coolblue
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Posts posted by coolblue
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The public have an opportunity to comment on the SEN part of the Children and Families Bill here
"MPs are particularly interested in your comments on the practical implications of specific clauses of the Bill. Please make clear whether your comment relates to a specific clause or schedule."
Public reading of the Bill closes tomorrow.
coolblue
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Might be useful for parents whose children have complex needs who are struggling to find a suitable school place - and who have PIPs. This consultancy has just been set up and offers a range of educational support. Can't vouch for the quality as I haven't used it, but have met the special school teacher who started it and was impressed by her experience and commitment.
http://dianekingconsultancy.co.uk/
coolblue
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Posting a request from a student of a friend who'd like feedback from anyone with dyslexia, ADHD or ASD or anyone familiar with these conditions.
coolblue
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I am a third year student at Keele University. As part of my third year I will be undertaking a final year dissertation. The dissertation I will be undertaking involves evaluating a current website: Student Finance England’s online application form, which all students applying for support to study at University are expected to use
I also want to evaluate an improved design for the website for three separate user groups. The three user groups I have in mind are those who have Dyslexia, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism.
In order to help gain a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the current and my proposed improved website(s), it would be important to receive the opinions from individuals who have knowledge of the conditions above. Your opinions would be most beneficial in discovering what individuals with such conditions feel are the strengths and weaknesses of the current Student Finance England online application form.
[Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Student Finance England. The re-designing of the interface is not conducted on their behalf.]
If there are any individuals interested in taking part please feel free to email me at:
v4j48@students.keele.ac.uk
Confidentiality of all individuals taking part in this evaluation will be adhered to. Your help would be much appreciated. Further materials for the evaluation will be sent electronically through email for those wishing to take part.
Thank you for your time.
Kind regards, Habiba Begum.
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Interesting (and important) article here https://sfari.org/news-and-opinion/news/2012/autism-research-may-require-tens-of-thousands-of-samples
coolblue
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What I found with my own child in a mainstream school, was that certain skills were taught [academic or even social, as it was an ASD enhanced resource school].
But those skills were never generalised. Once skills had been demonstrated, they moved onto the next topic/skill regardless of whether the child had achieved it or not. And that applied to academic, social, emotional and physical skills.
Gradually every demand placed on my son was something he could not achieve. They had moved too far forward and he hadn't mastered even the basic skills to allow him to make progress.
This made him fearful of every demand and learning task because it made no sense to him.
Under the 1996 Education Act, parents are required to cause their child to have an education suitable to the child's age, aptitude, ability and any special educational needs they might have. This requirement is derived from the 1944 Education Act, which expected the child's education to suit the child. Because of the national curriculum and other constraints, this requirement has effectively been turned on its head, so that the suitability of the education is determined by different levels of differentiation in the curriculum.
As both you and Canopus have said, this approach doesn't take into account anyone with an uneven profile.
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I wouldn't worry about this too much. I'm of the opinion that the 21st century is going to be a century where talents lead to success. Not a so called broad and balanced education or GCSE grades. That's so last century. If a kid has talents in certain areas then they could well be a pathway to a successful and well paid career if even their geography and maths schoolwork is mediocre.
A 'broad and balanced' education goes way back. To the ancient Greeks and beyond. I don't think its supporters are going to go away any time soon.
This didn't significantly change the secondary school curriculum from the subjects taught in 1980ish.No, because the subjects taught in secondary schools continued to be determined by the content of GCSE courses.
Prior to 1988 there wasn't 'a' school curriculum, primary or secondary. It was entirely up to teachers, schools or local authorities what was taught in schools. The 1988 Act was a massive change to a standard curriculum under central control. There are still teachers around who were originally expected to develop their own curriculum and would be happy to go back to that situation. I've come across many teachers trained since 1988 who would be happy to give it a go.
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The secondary school curriculum is actually based on the grammar school curriculum from the early 20th century. Critics say that it was not a curriculum designed for the masses.
And grammar schools traditionally led on to university. Personally, I wouldn't want a curriculum designed for the 'masses', but one designed for the diversity of needs both of learners and of the knowledge and skills the larger community relies on.
Reform isn't easy because it would effectively mean sacking a high proportion of existing teachers and replacing them with teachers who know about the workings of the real world.Well they managed a pretty rapid reform with the Education Reform Act 1988, so I imagine it wouldn't be that difficult to reform back again. Plenty of teachers would welcome such a change.
Another problem that refuses to go away is that society categorises kids according to academic ability in school subjects and little else. Uneven profiles; knowledge and talents outside of the school curriculum; and the requirements of support services for social and life skills do not fit into the equation. There is still the mindset that kids of high academic ability cannot have SEN so all SEN services are for kids of low academic ability.Agreed.
cb
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The businessmen are quite critical of the National Curriculum and mainstream school system. They say that it's too academic and a tad socialist whilst failing to teach about business, entrepreneural skills, and how the real world works.
I think they are quite right. The school curriculum has always tended to be derived from university entry requirements (ie A levels support university entrance, GCSEs support A levels, lower levels are working towards GCSEs), even if there have been attempts to make it more skill-based. What it should do is enable students to understand how the world works and allow them to rehearse the skills they are likely to need in a safe environment. That way, you could make wide differentiation possible to suit individual students' aptitudes.
cb
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Hi Lisa
My son was diagnosed with hyperacusis when he was 10, although he'd had problems with it for years. I don't know whether you are interested in the research, but if you are, there are a number of different proposed causes for it - Baguley's paper gives a good overview;
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC539655/
And several different types of hyperacusis have been identified, often associated with different developmental conditions;
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2004.00376.x/full
We had an auditory training cd from a consultant which my son found very uncomfortable to listen to and has never managed to listen to for more than two weeks at a time. We've also tried a proprietary (very expensive) auditory training programme, with exactly the same outcomes - ds finds it very uncomfortable and couldn't tolerate it for more than a few days. The course providers said that he needed a specially structured introduction to the course - which wasn't mentioned in the accompanying booklet. We have also tried birdsong recordings and pure tones (flute etc) which he finds easier to listen to but exhausting, so we are currently taking a break.
In short, I think it would be worth trying anything that doesn't cause your son distress, but be aware that there may be different types of hyperacusis and different causes (including physiological ones) so it might not be a case of his hearing needing recalibrating.
cb
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Well done, Denise and son!
cb
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Tinted lenses, made noticeable difference to gait. No noticeable difference to transposition, inversion or reversal of letters and numerals, which is why we tried it.
Incidentally, we didn't go to a behavioural optometrist as such, but an optometrist who specialises in developmental problems, and a hospital orthoptist who disagreed with the theoretical model used by the optometrist.
Cans of worms out there in behavioural optometry land.
cb
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Sigh... Yes, theory of mind develops in different children at different ages... Have I said anything different?
Yes, it was: 'The standard 'dolly' test suggests all but the most severely compromised of children will have achieved this level of TOM by the age of six.'
I really can't be bothered to chase this round and round anymore because you just keep coming back to the same points and ignoring anything that doesn't fit those points... You don't offer a constructive argument, you just jump back to the top of the page whenever you run out of corners to paint yourself into.Oh. I thought I was trying to explain how I think rewards and sanctions should be approached.
In the simplest terms, take any HFA autistic child and within twenty minutes you'd see controlling behaviours and theory of mind - just like those gorillas and dropped bananas (How the man in the white coat interpreted that behaviour as anything other than TOM is completely beyond me
Must have been confusing TOM with something else entirely (selflessness, maybe - something that's debatable even in the higher apes like you and me?)) unless, of course, you were going out of your way to not see them.He did interpret it as TOM baddad! He was pointing out that response inhibition went out of the window in the presence of bananas. Just as it can go out of the window in some circumstances with HFA children.
Oh - as for your last question - the only one that's not entirely part of the round robin game - No you don't ignore it. You sanction it in a meaningful way that isn't a reward or negative reinforcer.I know you don't want to continue this discussion but I'm not clear how a sanction can not be a negative reinforcer
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No. You should assume they have the ability to learn to control it and work to them achieving that control. A toddler doesn't need to understand 'No, don't climb up there you might fall and hurt yourself' he /she only needs to understand 'no' - the wider understanding comes later. In your example you're saying the appropriate response would be to let the child climb and fall until he/she was able to develop the wider understanding by himself, or, to put it another way, that if a toddler enacts a 'bad' behaviour you don't bother trying to teach it not to because it's incapable of not doing it. Simple chicken and egg...
What? I haven't said any of those things. You didn't mention 'saying no', you talked about turning the tv off if the child hit a younger sibling. I was pointing out that the toddler might not see a connection.
No, you are talking about a different mechanism... I'm assuming the child does have 'theory of mind'... you seem to equate HFA with the level of functioning of a six month old baby rather than a toddler. I have never seen any medical evidence to suggest such a wide level of dysfunction in HFA AS children or even those with mild learning disabilities. The standard 'dolly' test suggests all but the most severely compromised of children will have achieved this level of TOM by the age of six.Sorry to disagree, but what the evidence shows is that TOM develops at different rates in different children. Children with impaired hearing don't develop it until later. TOM is a highly complex construct that is quite difficult to define. And which version of the 'dolly' test you use to measure it is pretty important.
Yes, in a young baby screaming is a response to frustration. It becomes a 'controlling' behaviour when they have theory of mind - as absolutely demonstrated by the child in the OP who has enough theory of mind to work out that behaving one way in one environment and another way in another enviroment for it to achieve different results for him.How on earth can you assume he is doing it 'to achieve results'? People respond in different ways to different environments. Both my children chewed their sleeves when they were younger, but interestingly, it was only the sleeves of one particular school uniform that got chewed. They didn't chew their cuffs 'to achieve results' as far as I could tell. I couldn't help concluding that the school environment might be a factor.
the association is one the child is capable of making assuming a BASIC level of TOM, which all evidence suggest he has.I would question the usefulness of the concept of TOM - it's too tied up with other frontal lobe functions, and as far as I know, no one has been able to isolate it from them. I remember one researcher studying inhibition in chimps saying that if he (the researcher) dropped something and couldn't reach it, the chimps would often pick it up and hand it to him, suggesting some element of TOM. But, as he said, 'if you dropped a banana, forget it!'
Totally agree - bad example on my part, and why should the other child suffer by having the TV switched off too! That said, however, neither of us are talking about 'ignoring' the behaviour as the OP suggests she would, and in general terms I'd suspect that a parent who was reluctant to sanction a child by turning off the TV or restricting access to favourite toys would be even more reluctant to consistently and appropriately sanctioning a child with nasty ol' super-nanny's 'naughty step'...Which parent are we talking about? Ignoring the behaviour was what the OP was advised to do by the teacher.
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We disagree again - I think you underestimate the capacity for children to understand cause and effect hugely - even 'toddlers'.No I don't. What I am aware of is how much the development of children varies. The ones I've brought up and taught and the ones investigated by researchers. Very difficult to generalise.
No they are called the 'terrible twos' because they do what you said and they are still struggling with behaviour inhibition.In fact, that's exactly why the terrible twos are called the terrible twos - because it is precisely the stage of development where they do start to develop theory of mind and to exert that control over other people.I think you hugely over-estimate 'the risk', and there is a wider problem that people often misinterpret your over-estimation of the risk as 'ignore the bad and reward the good', and that's defintely not a good behaviour to model. You've also completely overlooked the fact that by hitting the other child the first child has acheived the undivided attention of the adult: you've just rewarded the hitting. A negative reinforcer fo' sure, but a reinforcer none the less. And the longer they fight agin the naughty step the more attention they get - not an issue if the naughty step is seen to it's conclusion, but if mum gives up halfway through a double reward for the hitter. If I was the disenfranchised, overlooked sibling being hit, why I guess I might decide to start doing a bit of hitting or something equally unacceptable myself, 'cos I've got nothing to lose and everything to gain...So do you ignore the bad behaviour or not?
cb
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Yes, it would be inappropriate to sanction an uncontrollable behaviour (like a tourettes 'tic' for example) but it would be equally inappropriate and more damaging to assume a behaviour was uncontrollable and interpret (i.e.) the fact that children lose their tempers when they get frustrated as something unusual or abnormal about the child and over which they have no control
The problem is that you can't assume a child has or doesn't have control over a behaviour unless you have seen them control it on a number of occasions. And even then the degree of control can vary depending on the circumstances. Even the law makes allowances for provocation.
Assuming the child has no ability to make sense, you remove the possibility of them developing the skills to do so by removing the imperative for them to do so?
I think this is a fundamental comunication skill children can and do make very early on - in fact, any child who displays 'controlling' behaviour (terrible twos) has already grasped it, they just haven't yet grasped that it's a two-way trick, which is where the parent steps in to 'parent'... Putting that into context:
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- Mum says I can't have a biscuit. I scream for twenty minutes. Mum gives me a biscuit. Screaming for twenty minutes and getting a biscuit are 'unconnected events' which the child has successfully connected to achieve a reward...
- Mum says 'stop hitting, or i'll turn off the TV'. I don't stop. Mum turns off the TV. hitting and turning off the TV are 'unconnected events', but if the child is capable of connecting screaming and biscuits he/she is equally capable of connecting hitting and no TV. Any psychologist who tells you differently hasn't read his coursebooks properly.
NB: the third scenario is 'I hit. Mum turns of TV. I scream for twenty minutes. Mum turns TV back on and says 'nothing works, supernanny, what can I doooooooooo'...
We're talking about two different issues here. One is the child's ability to control a behaviour. The other is the is the relationship between a stimulus and a response. Although very primitive organisms can learn stimulus-response patterns, they don't learn anything useful unless the stimulus-response pattern is pretty consistent. Also, although a toddler is able to learn more complex stimulus-response patterns than a lab rat or a puppy, the ability to make associations and to control behaviour develops over time and takes longer to develop in some children than others. We wouldn't expect a 6 month-old baby to be able to stop itself having a temper tantrum if mum said no to a biscuit, but we might expect a three year-old to be able to do so.
So... in the screaming and biscuit scenario, the screaming and the biscuit have a causal relationship for the baby or toddler. The baby or toddler wants a biscuit, mum says no, the child screams. But a child would only use screaming as a 'controlling behaviour' if s/he had learned that it got results. If screaming isn't rewarded by anything, the kid will soon learn that screaming is a waste of effort. In a young baby, screaming is simply a response to frustration. In a two year-old it could be a response to frustration that they can control. It would be pretty counterproductive to give the biscuit as a 'reward' for stopping screaming, because, as you point out, the child then associates screaming with a reward.
However, in the hitting and tv scenario, the hitting has no direct connection with the tv. The toddler isn't hitting anyone because of the tv, and turning off the tv isn't a direct consequence of hitting. What would make more sense (assuming we discount corporal punishment) would be to put the kid out of the room - ie away from the person they were hitting.
I'm not quite sure how a small child 'lives with the outcomes of their behaviour'(?) If the outcome, is I hit my little brother and he cries or somesuch and the first child enjoys watching his/her little brother cry then 'living with the outcome' is a huge reward and they'll do it all the more. On the other hand, if a child is likely to be socially disenfranchised by a behaviour are you saying it's better to let him/her be socially disenfranchised and work it out for themselves rather than to intervene and 'sanction' - the first taking years and causing all sorts of resentment and self-esteem issues while the latter helpos him/her quickly make sense of the situation?See hitting and tv scenario above. A sanction that is meaningfully connected with the behaviour is far more likely to be effective than one that isn't. Even a toddler would be able to see the logic of 'you must not hurt your little brother - if you do that I will put you outside the room' and they would be deprived of the pleasure of watching the younger sibling wail. If, however, the consequence was the tv going off or not going to the park, there's no direct connection and the risk is that the kid will see punishment as fickle and arbitrary unpleasant behaviour on the part of an adult. Not a good behaviour to model.
Neither can I, to be honest, but I'm assuming there's something otherwise the OP wouldn't have posted about her behavioural concerns. No, children aren't lab rats or puppies, so it seems to me completely incomprehensible and completely reprehensible when parents seem unwilling to enable their children to achieve the basic understanding that lab rats and puppies are known to be able to achieve and chose instead to don white coats and conduct their own experiments on them that by and large prove much slower in helping them achieve life-enhancing advances or even completely ineffective in doing so.L&P
BD
I quite agree, but it's often difficult to untangle why a child is behaving in a certain way and what to do about it. As a child I would have been pretty miffed (and mystified) if my parents had arbitrarily decided to stop me going swimming and send me to Brownies instead because I cried a lot about things I couldn't do. More support with the things I couldn't do might be more appropriate.
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The teacher did say that he has 'meltdowns' where he will cry when he is set a task which he doesn't think he can do but he is a polite, bright pupil who mixes well with his friends and could take instructions on the task set (to use wow words within a story he had to make up - which he had been struggling with) and he looked his partner in the eye/asked her a question. They said that rocking whilst reading/working is common and so is chewing sleeves/twisting hands. Crying / meltdowns is also something which lots of children do apparently and most boys do not have any imagination (or it is considerably less than found in girls) and they haven't had the noise sensitivity in school either.
So crying, rocking, chewing sleeves and having meltdowns is 'normal' at school? Hmmm. What does this tell us about the school environment?
I have been advised to change the way I parent him in that I should remove him from competitive sports which he likes doing (football/kickboxing) and send him to beavers or something where there are no boys he knows so he HAS to mix with children outside of his circle and not to let him give this activity up after a session or two and to keep taking him.What an extraordinary thing to say! What's the difference between communicating with someone you know and communicating with someone you don't? Very little as far as I can see.
She also said that I should reward the good behaviour and ignore the bad and that should see the end to my concerns.I can see why she said this, because she doesn't want to reward the behaviour you don't want by paying attention to it - if he's doing it to get attention, of course. If he's not doing it to get attention, but because he's frustrated by all the things he finds difficult, then a different approach might be required.
My son spent five years in school focussing on things he found extremely difficult, because all children are expected to 'keep up' with a standardised national curriculum, so what a child is not good at tends to take priority over what they are good at. By the time we found out he had visual, auditory and balance impairments, which explained why he might have found all those things difficult, his self-esteem was almost non-existent. I would be very cautious about taking away the only things he might be able to do.
Am I the only one who doesn't feel it right to send him to Beavers even if he doesn't want to go!No, you're not. It would be worth encouraging him to try something new, but I would start by occasionally dipping into other activities, like other sports, and increasing it gradually.
I appreciate what they said in that he will have to go to work one day with people he doesn't know but that's a long way off yet and if he can't communicate with 'new' kids properly then how is he going to make friends.Well, exactly! If I hear another teacher telling me that because my son can't do anything now, he won't be able to do it in the future, I shall be very tempted to ask them about their work experience. Many teachers have never worked outside education and assume that the world of work is like the world of school. It isn't, and thank heaven it isn't. I've been told an 8 year old with complex learning difficulties (known by his school as 'poor motivation') will one day have to go out into the world (spoken in an awestruck tone of voice) and that because he had failed a picture completion test that would somehow scupper his chances of earning an honest crust. Four years later his interests are calculus and astrophysics, so I'm not sure what role the picture completion test had to play.
If ever you find yourself in a situation where another professional wants to give you the benefit of their advice, make sure you ask what evidence they have to support it, and if they can give you a couple of examples of other children for whom it's worked.
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Hi blm - I would try sanctioning the bad and praising the good rather than ignoring the bad. Ignoring the bad takes away at least 50% of your 'parents arsenal' for behaviour management. Plus you'll only get 'good' when he wants something (because there's not deterent from doing bad and no incentive for doing good when he doesn't want something). The most powerful things you have at your disposal for teaching your child right from wrong are the things he cares about. Not taking away the things he likes disempowers you completely. Of course stopping him from doing what he likes doing 'feels like a punishment' - it's meant to be
Catch 22 - if he can't communicate properly how can he make friends? If he isn't given the opportunity to make friends how can he develop the skills to maintain friendships? If you don't help him achieve those things, how can he, a small child, achieve them on his own? If you don't sanction or comment on the 'bad' behaviour how will he know there's an expectation for him not to enact it and a social consequence when he does enact it?
Think of it this way - if you had a puppy that kept crapping indoors would you ignore it? So why ignore a child whose crapping, metaphorically, on the rest of the family?
Just wanted to point out that sanctions are effective only if the person has control over what they are doing and you need to be sure that a child does have control over their behaviour before implementing sanctions. If they cannot control the behaviour, you simply build up resentment.
I wouldn't ignore unwanted behaviour, but would train in the behaviour I did want by working on more effective strategies.
Ideally, sanctions should take the form of the child living with the outcomes of their behaviour, not the removal of totally unconnected activities that they enjoy, because then the sanction won't make sense.
Having said all that, I can't see from the OP's description, that the child is doing anything 'wrong'. Children are neither lab rats nor puppies and even lab rats and puppies have limits to what they can be expected to do, as anyone who has worked with animals will tell you.
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I can see the point of that.
Just be aware that a reluctance to diagnose might not be due to the incompetence of the doctor or due to anything personal - it might be that the doctor is aware of the issues around diagnosis.
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Anyway, the GP came back to me yesterday and told me that the Psychiatrist contacted her and said that he would not refer me for assessment (no surprise there). However, the reason he gave is that he had had a confab with the Independent Assessor (I did not give permission for this) who takes NHS referrals to assess on their behalf and that the IA said that he believed after his phone call with me that I have VERY mild AS and that as there is no treatment for AS anyway that there is little point in me pursuing a diagnosis.
Thanks, Lynda
Hi Lynda
I've said this before and I'm going to say it again because it's important.
Autism spectrum disorders are not disorders in the same way that measles or myocardial infarctions or a fractured tibia or or Down Syndrome are disorders.
Autism is a bunch of symptoms, in the same way that 'breathing difficulties' or 'impaired mobility' are symptoms. All these labels are accurate descriptions of the symptoms, but they tell you very little about possible causes. If you were having trouble breathing or walking you wouldn't be very happy if a doctor 'diagnosed' you with something you could figure out for yourself. You'd want to know what was causing the problem and get it fixed.
There are lots of possible causes of autism (the symptoms). There are already 60 medical conditions known to be associated with those symptoms and that are quite likely to be the cause of them, except we don't know that for sure because we haven't yet figured out the mechanisms. This is why many professionals are reluctant to carry out a 'diagnosis' - 'autism' is not a particularly useful diagnosis to have unless it brings benefits such as access to certain schools or support services.
Basically, there's no such thing as a 'normal' human being. Human populations show considerable individual variation and sometimes that variation produces difficulties with social interaction and communication and repetitive behaviours. This doesn't mean that those symptoms aren't a problem, but it also means that there might not be a single 'condition' that causes them.
It's very tempting to see a diagnosis in terms of a professional simply having to decide whether or not you'have' a defined medical condition, called Asperger Syndrome. The problem is that although we know that lots of people show the range of symptoms described by Hans Asperger, we don't know whether or not they have the same 'condition' - or any 'condition' at all for that matter.
That doesn't mean that your difficulties with whatever you have difficulties with isn't caused by a biological factor. Nor does it mean that you don't need support. But I wouldn't spend too much time chasing after an elusive diagnosis if I were in your shoes. I would focus on the specific difficulties you have and focus on getting help with those.
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As for coalition governmnent's 'massive overhaul of the not fit for purpose SEN system' I'd be wary of counting chicken's... I suspect it will not be what you're hoping for...
I don't know why you're assuming I'm hoping for anything, or even expecting anything. I was just pointing out that it's not just indulgent parents with flouncy skirts who think there's something wrong with the system.
Again, of course, don't think I'm defending a broken system, because I'm not. Of course the system is broken and of course children - SEN and NT - are suffering as a consequence... But fixing that means being honest about the problems that exist in schools, and unrealistic expectations of parents and pupils alike are part of that, as are the attitudes of the children who walk daily through the school gates (or not, as the case may be) and challenge the system on every level, and the parent's who justify, defend, ignore or perhaps even actively encourage those attitudes. It doesn't matter how many books or how much cutting edge equipment we pour into our schools if they only seen as missiles for firing at teaching staff or other kids, and it's not going to help the situation any to mistake every child throwing the equipment as a 'victim' or the children/teaching staff on the receiving end as the 'bullies' causing all of the problems...I think the OP made a sweeping generalisation about schools not supporting autistic people, but I think his central point was valid; that it's a problem with the way the system is designed. It's not just that the system is broken - it's that it wasn't fit for purpose in the first place. You can't have an education system that purports to be able to teach every child and then doesn't train its staff to do so, or has identical expectations of all pupils when each child is different, etc etc.
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Hi Sally - I do agree with you about 'square pegs round holes', and certainly differentiation/adaptations to help a child achieve are hugely important, positive and beneficial... But there is also another, far wider issue to consider - children should not be enabled to not achieve by trying to provide an education system that meets with the approval of a six/seven/eight year old, or the approval of parents who are looking for a sytem that meets their six/seven/eight year olds approval.
'Approval' is one issue. Parents also have a legal obligation to cause their child to have an education suitable to age, ability, aptitude and any special educational needs. If a school doesn't provide this, and the parent doesn't take action, technically the parent is in breach of the law.
If children were capable of making informed, reasoned and 'sensible' decisions about their education they wouldn't be children. Adults who refuse to accept that their children aren't capable of making decisions like that and fight tooth and claw to make sure their children's whims are accommodated - whatever the cost to the school, or to the other children in the school - can do a huge amount of harm, both to their own children and to the wider school community. That doesn't apply just to autistic children, or disabled children or SEN but to the whole educational system, where in all but a small minority of cases behavioural management/discipline/respect issues are on the increase, with the attitudes fermenting those issues brought in from home, lnfluenced by parents who are completely unwilling or uninterested or just too selfish/feckless to look beyond their own child's demands to see the bigger picture.Indeed, but how do you discriminate between a parent who is fighting tooth and claw for their child's special educational needs to be met, (in a system that has been described by a Commons Select Committee as 'not fit for purpose') and one who wants their child's 'whims' accommodated?
Obviously I don't know anything about the OP's situation, but I can think of another extremely good reason why meltdowns might stop after a child leaves school and it has very little to do with the education system whatsoever. It's the sudden realisation that behaviours which have previously been accommodated will no longer be accommodated, and that the cotton-wool wrapping of an artificially adapted home environment is actually an insidious and dangerous trap that is going to severely compromise the lifestyle of anyone who actually wants to engage with the real world. The saddest thing is, IMO, that when young adults do come to that realisation and break free from the trappings of their artificial environment it is usually interpreted by those who have provided the 'A.E' that their 'instincts' had been right all along. Personally, when I look back on such situations I just get angry, 'cos all I can see is a grubby looking towpath littered with lost opportunities...L&P
BD
I've worked for thirty years outside the education system. I have had teachers lecture me on what the 'real world' is like and how my son needs to be prepared for it and how only school can do this. This from teachers who have never had any work experience other than teaching. But they are convinced that schools are like the 'real world'. Not in my experience they are not. No workplace I have ever been in has resembled school in the slightest. I've had some choice over where I've worked, I've signed a contract that specifies what my duties are in exchange for remuneration and if I haven't liked the job I have got a different one. In general, managers have negotiated rather than ordered people about, and colleagues have collaborated rather than competed. Some workplaces have been like an extended family and I have the lasting friendships to prove it.
I am sure that there are children who are wrapped in cotton-wool at home and who find the real world a big shock. On the other hand, there are parents who have succeeded in teaching their children skills that schools have failed to pass on, and children who have developed social and life skills at their own pace in a managed environment, rather than to a timetable devised by someone who has never met them. I don't feel that what the OP said is true of all schools, but it's true of many. It's not by accident that coalition government is giving the SEN support system a massive overhaul, nor is it simply to pander to the whims of a few molly-coddled six year olds.
cb
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'Autism' is a label for a bunch of symptoms. It is a medical 'condition' only in the sense that it is a label for similar symptoms shown by some people. It isn't a medical condition in the sense that it has clear-cut origins, pathway or outcomes.
Some people's autism is probably caused by the way their brain tissue has developed. Some people's autism is probably caused by the way information is processed in the brain. Some people's autism is associated with one or more of 60 medical conditions. Some people could have autism because of brain damage.
As baddad says, it doesn't really matter how your symptoms are caused. It would matter if anyone could do anything about either the developmental causes of your symptoms, or the ones caused by being in a coma, but as far as I am aware, they can't. If you were diagnosed by someone who knew what they were doing, they would have asked about your developmental history, because that's a factor in the diagnosis. Stop wibbling.
cb
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Has your daughter been fully consulted by the powers that be about whether or not she wants to see her father? I understand that you cannot prevent him seeing her, but it doesn't sound as if she has signed up to this arrangement.
cb
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I keep appending to this:
I would just like to add that when people repetitively say things for example:
Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello.
Something happens and it starts just sounding like tones rather than words. Inside my head and I can feel something like a tap or similar near the front and then it happens, tones rather than words. I have to reset to fix it, I do something like covering my ears or, if you think of it as a computer, restart the listening process.
I think this is common even amongst people who are not on the spectrum. Our brains learn to discriminate between words by learning to recognise common word endings and beginnings, so it's not so much that repetitive words sound like tones, they are just tones, as far as the brain is concerned.
I would just like to know what is going on here and why do I get this indescribable feeling which I cannot link to anything <the next bit is odd and appears, to me anyway, unrelated> and then while I am thinking of it now not being able to I'm getting another indescribable feeling. Now I feel very slightly sick and... I don't know what happened there, I got yet another feeling and felt like curling up and rolling around or rocking to clear my head.You and hundreds of brain researchers would like to know what's going on there. The links between the temporal lobe (that processes sounds) and the frontal lobe areas of the brain that process speech (patterns of sounds) are highly complex. They can be disrupted by all sorts of things; undetected minor brain damage, low blood flow, varying levels of neurotransmitters, mis-firing of neurones - associated with temporal lobe epilepsy - etc. It's not so much that there is something odd or different about your speech processing as that the speech processing of the whole population varies - some people's processing is more efficient than others'.
cb
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Hi Jade
ASD is a set of signs and symptoms. A diagnosis of ASD confirms that someone has signs and symptoms that match those of other people and the label given to them is ASD. It doesn't tell us what is causing those characteristics. Lots of different things could be the cause.
Your daughter has problems with auditory processing. It's quite possible that they could have the same underlying cause as your son's signs and symptoms. Whether or not those difficulties are sufficient to get her a diagnosis of ASD is neither here nor there really. What she needs help with is processing auditory information.
Have a look at this site.
A test for cognitive development for your daughter would be useful as it would highlight strengths and weaknesses, but I wouldn't worry too much about a diagnosis for ASD unless she obviously has real difficulty with social interaction and communication and you're sure a diagnosis would get her additional support.
cb
Autism Education Trust Expert Reference Group
in Education
Posted · Report reply
The AET is looking for some new members of its Expert Reference Group, including
You can read more here:
http://www.icontact-archive.com/PlyyUDEFsOLFnkQjwBJkYA0D9o9huC0Q?w=4#
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