Moving ahead

[dekra]

My 5 year old son (dx with language disorder and developmental delay) has progressed really well over the last few months. He now has very good (for him) expressive language skills, can make sentences and make his basic needs understood although he has no comprension of a conversation. His receptive language skills are still very very bad however and although he is doing well at school in things like maths he struggles to to understand a lot of what he is told so his interaction with the curriculum is limited. On a personal level he does now for the first time ever have a "friend" near what you and I would describe as a friend ie someone he wants to see and asks for if they are not about. This little boy is 11 days younger than him and has a dx of ASD. The boys have very similar troubles (although I do admit his friend is much worse behaviour wise although I'd say he has slightly better language skills than my son), his mum and I have become friends (something not easy for me) and our younger daughters are only 10 months appart also and have become friends too. Both boys attend a special language unit 4 afternoons a week together.

 

As the easter holidays approach the language unit will be cutting my son (and his friend) down to 2 afternoons per week to gently break them into reduced input from the unit as when they start primary 2 in August they won't be going at all. I don't believe my son will thrive in mainstream school without the imput of the language unit however but after p1 that's it for them so I have been looking into what else is available in our area. There is another primary school about 12 miles away that although is a main stream school has a special language/communication unit within the school. Children within the unit are partially integrated within the main school but still have the benefit of the unit so it's the best of both worlds as far as I can see and I want my son to go there. The only problem is a lot of people including his specialist SALT and community paed think his language skills have come on so well and the places are very very limited at the specialist unit that he won't get a place. I on the otherhand think he would thrive in that environment, as he would have the advantages of a special unit to cater for his needs and still have the mainstream school for integration.

 

Does anyone have any tips on how to ensure I do my utmost to get my son into this unit please? My son is not statemented as we are in Scotland. But he does at the moment get his 4 afternoon sessions in his current language unit plus 2 speech therapy sessions in school provided by the language unit speech therapist and he has been allocated 6 hours of additional support for his remaining class time. This additional support SHOULD be increased next year to reflect that he has more hours in class than he currently does. I just really do believe the mixed specialist unit/mainstream would be a perfect solution for my son I just don't know how to go about getting him in there if I face opposition at first. I think my first port of call will be getting a firm statement of needs done. Maybe it's time I ask for that to be done anyway. Yes. I will do that (can you tell I'm still thinking about this and planning as I write?).

 

Any advice would be useful.

[justine1]

Hi Dekra

 

Wow that is wonderful news that your son is doing so well and the friendship for both of you is so fantastic.

 

I am currently looking at secondary schools for Sam,he is in year 5, I need to decide by April for his annual review and its proving very difficult. The advice I was given by his ASD unit is....Yes he is making/made such great progress,but that is because he is the right environment. If he gets placed in the wrong environment all the old problems will just re-surface. The ASD is still there and he has real difficulties but the school know him well enough to guide him in the right dirction. Despite the fact he has a statement it is possible with all the cuts the LEA could say he should go to mainstream,he is currently only 25-30% integrated can't see it changing that much in the next year. We have three mainstreams that are in our catchment,so the school suggested that even though we know he can never cope at these schools I need to go there and look at the schools.

 

When I go I need to ask many questions such as how many kids they have on roll with ASD, what support they have(including extras,like at the moment he gets SALT every week) and what their behaviour policies are regarding ASD pupils(plus many more!) Once I have all this info I will then compare to the school/s I want him to attend and then if the LEA come back to refuse my preference I can argue my case.

 

So I would say his progress is a good reason for furthur support,you can argue that without the support he will no longer make the type of progress he is making now and is likely to fall behind. Hopefully his current school is willing to support you in your application.

[Sally44]

One of the best ways to know what his speech and language and social communication difficulties are is for the SALT to carry out standardised assessments. Have they ever done them? Usually it is the ACE or CELF 4 test. And ask that all aspects of his receptive and expressive speech are assessed including Forumulated Sentences.

 

Standardised Assessments give a percentile, standard score or age related score. If he scores badly on some of those tests it will be obvious that he will not thrive in mainstream because speech and language skills are going to impact on every aspect of his learning in school.

 

In England the LA has to go with the parental choice of school UNLESS it is not a suitable school, or the LA can argue that it is not a good use of their resources ie. they have a cheaper option that can still meet all the child's needs. If it is the same in Scotland I would simply make it clear from now which school you want him to attend and that you want him to be in the unit. Obviously you need to visit it first to see the other children.

 

So you could phone the SALT and ask them to carry out this type of assessment, and follow up your conversation with a letter setting out your request for him to be assessed using standardised assessments.

 

If they refuse, you could pay for a private SALT to assess him. But before you did that I think it would be useful to contact the National Autistic Society in Scotland and ask their advice on how to proceed.

Edited January 24, 2013 by Sally44

[dekra]

I spoke to the SALT at his unit in person today (I made a mistake it was the special needs teacher I spoke to on the phone yesterday) and she said I should go visit it and see what I think. Her opinion is yes the integration between mainstream and unit would be good for Finn but the progress he has made recently may make him more advanced than most of the pupils in the unit who are in the main "very" autistic in their traits and that it may be detremental to his learning to be with a group of children with less skills than he has. He is betwixt and between. Assuming he ISNT on the spectrum as his dx's at the moment reflect then he certainly isn't NT either.

 

The SALT herself suggested retesting him and will be doing that shortly and I have to talk to the Edu Psy tomorrow or Monday and take it from there. I do like what Justine said about his current level of support being responsible for his improvement and to reduce that level of input by putting him in the wrong environment would stop/reduce/revert his progress.

[Sally44]

Then I would definately put in a letter to both the SALT and EP that you want them to carry out standardised assessments. These will help identify his strengths and weaknesses, and may help with any diagnosis, and definately identify where he needs help/support and what type of school is most suitable for him.