desperate

hi there some of you will no doubt remember the trials and tribulations we had with my son Neil whilst he was at school, they have proved to be nothing in comparison with the difficulties he has encountered since reaching adulthood, most of them could quite easily be considered to be of his own making but non the less they have proved very disturbing for him to handle and his depression levels have increased to sucidal proportions. During this time he also found that alcohol helped to make the world go away. A couple of months ago on his nineteenth birthday he went out to celebrate with a couple of friends. While he was out an empty flat was broken into and smashed up pretty badly. One of the boys, also autistic has been proven to be involved in this appaling incident, he had cut himself while breaking a window and has since been charged. Neil was questioned by the police and put on police bail, the other boy had reported to the police that Neil was there. Neil was interviewed by the police and denied all of this, he also said he was drunk and didn't know what he had been doing. After being put on police bail with a return date to the police station, he received a letter a few days later from the police to say that they had cancelled his bail and they were no longer investigating him. The other boys father has since made contact and said that he is certain Neil was there although the police found no evidence and he is demanding that we pay half of the fine his son will get. This boy has been told the fine could well be �2000 and he is likely to get a custodial sentence. Although I feel very sorry for this boy and his family and could not say whether Neil was there or not I must go with the denial made by Neil and the lack of any evidence found by the police I am now very concerned as to the future repercussions. It's all a very sorry mess

hi there my son was sent to the school at Banbury and in all honesty it has a high number of children with emotional behavioural disorder. Unfortuntely this children do not mix well with autistic children and they can find them selves in the same difficult sitution as at mainstream. Bullied and unable to cope.

hi bid the school I worked at did pass inspections and did contain the children. The classrooms were kept locked leading to all the staff walking around with hugh bunches of keys hanging from their trousers. The pupils were given very little in the way of distraction and one of the reasons I left was because I found it far too distressing to watch the kids biting chunks out of theirselves and pulling great clumps of hair out. One pupil banged his head constantly on the window until he bled. We used to have to "take the kids" out for a run every hour, which meant having to grab them by the hand and just run. Non of the kids enjoyed this in any way. They were put in the playgound for breaks etc whatever the weather where most of them sat on the floor or just wandered around.

IF YOU REMEMBER WE HAD ALL THESE DIFFICULTIES WITH OUR SON NEIL. hE WAS PLACED AT THREE RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS, AL PRIVATE, AND NON OF THEM WERE PREPARED TO KEEP HIM. i HAVE PLACE PREVIOUS THREADS ON THIS SITE TRYING TO TELL PARENTS THAT THESE SCHOOLS ARE NOT ALWAYS THE ANSWER. bECAUSE THEY ARE INDEPENDANT THEY ARE NOT GOVERNED BY THE SAME LAWS THAT SURROUND STATE RUN SCHOOLS. I HAD MMANY BATTLES WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION ABOUT THESE ISSUES AND THE BOTTOM LINE WAS IF THEY WERE SUBJECT TO THE SAME LAWS ETC THEN THEY WOULD NOT BE INDEPENDENT. I WAS EVEN TOLD THAT"IF A SCHOOL CHOSE TO EXCLUDE THE DAY AFTER A CHILDS ARRIVAL THEN THEY COULD. THEY ARE ALSO ENTITLED TO KEEP THE TERMS FEES. I KNOW SOME SCHOOLS DO IN FACT WORK FOR SOME OF OUR CHILDREN BUT THE MORE CHALLENGING ONES ARE NOT REALLY ACCEPTED AT ANY SCHOOL, UNLESS THEY HAVE SUCH A LOW IQ THAT THEY ARE PLACED AT SCHOOLS WHICH ARE NOT MUCH MORE THAN CONTAINMENT PLACES. I KNOW I WORKED AT ONE.

Hi all, Neil got a final written warning yesterday at his disciplinary meeting. Its to stay on his record for a year. He has also been told that he will be given much more training in how to work alongside his co workers and given strategies in what to do when he feels that stressed again. He is also being given a mentor who is going to report regularly on how he is coming along. I just thak god he wasn't sacked.

thanks for all your words of help and advice. We don't know what the day of the hearing is yet, Neil should hopefully get a letter through the post today. I hope it won't be long, it certainly should be this week. The shop is Neil's world, he even spends his days off there, so not being able to even set foot on the premises is having a massive effect on him. We even spent his holiday touring other ......... stores across England to see how they compared to his!

Hi there, Neil has been working very successfully at a local soft furnishing shop for just over a year. He has done very very well there and has been made senior sales assistant. He has also had a commendation from the managing director of the company for stopping a shop thief form getting away with his loot. He has made friends and has always received very high marks on his appraisals. He is never off sick and works as many hours as they ask him, sometimes up to 60 hours a week. His boss has often said how hard he works and are there any more like him at home He has also never been in any trouble there, a massive achievement given his history, exclusion from every school he went to and no qualifications Unfortunately on friday he was involved in an altercation with another member of staff, an asperger young man. The other person swore repeatedly at neil and in the end he resorted to swearing himself. This was observed by three witnesses. sadly all this happened on the shop floor. The manager has said that he is not interested in who started it, they both swore, a fair comment, and has suspended both of them on full pay until a hearing next week. The manager expects both of them to be sacked. Does neil have any rights, given that he is autistic, and has never been in any trouble there before, no warnings of any sort and he admitted he was wrong, apologised and said he would ensure it never happened again. This shop is his entire world, he even spends his days off there.

hi there a non maintained school is a private school. The lea will have to agree to fund Steves palcement there. They can range from �15000 upwards a term. hope this helps

my son went to two residential schools, neither of them were asd specific. Due to his severe behavioural difficulties they were not able to accommodate his needs, which were in conflict with the other students. This meant that both the schools used "garden leave" weekly and this resulted in him being home more than at school. Until both schools in turn decided that they were unable to meet his needs and told the lea that they were not an appropriate environment for him. This caused many more problems for my son and the family as a whole. He felt more rejected and less inclined to "trust" or try and spend more and more time in his own room and his own world. This is still the situation. I think many resendential schools do have the qualities, understanding and abilities to help our children. Many do not. A residential special school that takes a variety of complex needs students are very often unable to ensure the school and residential environment is one in which the asd student can feel safe and protected. This does result in the same behaviours seen at mainstream schools and does ultimately leed to the same result, exclusion. I think from experience I would ensure that the school does really understand the needs of the asd student who exhibits severe behavioural difficulties and not just assume that because it is a special school that these difficulties will recede or be accepted. An asd specific school will always be the best option but the cost of these is very often prohibitive to the lea.

I work in a school for children with severe autism and severe learning difficulties and I have to say that I very often go home in tears. As much as i love the work, and it's the children I want to work with it can be very difficult to see them so distressed that they are damaging themselves or damaging property. I can honestly say that there are very few days when I am not thumped, bitten, kicked or have my hair pulled. With the best will in the world, and all the understanding in the world for the children's high levels of anxiety and confusion, these things are so upsetting that you end in tears. This never means though, that you are not 100% behind supporting the kids, it's just part of the natural gambit of emotions that all humans will go through when witnessing or being on the receiving end of these very difficult behaviours.

There s often a discrepancy between speech and comprehension and although using pecs can be seen as a backwards step it can however be increasing the childs understanding of the world around them. It also can gice them more oppertunity to become more involved in choice, what to have for breakfast etc and help them to express likes and dislikes. A verbal choice, do you want orange or blackcurrent squash, can often be answered with the last option, and not really the preferred answer. It can help the over anxious or aggressive child by giving them another avenue to communicate with others.

I watched the programme and it did indeed have a feel warm factor. My autistic son watched it with me as the school scenes were filmed at the school he was asked to leave because he showed too many autistic traits. He seemed to like seeing the building again though, and some of the kids were in his tutor group. Hopefully th film will have made the staff there more aware of the impact on the whole family, especially as its not an asd specific school, and most of the students are ebd.

Hi there you may remember that my son Neil lost his place at a residential special school last January, because the school felt that they could not alter people's perceptions of him, or alter his reactions to them. Anyway whilst he was at school he managed to gain the duke of edingburgh bronze award. This was sadly his only ever achievement in a very turbulent school career. He was congratulated on the manner in which he had tackled all the tasks and on the great effort he had put in to pass the course. Unfortunately he was "excluded" from school before he was presented with his certificate and medal. Since last January I have e mailed the school, monthly to ask them when he would be receiving them, all with no response. Last month I decided to contact the head office of the D.O.E to ask them to intervene. They did this and I received an e mail saying that the school were very behind in their paperwork, although all the other students had had their award last Easter. Still nothing else came so I contacted the D.O.E again. Yesterday we received his record book and a note to say that he had not actually completed the course so they had been unable to issue the award. Luckily the D.O.E office phoned to see if we had had any joy. I explained the situation and he asked me to read all that was written in his log book. He confirmed that he had actually passed it but the school had been negligent in not getting it signed off officially. He can however rectify this by my sending it to him personally. He is also going to investigate the schools attitude. I feel very angry that not only did the school prevent him from completing his school qualifications but also seem to have tried to prevent him from receiving reconisition for him one success. If this is the school ethos I can now understand why an asd person with his level of difficulties was unable to cope in such an envronment.

Hi there We all know that our children are constantly being excluded from school. The ASD diagnosis is not a safeguard against this happening. My son Neil did a total of six terms in school, and no home education was provided whilst he was out of school. The lea said that they had no home tutors qualified to teach an asd child with his level of difficulties. Unfortunately small units or special schools are not always the answer either. These also use exclusion on a very regular basis if the child is exhibiting behaviours that are a threat, perceived or otherwise, to either themselves or others. Most asd units are attatched to mainstream schools, the pupils still have to attend classes with nt children and abide by the conduct code of the school. They still have to conform to what is deemed to be acceptable behaviour and they still struggle to be part of a world that is very difficult for them to understand. Many special schools either residential or day are not asd specific and the staff are often no more "asd friendly" than a mainstream school staff. The pupils have a variety of special needs from ebd, adhd, conduct disorder etc. and this can make the classrooms more difficult for the asd student to cope with because of the very diverse and complex needs of every individual, not just one or two. Very few asd children are funded at asd specific schools due to the high cost of these establishments and many more go through a system of failure upon failure. I fought really hard over the years to get some educational provision for Neil, that would help to mitigate his difficulties and provide some basis to give him a future he could feel was worth while and valued. His perceived failures have left him with less self esteem and personal value than he had before we started on the long road of battle, he has no qualifications, trusts no one and never leaves the house. Had I had the time over again I would never put him through such ordeals again, the pain was too great for so little return.

Neil had no speech until he was almost ten. He had speech therapy from the age of two and was also under a professor of linguistics because his speech was so intractable. Although his speech is now in the normal range(he is now sixteen) he still has consistant difficulty with understanding conversation and struggles to find the words he wants to use. His conversation is therefore slow and ponderous. It is also spoken in a monotonous tone. He has no descriptive vocabulary and is unable to recall verbally events. He loves films and watches them constantly, often the same film, however if you ask him what the film was about he frequently can't tell you. We are over the moon though that his speech is at this level, we were told that he would in all probility never master speech, and it is a testament to his determination that he has achieved so much.