Kazzen161

When I was on this medication as an anti-depressant, I used to take it at night because it used to help me to sleep. I think that is a known side effect, so if you are sleeping less I would ask the doctor.

There are some Priory Group schools close to you. There does not seem to be one list of all schools - ask at your local ASD Support Group, research groups such as Priory and Cambian, ask your LA for a list of its special schools, ask neighbouring LAs for a list of their special schools, look at the NAS list, look at the Gabbitas list, Google "Aspergers specialist school".

I attended a 5 half-days workshop on "transition to adult" stuff and found it very useful. It is useful to have this info when your child is 14/15 as you need to plan ahead. It covered things like social services, housing options, appointee/power of attorney, wills/trusts, 16+ provision.

Yes - they look for inconsistencies.

I have just done my son's ESA claim for the third time. He had to go to a medical the first time, but the second time he didn't. He is in the WRA group, which is right for him. I hate doing the forms - they are worse than DLA and are not really written appropriately for people with ASD. Last time they did cross check his ESA claim with what we had put on his DLA form.

Filling in the forms is not striaghtforward - did you have anyone to help you? The wording of your replies is important. You could ask for help to fill inthe form at the CAB.

My son was only able to come off his medication once he had settled into his specialist school. We found he did not need it then. Although the HE schemes may not be cheap, they will be no where near as expensive as specialist education (which can be anywhere between £10K to £100k per year), so do not expect the LA to be pushing for such placements. They also know that if they can drag things out for a year or so, then it will be difficult to get any school to take him as he will only have a year left. If you coudl get him into a specialist school, then you would have a good chance of getting him to stay there til he is 18 or 19.

Most of the independent specialist schools have good websites, so he could have a look at them to see how different they are to mainstream schools. Some of them may be close enough for him to be a day pupil if he is not keen on residential (although they do benefit greatly from the 24 hour curriculum). Also look at the Cambian schools/16+ and Ruskin Mill colleges.

You woudl need to check how a split placement would work in practice. eg: most mainstreams do a topic in English or Maths that covers a week or two. If he is mising some of the lessons, it will make it hard for him to understand the next bit of work as he will have missed some of the teaching. We find this even with NT children who are off for a few days. It coudl be that he will do all English and Maths at the mainstream (eg: 5 mornings) and art/PE etc at the special school (or vice versa) or it may be that he will be getting bits of each subject at each school. If he is split between two schools he may end up not making friends at either (as he is not at either often enough).

If you are considering supported housing for your child at some time in the future, it is good to put them on the housing list as soon as they are 16, This means that by the time they need a place they have already accrued some wating time, and are further up the list. By the time my son needed supported housing, he had been on the list for 3 years and was top of the list for supported housing (even then it was really lucky that a place became available at that time).

"We have three options open to us at the moment. We can arrange and fund a course of physiotherapy to see if this is beneficial or we can instruct one of our medical experts to prepare a report into your injuries and the medical expert would be able to make recommendations to us. We can also ensure we place the correct valuation on your claim. If you wish to settle the claim with us now then we can have a look at the offer made and see if we can improve upon it." 1: they can arrange and pay for a course of physio - then they would wait and see what happens after that and then decide what to do next (eg: remake offer or pay for report). 2: they can arrange for you to see someone who will produce a report that will tell them about your whiplash problems and suggest possible therapies/prognosis. They can then decide what to do next (eg: pay for therapy, increase offer). 3: If you want to settle the claim now (ie: for them to pay you now), they can reconsider their offer and see if they can increase it (but then you will not be able to go back to them if things get worse).

£14K sounds a bit on the high side, but "efficient use of resources" basically means that although the LA have to meet the requirements of the child as per their statement, they need to do so in the cheapest way possible. So if a mainstream + TA costs £X amount and a special school costs £more than X, then they have to go for the former. It is not quite so straightforward as there are transport/escort, therapy, etc costs to take into consideration too.

T agreed to me being his appointee (I pointed out to him that he would have to fill in the forms and sort out any problems over the phone otherwise). I get the money in my account and then I have a DD to put it into his account. However, should there be any problems, I could cancel my DD. If your dd is agreeable now, it might be easier to do the same, as the older she gets, the less likely she is to agree.

I think any letters/reports from professionals stating that he needs small classes, staff experienced in ASD, clear routines, etc will help in your fight to get the independent school. The professionals should not name the school, but can put in things that (coincidentally ) can be provided by the independent school but not by any LA (mainstream or special) school. The LA may not take much notice of this letter, but a tribunal would.

The annual review is generally much the same as usual. We did the transition bit straight afterwards. There was a form with questions such as what do you hope for your child's future, what help will he need to achieve this (we filled this in prior to the meeting). The Yr 9 one did not involve much - just setting out some hopes and wishes and then each year it was revisited and actions required decided.

Once my son found the right instructor for him, he was OK. However the test situation was very difficult for him. He found it hard to be with someone he had never met before and he found one examiner's voice hard to tolerate. Maybe some test practise with different instructors would have helped?

Having visited many schools (mainstream and independent) for my son, I would say you need to visit the schools. You will just "know" when it is the right one (I visited more than 20 schools and only one was right for my son, even though most of them were good schools). At the "right" school, the children were all like my son ("robust") and I knew the things they offered would work with my son.

The Surrey NAS site is www.mugsy.org They are an excellent branch and hold a variety of meetings.

Presuming you want your child in the autistic provision/unit and not in the mainstream part, have you asked how many places there are per year and what your chances of getting in are? If your preferred school is in a different LA, then that LA will obviously give priority to children from their own LA, so the chances might be slim (your LA cannot force them to give a place to your child).

The two I can remember were making the edge of the board touch the ground in a circle (so starting in one place and working round, clockwise or anticlockwise, til get back to start) and throwing a koosh ball from hand to hand while on the board.

The best way to persuade the LA and your parents that you should be in mainstream school is to attend lessons, work hard and show that you can treat others with respect. My son went to a specialist AS secondary school (which only takes very challenging children). One of the children in his year wanted to go back to mainstream school, but they worked hard on their behaviour and attitude. They were helped and supported by the school and their parents and they did go back into mainstream and were successful there.

Did you know the Hugh Faringdon School has a unit for chidlren with AS? Does she have a Statement?

Does your child trash the classroom when asked to do something? Some parenting techniques work better with children with ASD because they can be sticklers for rules. There are no miracle cures - just a lot of hard work. I was told "If you don't want your child doing this (behaviour) when they are 20, then stop it now". Once our children get into set patterns of behaviour, it can be very hard to change it.

The book I always recommend is "Aspergers Syndrome and Difficult Moments: practical solutions for tantrums, rage and meltdows" by B Smith Myles and J Southwick. You can see it differentiates between tantrums, rage and meltdowns. Once a child is in meltdown, there is nothing you can do to stop it, but you can help them to calm down. The parenting bit comes into preventing it getting to the meltdown stage - by recognising trigger's, working out ways for them to avoid/change/cope with the triggers, teaching them chill out/calming strategies and more appropriate responses to anger/frustration/anxiety, etc. It is not sufficient that she tidies up after trashing the room - you need to work out why she did it, and work out how you change that "cycle" of behaviour. If she escalates to hurting people, there will be little she can do to "make up for it" afterwards. I have three children, one had very challenging behaviour and has AS, one has traits of AS, and all three need different parenting. Read what people suggest and try the things that you think might work for you and her.

These might help. http://www.bracknell-forest.gov.uk/do-it-online/get-involved/volunteering/volunteering-children-and-education/do_it_online-school-appeal-panels.htm http://www.childrenslegalcentre.com/Legal+Advice/Education+law/Schooladmissions/