedtime, we try to make up a story together. eg. I say a sentence, and then he says the next one. Sometimes it works, and we get some really funny stories. Other times he is very rigid and tries to tell me what I have to say (usually so it fits something he has already seen). He has alot of imagination in his lego model making, but outside of that, any probing is usually met with "I don't know". But he can learn facts. Infact he absorbs information and when those memories are triggered he regurgitates it, sometimes to his own surprise (as well as mine). When the DAT mentioned a scribe my heart sort of sank, because using language to communicate is another 'area of difficulty'. I just wish he excelled at something that was measurable in the school system! And from reading others postings, it is reassuring me that alot of what can be done is being done. And I just need to ask some questions about how we proceed from where we are.

Wonderful news

Adult supervision during playtimes and dinnertimes should be addressing all the social difficulties you mention.

HI BD, I'm not rounding on you, I just thought the slant on the original post was different when the further posts were read. But you are right in that the other woman could have totally interpreted what she heard as she walked past the car as you said. But, there are some parents, with kids, who are a nightmare. And responding out of anger and frustration is not the right way to go about it. But if parents feel their child's difficulties are not being addressed in school, then it leaves parents to fight it out in the playground - not a nice thought. Some parents are not reasonable, or even nice. I used to work for social services youth club for young offenders who were permanently excluded from school. And there was nothing wrong with those kids, that they hadn't learnt from their family environment, and there was little we could do to make those childrens' future prospects better when their parents were teaching them a life of crime. Over time I have learnt to try not to react on the spur of the moment. But schools are also aware of the home situations of some of the children who tend to be pick on other kids and do cut them alot of slack regarding behaviour. I don't think that is a way forward either. And as all of our children have difficulties with social interaction I think that there should automatically be adult support during playtimes and dinnertimes so that our children are not cornered out of sight of dinnerladies and submitted to all kinds of physical or verbal abuse and they have no skills available to them to defend themselves. I'm sympathetic to all sides in this debate - and am enjoying the debate. No hard feelings towards anyone.

Thanks, I think I need to talk about this with school as an overall long term issue. I have already spoken with the Dyslexia Advisory Teacher, who was quite curt to be honest. ie. she talked about using a scribe, but that that would only work if my son had something to say!! (he's quite passive). But I said 'i'm just making you aware of the current situation because he has a Statement and it says we need to check his progress after 6 months. That made her sit up and take notice a bit more. So she said she will get a copy of the Statement and read it. So I think that laptops and computer programmes such as clicker (mentioned by the private EP I used) might be a way forward. It might also motivate him more. What exactly is Widget? And the PIVATs sounds interesting too.

I think the original post, and connieruffs additional explanation of the background and what happened needs to be read again. My understanding is that she asked her son 'did Aaron say anything to you today', because she had been told he was supposed to apologise to your son. That is not clear from the first post Then, at that moment, Aaron's mother walked past and asked 'have you got a problem', which related to her own son getting into trouble for bullying. So, if anyone was being agressive it was Aaron's mum, who also seemed to be more bothered about the fact that he was caught and punished and not at all bothered by the fact that her son is a bully. But is any dialogue with a woman like that going to get you anywhere? If you had been able to ask her 'do you think it is acceptable for your son to bully a special needs child (or indeed any child)', it would have been interesting to get her response. I've got visions of Vicky Pollard in my head now!! And unfortunately, humans being humans, these kind of people can enjoy winding up the parents as much as their children enjoy winding up ours. We become the entertainment. Makes me wonder about the definition of 'special needs'. Fortunately I haven't had any run ins with parents. Had some with school staff though. I always tried to leave it at least 24 hours before I did anything. Usually I would type up a letter, and then read it again 12 hours later to see how it sounded. Usually I had to alter it alot after the heat of the moment. Then I would send it in. As our children's advocates we have to defend them. If the understanding and the supports are not there to begin with parents can be left behaving like a cornered lion defending their cub! But it doesn't help when our children are not understood. I was once called into school because my son had been throwing duplo bricks at the TA. Which she said was very inappropriate. She explained that my son had chosen the duplo dinosaur to play with. Then after about 5 mins the TA had insisted that he allow two other children to join in and had also insisted that they build a dinosaur (and my son was halfway to completing his duplo robot), I wasn't at all surprised that he had got angry. And I told her that I thought that her behaviour had been inappropriate to let two other children take over the toy and ride roughshod over my son. She said 'but if we don't do these things he just stays on his own'. I'm sure other parents have had this type of scenario. I've just remembered a run in I did have at a toddler playgroup. This was pre-diagnosis - but I knew something was wrong and my nerves were very frayed (see i'm trying to excuse myself). My son was sat with toys, and this other toddler kept coming along, picking them up one by one and walking off with them. My son was throwing a tantrum, but doing nothing to stop the other child. His mother was chatting with another mum and totally unaware of what her child was doing. When you have an autistic child you know that there is no way to 're-direct them' from a toy they have been enjoying and which has just been removed. I was livid. So I went up and took all the toys off her child and gave them back to mine. Of course her child disolved into tears. When she challenged me I said "if you had been paying attention to your child you would have seen that he took all those toys off my child." It felt good at the time, but it has never sat well with me over the years! I just write it off to experience.

I don't think they go by letter name at all, it just confuses him more. They go by letter sound (Jolly Phonics). If you just said the letter sound and asked him to write it he would struggle. There might be around 10 letter sounds that he remembers. Otherwise he needs to see it first. I think the problem is he doesn't have the skills to work it out. But they are still using both approaches at the moment, because he is making some progress in both systems and they are doing it every day. In his previous school they started with flashcards and he learnt over 45+ words. Then they changed to phonics and he slowly forgot the words he previously knew (last time tested prior to SA he knew only 8 high frequency words). And phonics is a system that he also struggles with. In his present school they are doing daily work on this and he is showing improvement. Whether it is permanently 'learnt' I don't know. I also don't know if he will ever get to a stage where he has enough knowledge of letter sounds, blending etc to work out what a word says. Interestingly he is quite good a 'reading pictures'. I know that some children with ASDs cannot understand the story from the pictures, but can read - yet without understanding. My son seems to have a good grasp of the story through pictures, but words He's just come home from school now, and has told me: double 1 is 2, double 2 is 4 and double 3 is 6. He has to use his fingers always. And he showed me how he has been taught to do this in school, ie get three fingers and count them twice. But this is a major achievement, and I could tell that he was very proud of himself I think he has one to one correspondence with numbers up to 10. But all maths has to be done with his fingers, or something else visual like an abacus - again he cannot hold that information and manipulate it in his mind. And the difficulties I mention above, are such a struggle for him because he is alot brighter than those difficulties would appear to indicate and he gets so frustrated with himself and the 'baby work' (as he calls it) that he has to do. He asked me the other day if ghosts are real. I said I don't know. Then he asked if animals have ghosts. I know off on a tangent now, but have you ever used the SCERTS assessment system for social interaction skills? And if so what is your opinion.

I think there are lots of things that can be done. And lots of things that should be done. But will they be done? Parents have very mixed experiences of schools. Some schools go the extra mile. Some teachers/TAs are interested and will differentiate work appropriately. Other schools, teachers or TAS do not like outside professionals going into school and advising them on how best to present work. I think you have to go with the knowledge you have of how your school has approached the whole subject regarding your own son. It is useful to know what the school 'should' do, and then weigh up - as best you can - whether that is possible in his current placement. Most parents have a good 'feel' of how their particular school is. And you are also limited by timescales. If you want to move your child for year 3, then decisions have to be made sooner rather than later as all children moving from infant school will be taking up those junior school places and the SEN ones are usually oversubscriped anyway. I live next door to two teachers. One works in primary, the other in ER secondary. Both said that the demands made on teachers makes it very difficult in the classroom. Out of 30 children you can have very different needs, and any extra help in class is only for the more severe needs. That leaves the teacher having to cover an awful lot of ground, and when they ask for outside help there are financial constraints on who they can call in and how often. Then you also need to consider what benefit, if any, is there for your child to be in a mainstream environment. Is it something beneficial to him. Is he academically in their circle, does he have successful social interaction with them, or does it affect his self esteem because he knows he is different. Does his current school have all the supports that a mixed or special education school may have eg. social skills groups, playtime support etc. Because although we are talking about academic stuff here, the difficulties are not all academic and the gap widens with social interaction/understanding as well as with academic stuff. At his current school they have years of experience of using all different types of approaches and strategies and differentiating work for individual pupils. So it is relatively quick and easy for them to try lots of different things until they find something that works. At his previous school everything was such a hassle for them and took forever. If I give an example of one numeracy support ie. Numicon. His previous school did not have this system and would have taken god knows how long to get that system in, if they ever did. Numicon is just one of many extra supports with a proven track record for special needs children that his present school already have. An example of the difference between my son's two schools is this. My son has difficulty following verbal instructions, even when given directly to him. His previous school had a TA who, when available, was responsible for organising him and getting him doing his work correctly. Without her he was totally lost, and when she wasn't there he drifted around the classroom and did not do any work and did not participate at all. In his new school they present work visually, larger tasks are broken down into smaller visual units. The TA checks that he knows exactly what he should be doing, and then he gets on with it independently following his visual cues, and uses a help card if he gets stuck. The second system is much better. But moving him was also a very hard decision because it meant separating him from other children he had known since nursery, separating him from kids in the neighbourhood and also separating him from his sibling. But it was the right choice.

You sound in a similar position to me around a year ago. However, as my son is suspected of having dyslexia and dyscalculia, he isn't on the national curriculum yet. However, same issues. He has central auditory processing difficulties, sensory integration disorder, problems with processing auditory information, his speech is about 50/50 his own and echolalia (phrases taken from TV or DVDs). And I could see that he was either going through the motions (because he has brilliant rote learnt memory), with no understanding behind it, or he just wasn't getting it. I used the Parent Partnership to help getting IEPs SMART so that we could prove that not only was he not learning, but was regressing. I am going to be very honest here. My opinion is that you have to look at two things (a) is your son's cognitive ability such that with highly differentiated work he will grasp the concepts of the subjects being learnt?, and ( how willing is his current school to put the time and effort into doing that? In my situation the school were not prepared to do it, and to a certain extent it wasn't all their fault because it takes years for staff to have experience and expertise in teaching children with ASDs. Outside agencies were not giving any written information to school. So they just got verbal advice, which I often found they misunderstood anyway! And my son, although he is bright, is only motivated in his areas of interest and has some real conceptual problems. So I moved him to a mixed mainstream school (in our area called Enhanced Resource), where it is a mainstream school with around 5 children per class on the spectrum. There is also an autism unit for more severely affected children. He is doing well there. But I will have a similar issue at secondary level. It is a way off, but he may not cope at all in mainstream. So I would advise you to look at other schools in your area that have experience of teaching children with ASDs. It is very hard to get anyone to give you an honest opinion. Firstly his current school cannot refuse or say they cannot cope to the LEA, but they can make it impossible to work by not co-operating. And LEAs do seem to prefer to try to keep children mainstream. And outside agencies have a very limited amount of time they can come into a mainstream school to give advice. As you say the style of learning in junior school is not ASD friendly. I could see that mine would not cope or learn in that environment, and from past experience I knew that it was not worth the time and effort of the continual fighting to try to get it into place at his previous school. It was at this stage that we applied for a SA, got a Statement and also a different Placement. My son is now in a class of 18 pupils with 1 teacher and 2.5 TAs. All the children are on SAP or are statemented with a diagnosis of an ASD. So eventhought he is 'mainstream', he is in actual fact in a special needs type of environment. He always works in small groups with some 1:1. But there has been a huge difference in his independence abilities because the school has all the visual timetables and worksheets etc that he can work through on his own. Previously he had to listen and follow instructions and he was just copying the other children. But I would ask everyone involved with your son what their opinion is. But again, they know if there any places available in the other schools, so they tend not to mention alternative placements if they know they aren't available. But you can request a different placement, and if that is refused you can take it to tribunal.

Can you be more clear and tell us what signs you saw prior to age 3? My understanding is that the only difference between the two diagnosis of ASD and AS is the language development being typical up to age 3. Things that I noticed with my son prior to age 3 were absolute terror if anyone apart from myself picked him up. This included his father as well. He didn't play with toys at all until he was about 2+. He would climb into the wardrobe, but would never attempt to climb the stairs. He only enjoyed playing with lego and puzzles, and was way ahead in those areas. He didn't demand my attention. He only came to me if he wanted a drink or something to eat or the TV on. He didn't chat socially. Obviously tantrums, all the time! And so contradictory eg. I would ask him 'do you want X' and he would say 'no', so I'd go to put it away and all hell would break loose. My son can make eye contact, but as soon as he is concentrating on what he wants to say he has to look away. He would also bang his head on the wall/floor, scratch at his face or hit himself in the face. And all consuming RAGE. Lots of sensory behaviour ie. appearing deaf, covering ears, problems with smells, taste, textures of food. He would vomit automatically if he got upset. Refusal to leave the house. His language progressed to two word combinations, then at age 3 he suddenly began repeating whole TV/DVD dialogues. And this would be word perfect, however he didn't have the understanding behind it. He talks with an American accent. There was discussion about which diagnosis he would get. I felt that eventhough his language was advanced by age 3 it was echolalic, and therefore not typical language development. The Paediatrician agreed. My son also doesn't appear to have the obsessions that those with AS can have. The only thing I would say, (and other parents please don't jump on me for saying this), but if there is any doubt about diagnosis, I personally would push for a diagnosis of ASD rather than AS because children with AS are assumed to be much more capable, typically academic etc and don't get the level of supports that a similar child with a diagnosis of an ASD might get.

He can hold a pencil correctly most of the time! But he does also swop hands. They are teaching phonics in small groups and also using flashcards because my son has alot of difficulty with phonics because he also has central auditory processing disorder which means he actually hears the sounds differently ie. he cannot tell the difference between 'p' and 'b' and 'm' and 'n'. He also learns things in chunks, which I believe is typical of being on the spectrum and finds it very hard to start with letters and build them up into words and then build up words into sentences. Would I be reasonable in asking that he start to learn how to type at his age (8)? Bringing in another system will dilute the time he spends on phonics or flashcards. But at the same time we have been working on these skills for years and it might be that typing would be easier for him. I'll mention it at his MEP and see what they say. And it is logical that if he cannot recognise a word and read it that he won't be able to write it But it does seem to be a memory retrieval problem as well because if you put some flashcards on the table and asked him to point to the word that says 'cat', he could do that. So when given a visual choice he can work it out. But without any visual clue he cannot write the word cat. And the flashcard thing only works if you use words that start with different letters ie. if you had cat, can, camp etc he would not recognise cat. So he is going on the beginning letter, which is a start. But why can't he retrieve that information in his mind without the visual flashcard to see. Is that just part of how his ASD affects him and that is as good as it will get? It sounds like they are doing what they should be doing which is reassuring. I worry that his difficulties are going to make it very difficult for him to demonstrate learning and ability, which I know he does have. He doesn't have overlays, but he wears irlen glasses - which we've lost at the moment - i've got to search the house for them.

He is in year 2 and they haven't tried him with typing. For literacy they used Precision Teaching along with other tasks to help with short term memory retrieval. There is no reason why he cannot write. Although he does have some motor planning problems. He just doesn't seem to get the concepts, and he cannot hold information in his short term memory (or retrieve it) if it is to do with literacy or numeracy - yet he can hold other information. The precision teaching has helped him retain information. But if I ask him to write the word 'cat', he would have no idea where to start. He is beginning to sound out 3 letter words eg. c-a-t, but then might say the word is 'tap'. So he isn't using the sounding out to help identify what the word is! Numeracy is slightly better. They have just started him on the Numicon system. School are saying that he has made progress in both literacy and numeracy of about 1 point each. And I can see that his skills have improved in some areas eg. being able to sound out c-a-t. But if he can't then identify what word that is, then effectively he hasn't progressed. I'm getting totally bogged down and confused with it all. I think i'll ask them at the MEP what tools they are using for both literacy and numeracy.

Just spoken with the Dyslexia Advisory Teacher who says she will get a copy of my son's Statement, and also speak with the school. I asked her about 'the future' (my son is now 8) and what happens when a child is not reading or writing as they get older - how do you assess their skills. She told me that if he still cannot read or write that he would eventually get access to a scribe. But the effectiveness of that "would depend on whether he had anything to say". Well his speech is quite severely affected as well. Are there are positive stories out there??

My son also does this. Not only is it mirror image, but sometimes upside down. He is also ambidextrous. Now he is 8 he is mainly right handed, but can still swop to his left hand at any point. He is also said to have difficulties consistent with dyslexia and dyscalculia. I find it hard to understand these difficulties because he is absolutely brilliant at building lego models. And yet really struggles with the orientation of letters/numbers.

I've got my son's MEP coming up soon. My son is Statemented, and the statement says he has difficulties consistent with a diagnosis of dyslexia and dyscalculia. He is 8 years old and is still on 'P' scales (ie. not on the national curriculum yet). He cannot read or write independently yet. In his Statement is says that if he has not made reasonable progress within 6 months that the LEA must appoint a specialist dyslexia teacher to go into school. I think someone said to me that if a child makes 2 points of progress within an academic year then that is seen as reasonable progress. But I don't know whether that is written anywhere. Any similar experiences would be appreciated.

As you are also classed as disabled, do you meet the criteria for Legal Help? I think that if you are on any kind of tax credit, that you will be over the threshold, but if you are on income support you may be able to get legal help. I did resort to using a solicitor, but that usually means you also have to get private reports, and that all adds up. But you could look on the NAS website for a legal advocate in your area who has experience of SEN law and at least find out if you are eligible for Legal Help. I know there are other advocates out there, but I don't know how to access them - maybe other forum members will post that information. If you suspect that there is something on your son's medical records you can ask to see them. And you don't need a diagnosis to get a Statement. You need written evidence of needs and recommendations about how school should meet those needs.

I don't think the punishment is wrong. It is your son's understanding of the punishment that seems unfair to him. He would probably love to be sent home rather than have to stay in a school he dislikes.

I would advise you to contact your local Parent Partnership to make sure that all procedures are followed correctly. Make your point of view clear, ie. that you want him in school and for him to be supported 1:1 as they suggested and that you are happy with that, but that you do not want him taught at home. PP may suggest a meeting with all professionals concerned. That might be helpful in getting him back in school. Your post says that he is in a behavioural unit. So I presume his placement is the right kind of environment for him. Do you have any concerns about his placement or the level of support he receives?

I suspected my son had dyslexia for years. We took him to Dyslexia Action when he was nearly 7 (as 7 appears to be an age by which time certain developmental skills should be in place). Anyway they couldn't test him because, although he is HFA, he has severe difficulties with receptive speech as well as central auditory processing disorder. For example the first question she asked him was to listen to a word cut into three sylabels, and to build it back up eg. Pho-to-graph. My son said the word was 'grass'. She tried a couple more things then gave up! But that was still evidence in itself of his difficulties. I had difficulties with anyone in school or outside agencies recognising his dyslexia and kept being told that 'children with autism usually have these types of difficulties', well maybe that is because those children also have dyslexia!?! But there are other children with an ASD diagnosis that don't have these learning difficulties, therefore there must be something 'extra' going on. My son recently had his Statement finalised, and it says there that he is suspected of having dyslexia and that if he doesn't make reasonable progress within 6 months that the school will have to employ a specialist teacher for him. I'm sure they will have produced some evidence by then that he has made some progress. But he has a brilliant memory. He can read a book once and remember all the words. But he cannot blend letters, or read known words in another context, he cannot spell, he cannot sound out a word a guess what it is. It is very frustrating because he is a bright lad. He is now 8 and is still on P levels ie. not on the national curriculum yet. However he can talk to you about gravity or how birds can fly etc. I don't know if all LEAs have an advisory teacher for Dyslexia. Ours has just been removed and put in another job!! But they should be able to give advice to school about how to present work. They do use precision teaching (which is really an on-going assessment process) with my son which is supposed to help children with dyslexia learn and retain information. But I need to speak with the PP again to find out 'who' can give more advice to school if needed.

Didn't you say in your original post that CAHMS had dismissed him because he wouldn't speak to them? Surely that is a sign in itself that there is a problem? Maybe others can comment on where you would go from there regarding CAHMS. I was also under the impression that those with a diagnosis of AS can have empathy and theory of mind, although it may again be on a spectrum of abilities. My son is autistic and has empathy, but he needs the situation explaining to him so that he understands it, then he is perfectly capable of showing empathy. And, as you have said, as your son is a carer, he will have learnt about other people's difficulties. The only thing I would add to everything you have posted, is that when you are ever refused a service for whatever reason always ask the person to put their explanation in a letter to you. You will be surprised at how many people will not do that, or will capitulate and provide the support rather than give you written evidence that they refused it. If they don't do that you can write to them yourself in the terms 'further to our telephone conversation of XXX you told me XXX, can you please confirm that my understanding of the situation is current.' It is always useful to have this kind of written evidence for any further action you may wish to take. Have you also involved the Parent Partnership? They can be very useful in making sure that agencies actually follow through and do what they are supposed to do. I always used them to take notes at meetings and to help me gather evidence. I think that bid's approach maybe the most useful at the moment. As well as Karen A's suggestion of asking the GP to use the correct wording in a letter. I would also put the request to the GP in writing giving him a brief but succinct picture of where you are, ie. 'thank you for your letter/note dated xxx unfortunately the school will not accept this as it is worded incorrectly and have asked for a further letter/note correctedly worded so that my son can access home tuition whilst problems at school are worked on. We are at the stage where school have threatened prosecution, which would be very traumatic for both me and my son due to our respective diagnosis. Therefore your prompt reply would be appreciated.'

I totally agree with that. But the DSM Criteria clearly states that those with Aspergers have typical language development (is it until age of 3) -and I have previously posted that I believe all those on the spectrum with autism, ASDs, AS etc have language and communication difficulties. What I was trying to get across was that my sons expressive and receptive language is severely affected to the extent that when he moved to his new school at age 7 they used PECS as well as language - I don't think a child with AS would be using PECS - but correct me if i'm wrong - and yet he still received no supports at all eventhough he could not make himself understood and couldn't follow a simple verbal instruction even when given directly to him. Yet I was still legally obliged to take him into school every day.

You need to keep PP in place to help you make sure everything happens. You almost end up like 'project manager', but if you don't do it things don't get done, and time just goes by. If, when everyone has tried, this still is not enough to meet his needs, then you might be looking at a different placement. And, although it isn't easy to get in writing that school has not been helpful, or they haven't attended training sessions - although it isn't obligatory, it is telling. So you could write a letter to (the EP for example) to the effect, thank you for organising the training day about ASDs to help teachers understand my sons needs. I am sorry to hear that only 2 out of xx teachers actually turned up, as this means that this opportunity for staff to learn about my son's difficulties has been missed.' I did go through a similar thing at my son's previous school. And I don't want you to take this as just being negative, because your situation is different and it might all work. But the AAT was hardly ever there at my son's school, and school never received any written advice from the AAT, SALT or EP apart from their initial report at School Action Plus, and staff were resistant to any changes or different ways of doing things. It became obvious to me and eventually outside agencies as well, that he needed experienced teachers who had been teaching and working with children for ASDs for years, and that, in his current school, we would be waiting years to train up staff to a level that their knowledge would be effective. So, I hope it does make a difference, but also bear in mind a reasonable timescale by which time you draw the line and say I have tried with this school for long enough!

I have a sibling who was recently turned down for CBT because they said he has rigid concrete thinking consistent with autism and therefore it would not work for him as he has held onto these rigid beliefs for too long. (although he is not diagnosed, as he doesn't have enough difficulties to warrant a diagnosis). However that seems to run completely against the other posts. They also said that he would have to be at a stage where he accepted that the beliefs he holds are not true, and I can't see that ever happening. But I also don't see why he would need to be at that stage, surely that is what the CBT would be trying to achieve?