lisa

Thanks Nellie and Carole, Nellie, you always come up with brilliant advice, thanks for taking the time to research this subject. I'd pretty much made up my mind to take Laura out of school which she was happy with and then she announced yesterday that she thinks she'll stay at school because she likes school! I think it's because it's coming up to the end of term SATs are finished and the school are in "fun mode". Just typical though, we've had to battle with Jack to get him to school for the past 3 years and as soon as I make the decision to home educate everyone likes school all of a sudden. He's worried about his LSA losing her job if he leaves!! The main thing is they all seem happy which is a relief after so much stress. At least I've done my research and if they do start having problems again and want to leave then they can. Lisa

Elefan, If you apply for Carer's allowance at the same time as DLA, you'll get turned down for Carer's, which is processed quite quickly, but if you are then awarded DLA they will back date Carer's allowance from the date you first claimed. The man on the Benefits Enquiry Line told me this. It's best to apply for both at the same time. I did this and got 4 months back payments! Lisa

Carole, Did your son have a statement? I was wondering if the LEA are still obliged to make provision for home educated kids who have statements. Would they still provide SALT and Ed Psych input? Would the ASD outreach visit us if we wanted them to? Lisa

Thanks for all the support everyone. This site has been such a lifeline for us, it's so refreshing to be able to share your worries with people who understand what you're going through. I have good friends who are also very supportive but I don't want to turn into the "aspergers bore" where everyone runs into hiding everytime they see me and murmur "don't mention special needs"!!! Sam, have you met other families in your area who home educate and if so do you meet up and do activities or outings with the children together? Lisa

Esther, Laura is in mainstream and quite happy at the moment. We've had a lot of problems with her older brother at the same school, his problems became more apparent in the juniors and I really don't want Laura to have to go through the same thing. I also think Jack's AS is milder than Laura's (although she hasn't been diagnosed yet). I feel I want to protect her and keep her home with me where I know she'll stay happy. She can still socialise with other kids by going Brownies and with her brother, sister and cousins etc. We tend to have quite a good social life out of school so she'll never be without other kids around. Although she's doing ok academically, I know she isn't achieving her potential and I'm sure I could do a better job at home where she's more relaxed and I can spend time giving her the one to one attention she needs. It's a really big step to decide to home educate and I'm worried I'll screw it up. Lisa

Thanks Bid, I've been looking at the sites. It seems that quite a lot of home educated kids have Aspergers. The more I read and think about it, the more appealing it becomes to keep Laura at home. I'm so fed up with battling with the school all the time and feeling so stressed. Lisa

Hi, Laura has got impetigo and has been off school this week. She's been so happy and we've been doing lots of work and educational things of her choice. I think she's learnt more this week than she would have done in school. She's naturally very bright and inquisitive but not performing very well at school. She tends to daydream and "switch off". I'm the sort of person who loves the school holidays and having my kids around me. I love taking them to museums and just talking to them. It's made me think that perhaps I would like to home educate her. She's ok at school at the moment but I couldn't bear for her to go through the same thing Jack has this past couple of years. Has anyone else home educated? I'll probably never have the courage to do it but I'm interested in other peoples experiences. Lisa

Hi, I agree with Carol. I don't think there's room for genius and practical. My son is a member of MENSA and we've been told he's in the top 1% of the population for intelligence yet he can't tie his shoelaces, he's impossibly unorganised and extremely forgetful of "mundane" everyday tasks. He can recite word for word whole episodes of dialogue from his favourite television programmes and films but can't remember what he's supposed to be doing my the time he gets to the top of the stairs! Lisa

Hello, I just wanted to add that it can get better. When Jack was younger he was a nightmare. I had three children under the age of 3 at one point. He had major meltdowns in public, kicking and screaming, he climbed everything in sight and on the whole was like a thing let loose. He would never sit in his car seat, we tried everything to keep him strapped in but he still managed to do a "Houdini" out of his car seat and into the boot. To top it all he was a "runner", the hours I spent chasing him down streets, terrified he'd run in the road. My husband even had a tee shirt printed with Jack's picture and a caption "Where's Jack?" because we spent so much of our time saying "where's Jack?" it became a family catchphrase. He broke windows and televisions (he used to stand on top of the television and jump off like superman!!) I endured all the stares and the "oh how do you cope" and to be honest, I don't know how I did at times! Jack is now 10. He is a wonderful, "overly" polite boy and quite a favourite with other parents. He is very eccentric and like a little professor. He once went to a friends house for tea and told the mother "thank you, that was delicious, you must give me the recipe". Most parents like a polite child and often overlook a lot if a child has good manners. He also has a thing about complimenting people, he'll say things like "is that a new skirt, it's lovely". He still has lots of problems, often gets things wrong, misreads situations etc. and can get teased by other kids because of the way he is. He mainly saves his meltdowns for at home which makes life a lot easier. I'm not saying it isn't difficult still but in our case more managable. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Lisa

Mike, Thanks for the Tax Credit information. We've only just started getting the higher care rate DLA and wondered what would happen with our Tax Credit. Lisa

Vastsarah, This is one of the things that I have found really hard over the years. As many of you know I have twins who are in the same class. Things are a bit better now because at 10 a lot of kids don't have parties or just have 2 friends to sleepover or something but when Jack was younger this happened a few times where the whole class would be invited to a party but not Jack. Unfortunately Lucy would miss out on these occasions because there was no way that I was going to drop her off at a party and "rub Jack's nose in it". Lucy has always been very popular and this often highlighted Jack's social problems. I have stood in the playground and heard other children asking their mums if Jack could come to play and the look of horror and embarrassment on their mums faces, almost dragging their kids away. All they saw was at 3.30pm this "wild child" tearing around the playground like a lunatic, climbing the fence and generally attracting disapproving looks. It used to really upset me but thankfully he is older now and it's not such a problem. Lisa

We had a lady from MENCAP help us fill in the forms. I think you can sometimes be so used to our AS kid's behaviour that it seems the norm, so it helps to get someone elses input. We managed to get the higher rate care for our son, perhaps their decision was influenced by him setting fire to our living room and climbing out of the upstairs bedroom window!!! Lisa

Hi Helen/Karen, Thanks for all your advice and for looking at your old primary IEPs for me, I'm still at a bit of a loss though. The problem with Laura is, the teacher isn't sure what sort of thing to put in her IEP and I can understand the problem. Laura doesn't really have behaviour issues like Jack did (my son, who has AS). She puts her hand up and doesn't call out in class, she seems fine lining up apart from she likes to be the last one or the first one. She's not disruptive and she's working at middle group level. Her main problems are daydreaming and the social side of school. She works at her own pace, which is often slow and she's hard to motivate. She's not interested in interacting and prefers to be alone. She tends not to ask for help and then gets upset. How can you put these problems into workable targets? You can hardly have a target saying "don't daydream". She doesn't have any 1:1 support, although she does sometimes work with a support assistant in a small group. The teacher is going to talk it over with the SENCO to see what they can come up with. She really wants a place for Laura in the Social Skills group but the SENCO says there's no place available. This would give her a better basis for IEP targets. Laura has her first speech and language appointment soon and I'm hoping if they recommend the social skills group the school will find a place for her. It also would give me more leverage to demand a place. At the moment, although I'm positive that Laura is on the autistic spectrum, it's still early days and I don't want to rock the boat too much. I've done a lot of feet stamping in school lately so until the professionals confirm my suspicions (which I'm sure they will) I think I need to take a step back. I'm sure Laura's teacher wouldn't take offence if I was able to come up with some targets for her. Lisa

Hi Everyone, Can anyone give some examples of the targets on their childrens IEP's that I could perhaps suggest to my youngest daughters teacher? Laura isn't diagnosed but we're pretty sure she is on the spectrum as she's showing many charactistics. We had parents evening tonight and I was hoping that she would have an IEP for us to look over but she admitted she didn't really know what targets to set. Laura is in Year 2, middle groups (she started reception in top groups and is gradually working her way down), she's an excellent reader, a daydreamer, she isn't very social and likes to spend time on her own, she doesn't call out in class and she rarely asks for help. She has just been put on School Action Plus because she has been referred to "outside agencies" and this will be her first IEP. Lisa

Lisa, You're not alone. Before my son was diagnosed we were told by the SENCO "I don't think he's got aspergers" and even after diagnosis she has continued to refuse to accept even his most obvious signs. We are now positive that his younger sister is also AS and even though the SENCO has never seen her and her teacher was the first to point out that she wasn't interacting socially, it was implied that we were reading too much about Aspergers and being hypercondriacs as far as Laura is concerned. My advice to you is, don't take no for an answer. You know your child better than anyone. Lisa p.s. There are so many Lisa's on this site!!

Furby, When my son was 2-3 yrs old we kept food diaries and also saw a paediatrician as it was thought at the time that he was hyper-active. I didn't think it was food related because I was almost obsessive about what my twins ate and always made my own baby food using organic foods where ever possible. I never even gave them crisps or sweets and they didn't know what McDonalds was until they were about 4!!! The doctor told us that citrus fruits were one of the worst triggers for many hyper kids and also wheat. We thought we were feeding him a healthy diet, weetabix for breakfast, organic wholemeal bread sandwich with a satsuma to follow with fresh orange juice for lunch and wondering why he was running around like a lunatic. We also found out that he was reacting to tomatoes. If I made spaghetti bolognaise he'd be on the ceiling for about an hour after. We're not as strict with his diet now he's older because I think he's grown out of it a bit and the reactions to foods are not so extreme. We still don't let him have fresh orange juice or anything with red or orange colourings though. Lisa

Did anyone see, I think it was the news, the other morning where they were talking about unclaimed benefits and there was a boy with Aspergers and his mum and she was claiming an allowance for looking after him. They were saying that people weren't aware that they could claim for conditions like this. Is anyone else claiming benefits for their children with Aspergers? Lisa

Lisa, Boots definately sell Eye Q. My mum bought some for Jack last year, before he was diagnosed because it's supposed to help with ADHD, concentration and memory, that sort of thing. I decided I'd take it too but the trouble was I kept forgetting, hence the reason I need to take it!!! I gave up in the end. It's a blend of fish oils, very expensive, and takes 3 months before it works according to the packet. I think St. Johns Wort is a homepathic anti-depressent. Lisa

My 9 year old twins were born 6 weeks premature, pretty easy labour. They both had the MMR vaccine. My son has recently been diagnosed with AS (my daughter,his twin is fine) but I feel he showed symptons before the vaccine. He has always been very "one track" and failed his early hearing tests, in hindsight, because I think he was absorbed in the toy in front of him and didn't acknowledge any sounds around him. His hearing is fine. He didn't talk until he was 3 and he hasn't stopped since!! In our case, although my husband hasn't been diagnosed AS, he is very eccentric and obsessive. He is dyslexic and extremely intelligent in some areas but doesn't have a clue in some quite basic things. He can also be unintentionally rude to people, which I find quite embarrassing at times, but is very outgoing and does have lots of friends (mainly through his obsessive hobbies!). I too have quite a few ASD traits. My sister is convinced that the MMR vaccination has affected her son, he has ADHD and severe learning and behaviour problems. He was fine, talked, walked etc. right on cue, very bright baby and after the MMR, he had a fever and has had problems ever since.

My son has just been diagnosed with AS and we have a similar problem with his job-share teachers this year. They have said they don't see any difference between him and his peers and I get the impression they think I'm making something of nothing. I think particularly with very high functioning AS, it's hard for people to understand.