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pinkyponk

Refusal to work in lessons....

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hi, can anyone help here or offer any advice. my 10 year old (aspergers) is struggling in school. He is bright and is more than able to do the work but he just doesnt. he refuses or does a very little amount. ie maths, he maybe does 1 or 2 sums in a whole morning. His teachers and I know he can do it easily but he just wont.

 

Ive had to call the school today as for the 2nd day in a row he hasnt been allowed to join in pe because hes not done his work.

 

the ed pshy, teachers and i are currently starting to look at how we can help him accept "consequenes" as at present he wont accept them and it ends up in him having an explosion at school and at home too. He gets very angry as you can imagine.

 

Ive talked to him but he just shrugs when i ask him to tell me why he didnt do his maths. Ive explained to him that there will be a consequence if he doesnt do his maths but is missing a whole pe lesson too much of a "punishment" for him or am i being a bit too soft.... but its me that gets the brunt of it when he gets home. I have 2 year old twins too who unfortunately are in the firing line.

 

He has an IEP set up but mainly thats for personal problems, ie he needs to be quicker at preperaing in the morning etc and things like that.

 

How can we get him to work???? suggestions that i can pass on to his teachers??

 

thank you

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I think you should do a reward chart, that says if you do the work and work hard then he gets a reward say after 3 days if he done that in 3 days in row he get a treat but if he doesnt dont give a treat. it worked for me.

 

think punishing isnt going to be helpful, he just needs reassurance and rewards if he can put his mind to it.

Edited by Special_talent123

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There could also be he having difficulty understanding the work , and with people with ASD we tend to not ask for help but just sit there doing nothing because we dont understand and afraid to ask for help. there should be some cards that can be made to say 'i need help' and show the teacher that if having problems with the work.

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At my sons school they use red, yellow and green cards. All the children have them, the idea is that the child had the relevant card on display all the time. I must admit they are probably not used as much as they should be.

 

In maths at least it could be that the work is too difficult but it could also be that it is too easy.

 

I don't think exclusion from PE for not doing other lessons is at all helpful.

 

Any form of sanctions may need to be immediate, the idea of a consequence some time in the future may not seem at all relavent to the now.

 

Reward charts never worked with my son, rewards of any sort never work(ed). Nor do consequences. His main motivation for doing the work (Anything) is the satisfaction of doing it. But 10 minuets later he may have lost all interest. For my son that is one of the problems with homework, the reward, if you like, doesn't come untill the next day, or even the next week.

 

I realy think that someone needs to do some work with your son to sort out what is going on, to find what the best approach would be.

Edited by chris54

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PinkyPonk my gut reaction one this one as someone with AS and as a ex teacher and a parent is kids need to learn what the consequences are. I think the problem can arrise where 'normal' consequences might not be that bad for someonewith AS.

 

PE might be noisy, smelly, having to change clothes to something which doesn't feel as nice as my normal stuff, in fact PE might be one of the worst times of the school week. I know part of my condition is I see things in black and white terms. If I am told that if I do not do maths I can not do PE and I don't like PE then life is really simple, I will go with your rules, they are rules after all and if they serve me well so be it! In fact this might not cost me anything if I know I am good at maths and could easily knock out a few pages of boring sums if I wanted to.

 

I think at times it must be hard to get into the mind of an AS kid and see things from his perspective. My belief is we do not do things unless we can see a good reason to do so. Chris highlights this point. I agree with him that we can be very self motivated and often external rewards can feel patronising even at this age.

 

My advice would be trying to get him to have control over his own targets explore his motivations and with it his own rewards and sanctions which you might have to make sure are proportionate. I do this with my own son who is 7 and to be honest he tends to be too hard on himself and I need to moderate some of his ideas and tone them down. But because they come from him they work, some might not transfare well to a school environment but it might be an approach worth developing.

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I know from my time at school if not doing PE had been a punishment, I would have been the naughtiest boy there was.

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I agree with above post.

 

Having said that, if PE is a problem for him he may need additional support, or consideration for certain things [not sure how you make adjustments for noise, smell, changing clothese etc other than talking with him about it, agreeing if he says he does not like it, and giving him time to do it in. Does he have any motor co-ordination problems?

 

I'm also concerned that IEP targets are all personal home based ones. You obviously are having some problems at home, but that maybe after a long day in school where he has not coped well with some thing or alot of things. If he is coming home angry, upset etc then something has happened in school. So school need to identify the cause, and include a SMART target on how they will achieve that into his IEP.

 

What about the above difficulty being incorporated into an IEP target?

Or social communication problems?

Or any other of the difficulties your son must have to have a diagnosis?

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I was also wondering if missing PE was actually a punishment! Does he actually enjoy PE or not, could it be feasiable that he is playing up in order to miss it? My feeling is that incentives would probably work better than punishments. My lad found it extremely difficult to sit and do work when he was at primary school. When he was little he would literally sit and scream if they tried to make him write, which, as you can imagine, was very disruptive for the rest of the class! They actually introduced a reward system for him, whereby, if he'd managed to sit quietly on the carpet, say, for five minutes without making lots of noise or wriggling about too much, then they would take him out and he could have some time with his 'special box', which was a box filled with various little toys and bits and bobs. This was far, far more effective than threatening him and saying 'if you don't stop making that noise you'll have this punishment', etc. etc., which would have just sent him into a frenzy of anxiety and misery and made him worse.

 

~ Mel ~

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In that case, I think it important that it is not taken from him. If withdrawing PE from him is not working anyway, I'd suggest to the school what incentives might help him to see that doing the work would be worthwhile to him. Even terming it differently could bring about a different attitude...."if you manage three sums today, you can take part in PE". It instantly has a different feel than "If you don't work you won't go to PE", iyswim. Does he have any time out of the classroom? They need to set realistic and achieveable goals for him, say, to complete four sums and once he's achieving that regularly than increasing the target to five, etc. If he achieves his set goal for the day, he could be rewarded with some time out doing something relaxing, drawing, playing with stickle bricks or whatever it is that floats his boat. That way he feels that he is not continually failing to come up to expectation and continually being punished, which can become a vicious circle.

 

~ Mel ~

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this was me back in 2000 i was a 10 year old boy that refused to work, i wanted to but large classrooms distracted me. every single pin drop distrcacted me and would find any excuse to put of doing any work. what i needed was 1 to 1 learning in a quiet class room with a teacher i had a good relationship with. i would get the lesson objective from the teacher and i was put in a seperate room and was given a 1 to 1 lesson. with lessons like science, geograthy, and history i diddnt need this tactic as i was motivated by the subjects and contributed to the lesson well. but with my troble areas i had 1 to 1 with no distractions. every pupil deserves a certain standard of learning, if they are not learning that the school isnt doing there job.

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We have problems with our 8 year old son refusing to do some work. To us this seems arbitrary but it also appears to cause him genuine distress if he is pushed (so he is not just being lazy) - one of his problems is a dislike of failure, so he is very reluctant to attempt some tasks in case he fails. He also genuinely struggles to organise his thoughts to complete some tasks.

 

We find that rewards are more effective than punishments - in fact I don't like punishments unless we are sure that he is being awkward and there isn't any underlying issue. We also find that it is better to pick which battles to fight. An AS child is different and to try to force them to conform in all areas can be very stressful. We encourage the school to let him "opt out" of areas that are not critical and reserve the pressure for those areas that matter (in his case literacy which he really dislikes)

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Hi I agree with most of the posts above. I personally think there has to be a good balance of consequences for the negative behaviour and rewards for the good. I do not think PE should be used as a reward because it is a lesson just like any other,for example if any other child did not do work in maths would the school say "oh then you lose literacy time",it does not make sense.

 

My son has "golden/chosing" time and this is used as an incentive to work,he also loses time on play. He has good strips at school with thumbs up for good thumbs down for bad. He either loses time or gains time for certain things. The time varies but generally its 5-10min, not the entire playtime/chosing time. Like someone else mentioned it needs to be realistic and he needs to know whats expected of him,like "if you can complete 3 sums you can have time to do.....(whatever he likes) for 10min." In the same way the good strips can be used at home for things like game(i.e xbox) or telly time. When he does something negative he will lose time and not get to watch what he wants for example. It is hard as my son does kick off when he does not get his way,but the punnishments are effective,he may shout,sream throw things but the end result is that he understands the consequences. It also helps my son to have "cool down" on his on with no distractions when he has had a bad day at school. I have found working together with the school is really helpful,so you can't go wrong.

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If he loves PE, then that isn't the reason he's not doing work.

Have school tried moving him to a separate room to see if he can do his work in that quiet environment?

Our son used to try to get out the classroom to do his work in the corridor because he could not concentrate in the class.

He is now in a class that has 7 other children, and he still struggles with that.

 

I think that as well as incentives there has to be some investigation and experimentation to see what works and what doesn't. Remember that he may not be able to tell you what the problem is.

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thank you everyone

 

its so hard.... we have tried reward charts, home diarys (positive and negative things), he has enjoyed picking out a prize from the teachers pot, weve tried incentives, egg timers.....

 

current trial is that he has tape round his desk (he sits on his own table next to teachers desk... his choice). The tape is for him to realise his own space and hes not to cross it as he has been wandering round the classroom doing silly things ie blowing in other childrens ears.

 

I find that certain strategies work but only for a very short time and we are back to thinking again......

 

he is struggling to deal with consequence and im waiting for teh ed pysh to get back to me for the next meeting for a plan of action to assist him with this problem.

 

for now tho ive asked the school to lower his "consequence" and not letting him join in in 2 pe lessons is far too harsh a punishement for him and they have to think of something else. meybe take 5 mins of golden time (fun time on a fri pm) away from him but not a whole pe lesson and he really loves pe.

 

There are times when he does go into a seperate room to do some work but to him this is seen as a punishment and it makes him mad. He works really really well one to one.... but there is no funding to enable a teacher who is free all the time to do this. there are teaching assistants and im promised they spend a lot of time with him.

 

If he gets it into his head that he doesnt want to work, he just wont. I need him to work... 2 years til academy... im very very worried.

 

there is a special needs school here but its for more pysically disabled children and my son doenst "fit the bill" to attend that school and ive been told by doctors,ed psycs, teachers, healthvisitors etc that mainstream is definately best for him.

 

But im not sure now if they cant get him to work... whats the point.

 

sorry ive waffled a bit!!!

 

thanks again for all the comments and support.

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i rember my mum trying to get me into a school that used to make learning more practical, they used to mix p.e lessons and english together so you were getting a 2 prong learning objective. and i think because it was structred in such a way the school day was only like 3 hours (not sure if my memorys correct on that one) this was like 2002 mind you so im not sure if schools like this are still around. i actully rember being offered a place but i opted for main stream school. on a social note best decision i made, on an accademic note awful choice, my education suffered big time. but anyway i would do some reaserch on your possabilitys, and if you think you have found a place you want to send you son then appeal, appeal, appeal!!! and keep hounding pepole and keep fighting the fight. never take no for an awnser, your son has a right to a good education, his difficulties arnt his fault, its the schhols for not being able to accomidate for him. so do some reaserch on your options, and if it means moving away to give your son the best education than do what ever you have to do. from what ive gathered from your posts you defonetley have a case. so never take no for an awnser

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I completely agree - missing PE lessons is a totally inappropriate sanction to apply under these circumstances. That sort of sanction should only be used for really serious mis-behaviour (if at all).

 

Reading between the lines I suspect that school don't really understand his condition - or aren't taking it seriously. You should seriously consider asking the LA to do a statutory assessment. Also try to persuade them to get away from this "personal"/"behaviour" problems to seeing those as symptoms of the underlying condition. These are just symptoms of the fact that his AS is not being managed properly.

 

As for the problems with work school should try to differentiate what he is asked to do to work within his likes and dislikes. Our son hates writing anything - and went through a term pretty much refusing to write a word. Allowing him to write of a different topic to the rest of the class made some improvement but it is still heavy going.

 

Is he actually falling behind in Maths? If not then it is probably not worth worrying about him doing little work - let him use some at least of the time doing something else. If he is falling behind then they will need to find a way to present the work that he can relate to.

 

We also find that strategies usually only work for a short period of time and then need to be reviewed - that is very frustrating as you find something that you think works, you appear to be making progress and then a few weeks later you find yourself back at square one

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im actually a bit confused if hes falling behind or not........ from what i see via homework he can manage the sums. He struggles with multiplication and at present is taking away using exchanging. he can do it easily and i think now he is fed up with doing the same sums over and over again...... once he has done it he thinks "why do i need to keep doing this" and simply refuses. The school teachers have told me if he doesnt keep up with the work and he doesnt listen properly he will fall behind.

 

They tell me that he does already do about half the amount that the other children can do....

i wonder if there is too much pressure on him, he is in a composite class, he ALWAYS has been, hes never been in a class of pupils of just his age. He is always the younger class of the two. just now he is in a primary 6/5 and is the primary 5 part.

 

If this continues next year will be the 7/6 class and thats one of the highest classes and i think the pressure will be too much for him so im considering requesting that he goes into the 6/5 again this year as a primary 6 this time BUT im worried it will be the same work.

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Is your child at any stage of the SEN process eg. School Action, or School Action Plus? Does he have IEPs [individual education plan?].

 

You can download a copy of the SEN Code of Practice from the publications section at the top of the Education Forum. Or phone your LA and ask to speak to their Parent Partnership, and ask them if they can get you a copy of it.

 

Also phone the LA educational psychology department and ask to speak to the Educational Psychologist for that school and the Autism Advisory Teacher.

 

According to the SEN Code of Practice, a child may have different types of special educational needs. These may be academic, speech and language, social communication, sensory, physical, emotional, behavioural etc.

 

If a child has a difficulty in any or some of those areas, the school is supposed to put the child onto School Action and monitor the situation. If there is no improvement they should move the child to School Action Plus and they should contact outside agencies such as the Speech and Language Therapist the Educational Pyschologist or the Autism Advisory Teacher for them to come into school and observe/assess the child and also advise them on the difficulties the child has. That is what schools have budgets for.

 

If a child needed specialist intervention or therapy that is not typically provided by either the LA/school or the NHS, then a child should receive a Statement of SEN.

 

To ask the LA to assess for a Statement, you usually need your child to be on SA+, and to have had 2 IEPs. But that is not compulsory. You can ask the LA to assess yourself, and you don't need anyone else to agree to this assessment. If the LA turns you down you can appeal that decision. Most LA's refuse to assess automatically to screen out those parents that will not take it further.

 

I would also advise that you go to your GP and ask to be referred to Clinical Psychology.

 

Your child has to have clinically significant differences and difficulties to receive a diagnosis. So I think you are being fobbed off to be told that his needs are not severe enough. He maybe capable academically, but not in any of the other areas that are also considered to be areas of special educational needs eg. speech and language and social interaction/communication, sensory, emotional literacy in himself and others, and behavioural issues.

 

If you and school have not come up with any ideas that work, then school should use some of their budget to refer him to professionals that can give their expertise and advise. That is what the budget is for.

 

I would recommend you talk with the parent partnership about this. Ask them to come to a meeting with you with the school SENCO, and ask school what SEN stage he is at, and what support in terms of total hours and staff provision he currently receives in school during the week. Ask the school to refer to the SALT and EP and ask them to contact the autism outreach/advisory teacher too.

 

Take notes of what is discussed and agreed at this meeting, then send in a letter detailing it. Eg. we discussed our sons difficulties with x, y and z, and you agreed to refer him to the Speech and Language Therapist and the Educational Psychologist. You told us that this referal typically takes xx months. In the meantime you have agreed to contact the Autism Advisory Teacher for them to come into school and observe xxxxx in class and offer some suggestions and advice to both school and home.

 

This problem is not going to go away. He is currently in primary school. Things will get much worse in secondary school.

Edited by Sally44

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He works really really well one to one.... but there is no funding to enable a teacher who is free all the time to do this. there are teaching assistants and im promised they spend a lot of time with him.

 

If that is what works, then that is what he should receive. But to receive that level of support he would need a Statement and it would need to quantify and specify that input. A Statement is the ONLY special educational needs document that is legally binding on the school and LA to provide it. If the school cannot provide it under their funding, then the LA has to fund it. That is what the law says.

 

You would need an educational psychologist to state that he needed that support. The LA EP may not be prepared to do this. But an independent one would, if that was what he needed.

 

Lots of children on the spectrum find it hard to work alone [by that I mean to initiate, organise, plan, etc]. My son would not do much work if left on his own. He needs constant prompting and reminding of what he is supposed to be doing. He is easily distracted and finds it hard to start and stop work [especially if he has to leave it unfinished].

 

As he loves PE, we have to assume that the reason he is not working is due to something else other than an avoidance behaviour.

 

I would not advise that you ask that he retakes a year. That is just postponing the inevitable. Either he works to the level of his peers with or without support. Or he needs a different placement. If he does not cope next year that is proof that mainstream with the current level of support is not working.

 

You have been told there is no funding for additional teaching support/staff. That is ONLY true to children who do NOT have a Statement. If his Statement said he needed it, he would get it. Some children need to work in small group sizes of no more than 8. That is what my son gets. It really depends what reports say he needs, and you get reports when you ask for an assessment towards a Statement. That is when the LA would ask the SALT and EP to assess your child.

 

Does he have any input from a speech therapist? Has his expressive and receptive speech and communications skills been assessed?

 

My son would also find it very hard to pay attention in class, and often does not listen because he has switched off. He also has an auditory processing disorder where he hears letters/words incorrectly and often gets confused. He also has a sensory processing disorder which means he literally gets overwhelmed with too much auditory information. He can record the dialogue of TV programmes or films verbatim, but in a learning environment he easily gets distracted and needs a low arousal environment, in a small class size and expert teaching by a teacher that has an additional qualification above his teaching qualification for ASD. My son also gets 1:1 teaching from a specialist dyslexia teacher, because he has severe dyslexia. It is all detailed in his Statement and that is what he gets.

 

So SEN law [as per the code of practice] states that EVERY need has to be identified in part 2 of the Statement. Part 3 must detail what provision is needed to meet each and every need.

 

Also have a look on websites like www.ipsea.org.uk and www.ace-ed.org.uk as they contained alot of good advice.

 

I think you are being fobbed off. I think you need to read up and learn about the graduated SEN process, and to be a bit more pro-active in pushing your son onto the SA+, where he would have IEPs for this difficulty. If they had not managed to resolve it by 2 IEP's [usually 6 months], then I would recommend that you requested the LA to carry out a Statutory Assessment towards a Statement.

 

A Statement takes 26 weeks from start to finish. By that time you may find your son is in another year and is struggling even more and it is obvious that his current school cannot meet his needs.

 

There are independent ASD specific schools out there. But you would definately need to go to an SEN Tribunal and probably need independent reports to achieve it. But it is possible. My son attends an independent ASD school, which we won at our Appeal last October.

 

I think i've already said this, but when you have a meeting in school, ask them specifically HOW MUCH TA TIME is allocated to your son per week. The reason you want to know that is to identify what level of support works and what level does not. So if 6 hours a week is not working, he needs more input than that. If he is having the full 15 hours a week [which is around the level of funding the school gets for additional support], then the school should be suggesting he has a Statement.

 

During literacy and numeracy lessons my son has his specialist dyslexia teacher AND a TA sat with him [3 hours a week]. The remainder of those lessons he has just his TA with him. In his class are 7 other children, a specialist teacher and 2 other TAs. You can see that that is a high level of support, much higher than a typical mainstream classroom. Some children need this.

 

I think what would really be useful is thorough assessments [which should take place as part of an assessment for a Statement]. However parents often find that LA and NHS professionals do not quantify and specify provision to meet needs [eventhough they should]. The Statement has to be worded correctly so that it is legally binding. So often parents have to appeal the Statement, and then pay for independent reports that can be submitted as part of the Appeal Hearing.

 

Do you think he has sensory issues, or difficulties with executive functions or short term/working memory?

 

There are different types of school placement. There are LA maintained mainstream and special schools [usually for moderate learning difficulty]. Some mainstream schools have autism units for pupils that need extra help or support. But such a placement must be a suitable peer group for your child. Our son was too academically and socially able to be placed in the autism unit that was available. That left only an independent school that could meet his needs. If the Tribunal Panel agree that that is the only placement that can meet your child's needs, they will issue an Order for the LA to place the child there, and the LA has to pay those fees.

 

You can ask your LA for their list of maintained, approved and independent schools for children that have an ASD. Ask for both primary and secondary school lists. You will yourselves the number of different [including independent] schools your LA is currently sending their pupils to. So it is not true that your son could not receive that level of support. It is a case of proving that he has those needs/difficulties and that that level of support is required to meet that need.

Edited by Sally44

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wowzers, so much information thank you very much. it will take me a few reads to understand it all!! think ill print it off.

 

Ill add that im in scotland... sometimes the policies and procedures are different.

 

thank you again.... x

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Yes, they are very different if you are in Scotland. So alot of what I have said is probably irrelevant.

 

I would still suggest you contact any organisation [NAS], to see what advice and support they can give.

 

But best of all is for you to learn what the SEN process is where you are. Try to get everything in writing, never just verbal advice or information. Because if something is in writing, such as how much support a child gets, and that does not work, you have evidence that xx hours has not produced results.

 

But you are still able to get independent reports, if you think they would be helpful. But if you do do that, find out when would be the best time to get them and what they would achieve.

 

You need to know what all your child's difficulties are to be able to make an informed choice about the type of school he needs. But small class numbers, low arousal, high pupil:staff ratio, an autism unit if the peer group is suitable etc.

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