Kathryn

I'm glad your son is enjoying the music sessions, Hatter. It would be interesting to see what a therapist would do with an older child like my daughter. She used to do singing lessons at school and loved them, in fact though it seems hard to believe now, she passed her grade 5 exam less than a year ago. She dropped the lessons when she came out of school in September as she found the pressure of having to perform too much. But she still enjoys listening to music and singing to herself so a session where she could just enjoy music for its own sake might be the best thing.

I agree with Bid, medics are all too quick to provide medication as a substitute for inadequate or non existent services to help children with AS. My daughter has been on medication since June and this has never been properly reviewed. Apart from helping her to sleep, there has been no other obvious benefit. She is on the lowest possible dose, but the junior psychiatrist who knows nothing about AS and has only seen her for an hour wanted to up it without any clear idea of what this would achieve. I tried this for a week but she was so sedated she was staggering aroung the house and going to bed at 5 pm so I refused to continue with the higher dose despite assurances that the sedating effect would wear off in a couple of weeks. The medication is not having any effect on the behaviour and anxiety associated with ASD. It's not a miracle drug which will suddenly turn my daughter into a social animal. I don't think enough research has been done into the effects of these drugs on teenagers, let alone teenagers with ASD.

I'm doing my research into specialist AS schools and colleges at secondary level. There are very few of these anyway, but it has struck me that within a reasonable distance from us there are at least three which only accept boys, and so the choices for my daughter are restricted even further. I know girls are outnumbered by boys 10 to 1 but why can't such places accept girls too? My daughter wouldn't be bothered by being in the minority: she has said so. She has never identified with typical girl pursuits anyway and she is more interested in traditionally "male" pursuits such as physics and the inner workings of engines. Surely these schools, which aim to enable adolescents with AS to interact socially would gain from having the occasional girl around?

Beverley, on your behalf So sorry to hear this. Don't let the ###### get you down, K

lou lou, I'm a bit late on this but allow me to add my congratulations to all the rest.

Thanks for your personal insight Adam. My daughter does like celtic music actually. I don't think she goes much for drums although she often slaps her hand on her leg when she's sitting reading. She likes wind chimes and has a number of them hanging by her window. She likes particular pieces of music which have specific associations; she enjoys listening to the Pastoral Symphony as it features in Fantasia and she used to watch that particular part over and over again as a child.

Carole, I can understand the anger and frustration you must feel, helping parents through all these horrible unjust situations. What can be done to enlighten schools?? It's not as if the information isn't out there for heads and teachers to tap into. When I was at school, (a long time ago ) I remember a pupil being publicly ridiculed by a teacher for being dyslexic. Now it's a well established special need. Are we to wait decades for ASD to be similarly accepted?

At one stage I seemed to be signing at least one detention permission slip every week. In our experience it made absolutely no difference - in fact my daughter didn't mind detention at all: if it happened at break or lunch she was able to avoid the most socially stressful times of the school day, and if it happened after school she could avoid the crush of everyone leaving.

Homework problems? Just a few...hearing the instructions, writing them down accurately, remembering to bring books home, getting motivated, organising time, following the instructions, meeting the deadline, remembering to hand it in. I have virtually had to do it myself on occasion. From year 10, GCSE coursework time, the same problems are magnified 1000 times.

Annie - this is a really difficult and stressful situation for you and you have my sympathy. Two things that struck me - if you are making an official complaint about members of staff, it is extremely unprofessional of other staff members to keep bringing up the matter, I think you are right in refusing to discuss it. Also, Alex's head of year should stay out of the whole situation and should not be present at any meetings as she is hardly in a neutral position, seeing that her own son is involved. It sounds like the staff are very defensive and rational discussion is unlikely. I hope this complaint is dealt with soon for your sake and your son's. I'm glad your son is getting good support from the ASD unit, at least.

Lou lou, Good luck, I'll be thinking of you tomorrow. K

Auriel I hope school continues to be great and that 2005 goes really well for you. K

Thanks for the wishes everyone <'> I have just got back from relaxing Christmas break in the wilds of Sussex. My birthday went well, despite spending the evening wrapping Christmas presents as I always seem to do . Waccoe, people always gave me two lots of celebrations and presents when I was younger - I would never have accepted anything less Now I'm older some people try to get away with submerging my birthday in the Christmas melee, and even (horrors) wrap my birthday presents in Christmas paper. which is totally UNACCEPTABLE As to my age, you have as much chance of discovering it as finding the answer to life, the universe and everything. K

Thanks Helen, Waccoe, I've had one glass so far (can't arrive at the crib service too sloshed ) . Waccoe - wish I had my youth as well Happy Christmas to you both love K

Thanks Nellie, I see that whilst my back was turned, 'tomorrow' has now become 'today'. Too late (or early ? ) to crack open the champagne though. I'll look forward to that later. You have a wonderful Christmas too and I hope Santa brings you everything on your list. Off now to find out how old I am... K

Thanks again, everybody <'> for all your comments, links and advice. I'm going to stow it all away for the next 4 days and try not to think about it. I'm going away, so that should make it easier. I'll come back (hopefully) refreshed and ready for the next stage.. And anyway tomorrow (24th) is my birthday, and I don't intend to spend it reading the COP.

Lisa, This is outrageous. I can't offer any advice but I just wanted to express my sympathy and anger on your behalf A pity it has to wait until next term to be sorted out, but try not to let it put a dampener on your Christmas (easier said than done ). You will get it in the end, I'm sure.

Thanks everyone, you are great We realised early on when we first made our application that they would probably try to play the mental health card, so we made it explicit in all our evidence that her emotional problems were the result of her autism, or rather the mismanagement of her autism. I wrote lengthy pieces of evidence describing with examples how her ASD manifested itself in the school environment and in specific areas of the curriculum. I made sure every professional who saw her and wrote reports for us made the cause of her problems absoloutely clear: in fact they all asked me how best to word their reports. The professionals who saw her in May and October respectively are both eminent and well respected in the field of ASD. Both of them wrote strongly worded and detailed reports stating where the school was failing to meet her needs. I have been back through the evidence and I fail to see how they can come to the "depression only" conclusion from what we gave them. I suppose they have picked up on the fact that she is out of school because she is mentally and emotionally incapable of being there, and selectively ignored the rest. (I haven't yet seen what the school put in as evidence though). re: disagreement resolution, the NAS advisor thinks that this is a waste of time at this stage: it rarely works and will be used as a further delaying tactic when time is already of the essence. I take your point though, Nellie, about being seen to cooperate so I'm not sure what to do about this. We have a few days to think about it at least. We have been referred to an assessment centre where we will hopefully get ASD specific support and therapy, which we havent had up to now, so that will hopefully produce more expert evidence. The trouble is that her health problems are very much apparent at the moment, in her present state, with a deep aversion to anything that reminds her of school and very little spoken language, playing devil's advocate, the LEA could build a case for her being un-assessable. Thanks for the COP quotes, lou lou, I will be taking my copy away with me over Christmas and going through it with a highlighter. K

Carole, yes please! Thanks everyone for your support <'> K

Hi Carole, No but the NAS are via their tribunal support scheme. I'm sending the case worker all the evidence we have so that she can decide whether we can build a good enough case for tribunal. My daughter will be past 16 by the time we get that far. Should I contact IPSEA as well? I know they've shut down for the holidays. Advice from anyone who's been through the process would be very welcome. K

Hi Beverley, My daughter will be 16 in March, which is why the LEA are stalling things as much as they can: the longer they hold out, the weaker our case gets. Even if my daughter goes on to further education, it will be difficult to build a case for specialist post 16 support from the Learning and Skills Council without a statement. Connexions told me so. K

Hi everybody Just an update on our statutory assessment situation. After almost a week trying to squeeze the news out of them (they wouldn't tell us over the phone) we learned yesterday that our request for a statutory assessment has been turned down for the second time of asking. The evidence provided shows that she does not have special educational needs, but is suffering from depression which has been increasing over the last 18 months. This has had a profound effect on her ability to engage with learning, but does not constitute a special educational need. They go on to say that my daughter's needs are being met by home and hospital education. No mention of ASD. A completely different and contradictory reason from the one given last time: that the school hadn't done enough to support her and that they must contact the autism advisory service. So there we are. Possible tribunal next year, more stress, and the hope that they won't throw the case out on the basis that my daughter is too old. K

Hi Helen, I've just seen your news on the other thread, but I'll post my congratulations again here It's terrible what you have to go through to get there, it shouldn't be that way, but you are a lesson in perseverance. I hope you get what you want in your statement. I have lost count of the lies I have been told. Thank goodness I can turn to people who have experience of the system like the folks on this forum. . Lou lou I have had the same feelings about the assessment process. It is flawed and unduly bureaucratic. I had a really strange conversation with the parent partnership person the other day. I asked her who sat on the panel. She told me heads, sencos, Ed psychs from within the county. I said that it was hardly an independent process in that case and she explained that it was better that way as the members of the panel would have a working knowledge of the system and the provision available in the county. I said that I thought the decision to assess had to be made according to the needs of the individual child, not the provision available. To which she had no answer. How can it possibly be a fair process? Turkeys don't vote for Christmas. I think somebody truly independent should monitor these meetings, and someone representing the interests of the child should be allowed to attend. K

Well done Helen, that's great news!

Good luck, Lisa. I hope you get somewhere with this soon. Just posted to say I finally finished the application last night at 2 am having put it off for ages, and it's posted off now so that's one thing off my "to do" list. The final impetus was a letter saying if I didn't post part 2 withinn 2 weeks it would be referred to the Decision Maker (whoever that is I can picture him now, some venerable Gandalf figure sitting on his throne...). What a marathon. I think they should give you the money just for thinking of answers to all those stupid questions. K