bed32

Gretton has been recommended to us, we are intending to go to see it in a few weeks time. Our initial contact is fairly encouraging but I understand that it is newish and so they don't have much of a trackrecord so far

SALT is speech and language therapy. The three core professionals you need are SALT, Occupational Therapy (OT) and Psychology (usually an Educational Psychologist - EP).Between them the will be able to go into details as to his strengths and weaknesses and could give you a much better understanding of his needs. Unfortunately you will not get much help in this area from the state. He should get access to an EP through school, and the NHS have SALT and OT but in each case you are likely to get only a very simple diagnosis and not much therapy. You are quite right - managing his anxiety is key to making progress. One thing that may not be readily apparent is that there is quite likely to be a strong sensory component to his anxiety. This would be assessed by an OT with postgraduate training in Sensory Integration Therapy. Unfortunately NHS don't do Sensory Integration, so the only way to get that diagnosed is privately. Once diagnosed you can get it provided for on his statement. If he exhibits signs of unusual sensory response (avoiding certain sounds, getting distressed or confused in noisy places, seeking out touch or other sensory stimulii) then you should try to get that investigated. Google for "vestibular" - vestibular disorders are treated by Sensory Integration Therapy If he has significant problems at school then you should apply for a Statutory Assessment - that will require the LA to perform a multi-disciplinary assessment and should include some input from SALT and OT.

In terms a diagnosis that may well be all there is. They should be able to tell on the basis of that whether he gets a formal diagnosis of ASD. If it is not ASD then I guess there may be more assessments to try to work out what it is. However whatever happens this is really only the first stage to building up a full understanding of his needs. No two ASD children are alike and so a diagnosis of ASD is only one part of understanding your son. To get a complete understanding you need to look in a lot more depth as areas such as OT, SALT, Executive functioning and so on. The problem with some children is that they have "spikey" profiles that exhibit a very wide range of abilities in different areas. A simple assessment of SALT, or IQ may give an average result but mask the fact that there are some very great difficulties in some areas.

The 5% figure came from our solicitors - I would guess that relates to children for whom ASD specific provision is appropriate (e.g. AS or HFA), so excluding the severe cases who require even more specialised/intensive treatment. I think the problem for the bright AS chlidren is that the condition has tended to be under-diagnosed, so many children are kept in mainstream without the necessary support and branded as thick, or EBSD or the like. Also these days when they are diagnosed there is an increasing amount of support in mainstream, in the form of ASD units. The majority of the specialist provision has grown up for children whose needs are so great that they could not possibly be considered in mainstream. While these tend to characterise themselves as being for pupils of average cognitive ability but in practice their pupils are not particularly able academically and in several of these schools the pupils tend to get no, or very few, GCSEs. That leaves a small group of children, like my son and the OP's son, for which provision is very poor. My son has a very spikey profile, he is at level 7 in Maths and 6 in Science, but at the same time has severe Sensory and Social Communication difficulties. They require a nurturing environment that can address their issues, allow them to develop socially and provide intellectual stimulus through the academic teaching. To me the academic side is very important for a number of reasons. Firstly, and most importantly, he loves doing Maths and Science - it keeps him interested and engaged with school. An environment that did not provide that level of stimulus would lead to him being even more disaffected from school. Then not to consider his strengths means that we end up defining him by his disabilities, not by his abilities. Developing his strengths can give build his self confidence and help reduce the risk of mental health issues. Finally to live a fulfilled independent life he needs to make the most of what talents he has - skills in some areas can make up for disadvantages in the social side. E.g. a computer programmer can still do a good job with very limited social skills.

In fact I think the preferred term these days is ASC rather than ASD - I guess the C is for Condition

I am not sure about much demand - but there is certainly a gap in provision here as babnye is finding (as are we). AS is frequently associated with giftedness in certain areas - I think many such children survive in mainstream - but if like my son the problems of ASD are too severe to make mainstream feasible the options become decidedly limited. Most AS specialist schools cater for children of "broadly average ability" - which tends to mean being at average or below cognative levels but not so low as to be technically sub-normal. I have heard estimates that about 5% of ASD children have the potential to go to University - but finding an education for them that allows them to achieve that potential is very difficult. There are a few schools in the country (fewer than a dozen) that genuinely try to provide an education for bright autistic kids, and if you are not near one you have a serious problem.

I think babnye is a little unlucky is the schools they've considered - there are better schools out there, but perhaps not within reach. There are a handful of special schools that regularly get pupils to university ( which I would put as an important criterion) One problem with day schools is that a typical special school will allocate time to salt, ot and so. On that takes time out of the curriculum so reducing the time available for academic teaching

I don't think there is a hard-and-fast rule as all children are different. For us we tried to explain it to our son at age about 9 when he was getting increasingly aware that he was different from the rest of his class. We did this in conjunction with CAMHS, working through a book intended for the task. To be honest I am not sure how much he understood, but it certainly didn't cause any problems and once he knows about the diagnosis you can always return to the subject. Now (at the age of 10) we are thinking about trying to interest him more in it and see if we can get him to read about ASD (reading is by far the best way for him to learn anything)

Exactly, that shows they have a very broad view of "average ability" One also sad some pupils reach level 6 or 7 in maths and science - but our son is already at a good 6 in maths an a high 5 in science. On the positive side the staff numbers are so high that they can in theory offer a tailored curriculum - and several of the schools say they have links with local schools and in that pupils can go there for some lessons, Of all the schools we've spoken to only a couple genuinely seem to try to stretch the pupils to reach their potential (mind you most mainstream schools don't either) It all makes it so hard to work out whether a school can challenge the bright pupils - given what a fight it will be to get him into any of these schools it is very hard not knowing whether it will be the right choice.

Sounds like a good move (our latest appeal went in yesterday) I presume you will be able to name a school that will see him up to GCSE which means things should finally get settled. All you have to do now is find the school. I went to the Autism show in London yesterday - saw a number of specialist schools - most of them say they cater for average to above average intelligence, and go on to say they have some pupils capable of sitting GCSE! Only one, when I described my son, said he might be too bright for them

So what are you actually hoping to achieve at the moment? It sounds as if things are in a fairly stable situation at the moment - ok so he is out of school but you seem to be happy with the way his education is going. I would think no one is going to be in a hurry to change the situation unless you press. There seems to be to be a good case for just letting things run as they are for the summer If he is happy and settled now why risk upsetting that? You could try to get the LA to provide more tutoring at home, but if you do you are unlikely to have much say in who you get, any more than you have a say in the teacher he has at school. The routes for you to get more control over the resources, or even to get the LA to do their duty will take a lot of time and effort to follow (either Tribunal or Judicial Review) and so are probably not worth pursuing except as part of a longer term strategy. Do you have an appeal pending now? If not you should think of engineering the right to appeal, request an emergency review or reassessment on the grounds that he is out of school. Once you decide what you want to achieve for next year and beyond it will be useful to have an appeal in the pipeline - I think you will be very lucky to get everything you need without one.

I know it is not the question you asked but what is the reason for exclusion? The exclusion is highly likely to be unlawful but it may not be worth doing much about it. In fact when looking for a statement and SEN provision, exclusion can strengthen your case. There is no standard approach for assessment so he can be assessed out of school. However a large part of the assessment will be based on the school's report.

Seems to be to be portraying an idiot savant, a fairly common literary theme. Certainly many savants are autistic, but I didn't take Forest Gump as being specifically autistic

I don't think you need to rush into making the HE official. It sounds as if you are doing it already informally and I don't see the LA imposing an expensive tutor on you against your wishes. At this stage I am sure you can do a better job of educating him than a mainstream school can, the only issue would be the social side, and there are ways to do that too outside school.

Yes sap is school action plus, as is SA+ To be honest it rarely does any good but it is a stepping stone to a statement , and it is hard to get a statement without having been on SAP for some time. I think the welsh speaking school is a big problem. ASD children can struggle with literacy in one language and I would have thought adding a second language to the curriculum just puts them under more strain, and reduces the time for other subjects. I would think that unless you are committed to Welsh you would be better in and English-speaking school. ( I hope I don't get my house burnt down for saying that) Although it is difficult in some ways it may be better for the two boys to be in different schools. We are acutely aware of the influence of our older son (AS) has on the younger (NT) at the same school, although it is probably less of an issue where the younger is ASD. It must at least be worth looking round at local schools to see if there are any with a high proportion of AS children and see what they advise. We have a good one in our area we would have looked at had we known he was AS at the time

I also don't think holding him back a year is likely to be the right answer at this stage. If he is not in the right environment he will further and further behind, even if he drops back a year. It is also unlikely that just moving schools will help,( unless you can move to one of the mainstream schools that have a lot of SEN children and so can provide a lot of the specialist support he needs). Also at this stage you probably don't know enough about what sort of school will suit him better so unless things go badly wrong you are probably better keeping him where he is while you see how things develop and go through the process of getting assessments. This is where the cognitive assessment is important - if he turns out to have average cognitive abilities but is under performing then that is a strong indicator that he has educational needs that are not being met. From what you say it sounds as if he is going to need a statement with specialist provision, so the sooner you get started with that the better. Before you get to that stage the school will normally have to go through SA. SAP so you should make sure they are progressing down that route now. He should have IEPs that you review regularly

Isn't that a case of "The grass is always greener"? Name me an LEA that is good with ASD and I'll more there in a shot But to answer the original poster, it is very hard to give any opinion at all without knowing more about the sort of school they are looking for. Is it an ASD-friendly mainstream, or a full on Autism school

Cognitive assessment is rather like an IQ test. It tries to assess his potential in a range of areas. It should help you understand his strengths and weaknesses. It is also important to help interpret his achievement, if he performs less well than his cognitive ability suggests then that is an important indicator of unmet special needs.

Sounds pretty positive. I think the problem with SALT is that most NHS SALT teams are not really set up to provide the sort of support a child with ASD needs. Although they have a communication disorder it is a long way from the sort of disorders the NHS SALTs routinely deal with. Unfortunately repeated referral to NHS won't really accomplish too much A good statement will almost certainly make specific recommendations about the SALT support he needs that will require an independent SALT

Yes school have filled in all the paperwork - so nothing to complain about on that. I also have no doubt that the exclusion is technically unlawful according to the Equality Act,Also the head teacher did not follow the statutory guidance (but I don't think that matters as there is no way of enforcing it as far as I can tell). We do in fact have a meeting with the EP in a couple of weeks time (arranged before the exclusion) when we can probably discuss this. This is one of a couple of points that are making be wonder whether the EP knows enough about Autism for the role. It seems very strange to me that the EP should recommend this action as being in the best interests of the child - it certainly goes against the recommendations of Tony Attwood, and of the IEP we had for the tribunal. This sounds to me much like the sort of action that would be recommended for an EBD child rather than an ASD one - but is there an established school of thought that would use those sorts of punishments for an ASD child as well? Note the EP involved is not the school EP - so in this instance her duty is purely to our son. When considering her actions there is no need to worry about whether the exclusion itself was reasonable.

In this case he lashed out at someone who was bullying him - but he does have a tendancy to be aggressive when under stress so there have been other incidents in the past. If it weren't for the issue of the EP I would have no problem dealing with that - clearly well out of order, and unlawful detriment. It is the involvement of the EP that worries me (a) because the school could claim it is a legitimate behaviour management technique sanctioned by an EP and ( because if the EP does agree with it I am very unhappy about her continued involvement.

Our son has just been given a fixed term exclusion. As part of his statement there is an EP who goes into school once a fortnight to work with him and the staff. We believe (but don't know for certain) that this EP was consulted on the exclusion and may even have advised in favour. We believe that the exclusion is totally inappropriate in the circumstances and we are shocked if it is the case that someone who is supposed to have skills in ASD would support it. We will probably appeal this. However the involvement of the EP (if she has been) raises two serious issues. Firstly it may be that if the school can show they were acting on the advice of the EP then we might not win an appeal (although we probably still will). Secondly if she did give this advice, or even not fearcely oppose it - then there must be a huge question about whether she is an appropriate person for the role in relation to an ASD child. That is even more worrying, I am not sure what we should do if that turns out to be the case - I really wouldn't want her to have any more involvement.

Do you really have any evidence of Corruption in NAS? I would be very surprised. It is one thing to think they are a useless overpaid waste of oxygen and another to accuse them of criminal activity. While I understand people's frustration with NAS, a TV documentary will do nothing to improve anything. The case is not so clear cut as to make for a massive expose, so it would be bound to come across as petty infighting and I suspect that the NAS, with their well-paid communications team, will come across as a lot more plausible. BTW I am a member of or support various large charitable bodies with similar sorts of remit (NT, RNLI, RYA) without exception they have the same complaints made about their leadership as I hear about NAS. The way to reform them is from the inside.

Schools have a very limited amount of EP time - so don't expect too much. I think it is likely to be a short observation in class (which is often not much use as it will depend on his mood at the time) plus discussion with teachers and SENCO. I would be surprised if there was any assessment or 1:1 time. The objective will probably be to advise the staff on strategies. If he is not already on SAP, this meeting should mean that he is moved to that. Don't expect too much from it - it is just one of many stages on the journey to getting him the help he needs. All of them are necessary if individually you don't see much progress from each one. I certainly wouldn't recommend postponing it - you will just hold up the process. You might consider preparing a 2-3 side document giving your concerns to be handed to the EP on the day

In general I would not trust the major TV companies to make a good documentary on AS (or anything else sensitive for that matter). They are too fond of being sensationalist and emphasizing the differences - there have been a couple of exceptions but they have been made by people with a personal insight into the issues. Open public criticism of NAS would be devisive IMHO and could be very damaging to the image of AS in the country. They have no statutory role so there isn't really a "public interest" case for open criticism in the media. The NAS may not be perfect but making a documentary about it is in no one's interest