roady11

Thanks for your reply, in a strange kind of way it's comforting to know I'm not the only one and other people have the same problems. I only wanted him to have a formal diagnosis in the hope it would bring more understanding and help for him but this hasn't really been the case. (fingers crossed that his new school will be more helpful) The LA seem to take more notice of an ed psyche who has met my son on 2 occasssions than me his mother but then i suppose its better for their budgets if they do. I don't know where to start to be honest ive got SEN tribunal and DLA tribunal all goin on at the moment as well as tryng to fit a life in somewhere amongst it all. Your help and advice and that ...people who just know where i'm coming from really helps Thanks again x

Yes that is a definetly an option i need to discuss with them and then if nothing else he will go back in the next day feeling like he has been listened to by them and that his concerns are being taken seriously by school as well as me at home. Thanks for your help and good luck wishes x BTW i love your descriptions of your children.

Hi suze thanks for your reply, Learning support should be aware of this if information has been passed on but as we know that is not always the case. We have been told that he can go to learning support if needed wether this will happen is another thing (sorry judging by his primary school standards)The problem we also face is that he often wont do this independently as he wants to be out 'playing' and if you dont ask him if he has a problem he wont tell you. Unless he comes out of school crying i often dont know anything is wrong or if hes had a good day for that matter. The only way he will tell you anything is if you word things in the exact same way how has your day been? he will ALWAYS say good. So i have to say has anything good happened today he will then tell me. The same with anything else has anything bad happened today, have you been upset at all today, have you upset anyone today etc the questions have to be specific and i have tried telling them this at his last school and its and then they say hes been fine and then what happens an exclusion! The home/school diary i have used and have found useful in someways but it depends on there willingness to use this (his primary refused for the las 4 months he was there) and when i requseted it at the end of the yr as i knew there was evidence in there for tribunal, when they returned it they had ripped pages out!!! I do have a dictaphone and i am inclined to use this as then it is coming straight from my sons mouth rather than just my say so (could have done with this when i was sworn at by headtutor at a meeting and got out of his chair and run at me ) I am just living in hope that we win tribunal and they have to assess and then hopefully he will get some TA help specifically for him and that his new school are more proffessional.

Thankyou Sally for your reply, your exactly right this is what i have been trying to tell them for the last 3 years he is completely unable to organise himself and they have not helped him with adequetly in school with this. The report the specialist autism teacher wrote in july said his organisational problems weren't apparent during induction! which i find unbeleivable ! it really is like banging your head up against a brick wall thanks for your links i will look at them. I have done some work with my son at home with the use of good choice /bad choice cards and talked through different scenarios of how he could have dealt with a certain situation that has gone wrong in a better way but he also needs extra support within school my son doesnt have a statement so as you know the TA support is not gaurenteed and we have no specific 'hours' specified just for him. thanks for your help x

Thankyou Suze I really appreciate your reply Yes my son has had photo book too which he did get to choose what photo's were taken of on hour long visit with autism outreach. The school he is moving to do a three day induction for ALL the new starters (mainstream high school) so i suppose that is qiute a good induction that the school provides itself there is absoloutly no resource for autism within my LEA. He will have access to autism outreach TA for half days during the first two weeks (she will be in school) but she is not going to be working directly with him (2 other new starters also have aspergers dx) after the first two weeks there is a TA that he can go to if he has a problem (this is what was meant to happen at last school). The problem we face is that he doesnt tell them there is a problem (he waits until he gets home and then tells me) so we are then in a situation where if its not dealt with at the time in school things escalate and he ends up in trouble or when i get in touch they simply say well he hasnt come to us to say there is a problem! I suppose i can only hope that they will listen more to what i tell them he has told me on retuning after school than his last school did. Visits from specialist tutor are planned for once monthly after that (altho i dont think she has really supported my child the way she should of anyway at his last school) these are reduced as she used to see him fortnightly. I can't really believe that they are planning to REDUCE her input now he's going through transition a very important one at that. Do you think what was provided for your son was helpful/ adequate for him? Thanks

Yes my child has been on the receiving end of this 'constructive exclusion' with senior staff asking if i have thought of moving my child to another school, he has also been on the recieving end of formal and informal exclusions even with the input of so called 'specialist tutors' so even those children that have had input from tutors with training even in thier specific disability are still treated as a 'second class' and my son also acheives good sats results and in light of this i think recieves even less support.

Hi everyone, My son is moving from primary to secondary in september (dx aspergers) which has been managed by Autism outreach. In your expiriences what would you considor to be a good transition program. It would be interesting to know if what has been and will be done would be consiered good/adequate I would value your views on this. Thankyou x

OH i understand thnks for that x

Hi thanks for your reply. I have already strarted appeal process and have an appeal date in nov. Surely if he has had these probs throughout his ed and at differeant schools its only going to get worse at secondary he has not 'caught up' with his peers socially emotionally miraculously over three months surely any tribunal will see that which is what autsim service is now tryin to imply. The big problem i have is that i have very litle written evidence as schoo, have failed to document this. I do realise the secondary setting is going to make a difference but if we go to tribuanal and they say they have to assess these assessment s will be at secondary so will be relevant. I see what your saying thogh if i have little evidence from his secondary placement there may not be a lot in the 'statement' if that does happen. He starts in september and tribunal isnt until end of nov so this is some time to gather more evidence if we needed to go back regarding the contents of any statement (the evidence for appeal has to be in by end of oct). If they have refused to assess in last 6 mionths does that mean i cant put another referal in until 6 months has expired?

Yes that is excactly what i said to lea when she said schools have to manage 'behavior' my eply was that well if the best autism service can do is exclusions then its not a very good form of intervention and you can see why i think he needs more than her support in school. x

Hi sorry i have not been very clear. My son has had problems since startin school (social/emotional) (communication/interaction) academically he progressed well regardless of these problems he was not identified and put on the sen register until yr 2 then in yr 3 his school excluded him very long exclusion over 2 weeks. They then initiated stat assess process by he did p/t schooling and had 1;1 whilst he was there 3 hrs per day (the 1;1 wasnt always 1;1 ) My son was suffering from extreme anxiety and was also being bullied regardless of this support, so in the july we decided that it would be best to move schools. He started at his new school and settled 'fairly' well his anxiety levels were 'better' but was put at school a+ in and had involvement from anopther ed psychewho did cognitive tests, he received mentoring and social skills classes (he was beeing seen at camhs at this time and received his diagnosis of aspergers they then discharged him) and refered him to autism service with our consent. She has seen him weekly then fortnightly since then ) I think though she has been more supportive of school then my son even with her input in yr 5 my son was again excluded and with no extra support when he returned other than more time out cards for him to use (these didnt work before the exclusion) During all this time my son has now fallen behind in his literacy he got a 2A in writing in yr 2 sats and at the end of yr 6 sats only gained a level 3. His reading ability has been assessed as 121 (85 being average) level 5 he got in sats and overall level 4 due tho his high reading level. Thre have been problems throughout yr 6 which autism service identified and that is when she wrote a letter supportin assessment and that she felt he needed more supervision and a more individual help as he she thought he would struggle with the social side of secondary school. I did not recieve this report until after refusal to assess in april! had i been aware of this i would have refered for assessment myself. Now since meeting with lea and ed psyche she has done complete turnaround (which were not her views at the meeting) and written this report saying he is now ready for secondary school with the lea using this report and reports from 2 visits that she did to my son in feb to back up their opposal. Hope i have made it clearer ?

Hi Everyone I'm new to all this so please bear with me. I am currently in the process of taking LA to tribunal over their refusal to assess my sons needs. There is a lot of background to this but i will start at where we are now. My child's school put in a referal for stat assmnt in march (my son left that school july and will be starting secondary in september) I was unaware that they were going to do this and didnt know they had until i got the letter from LA asking for parental advice. ( i have been wanting to refer for assessment but never had full backing from school at the time) I had no idea what evidence had ben submitted to the LA so just went ahead and wrote exactly our views of my sons needs/difficulties. According to it at a meeting we had in april with LA, ed psyche, Austism service, and school the only evidence that had been submitted was my sons iep (which concentrated on his literacy) and some reports on visits autism service had made. What I didn't know was that autism service had written a report supporting statutory assessment but the ed psyche had virtually denied my son has any form of communication interaction problems and did not even mention my sons social/emotional difficulties. (I did not sign any referal form to the ed psyche who assessed his maths in nov 2009) as this is not the only thing i would have liked him to look at my sons maths is not a difficulty it is a strength he is in top 1%. I spoke to the ed psyche breifly after he had done these cognitive tests and he totally disregarded what i was telling him. Now autism service wrote a lwtter supporting assessment in dec but authority say my sons difficulties were miracoulasly better by feb and autism service wrote a letter supporting this in july (after referal for assessment in march) autism service sent a copy of this directly to sen team to support their opposal and i received a copy with the opposal and then another copy to myself a week or so later. Are they allowed to do this send reports directly without my permission? and should the ed psyche have assessed my son without my say so in writing? Surely as this report was not written until july it shouldnt be used to back up there refusal to assess in march? My son has had difficulties right through his education including exclusions and has had part time ed too and they are saying between dec 09 and feb 10 he now no longer has these difficulties !!! Any help greatly appreciated