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Marcella

Mainstream v Special - Autism?

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Hello I am Marcella and I am new to the forum.

 

My daughter is currently in Year 3 at a mainstream school. She was diagnosed 6 months ago but has has issues since Nursery.

 

She generally won't speak to the staff and hates going. As she is getting older, getting her there is becoming more and more difficult as she refuses to walk. Her friends now comment on how she dosen't speak and I am getting worried that she may get bullied.

I am considering sending her to a Special school, does anyone have experience of both types of education and how it helped/didn't help your child?

 

Thank you for any replies. :)

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Hi Marcella.

 

I knew my son had Asperger Syndrome at primary school but he was not diagnosed until he attended a secondary mainstream school. He school refused for 2 years and now has a place at a specialist ASD school and their is a wide difference in what they can offer.

 

Early intervention I feel is essential to support children.

 

Has your daughter an Individual Educational Plan at the school? What interventions are they actually putting in to support her? Has she been seen by a speech and language therapist or educational psychologist? To get specialist placement in our county you need a statement of educational needs.(this is changing to an educational plan) which you or school need to request assessment for from LA.

 

Seek advice from you local parent partnership.

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I think most people on this site will have experience of boys with ASD - I am not sure of girls present the same way.

 

It sounds as if your daughter will need to move to a special school at some point - children that struggle in Mainstream as early as this are highly unlikely to manage in mainstream up to GCSE. I have never heard of anyone who sent their child to an Autism school and regretted it - most say it transforms the child.

 

So the issue may well be not whether to send her to an Autism school but when (and to which school). In general many of the special schools at primary level are geared to more severe cases - with the more AS focussed schools not beginning to take children until Yr 4 or 5.

 

But it is difficult to talk in the abstract - the best approach is to look around at any possible schools in your neighbourhood and see if any look like appropriate places for her. After visiting a couple you should soon get a feel for what the offer and get a better idea of whether you think they can provide the right environment

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Hello again.

 

Thank you for your replies. She has a Statement and is on School Action Plus, I am unsure what her current school is providing other than she has her own space and some one to one teaching. She is still expected to partake in all school activites.

 

The schools I am looking at are general Special Needs ones, as far as I am aware there are no Autism Schools in my area. I have spoken with the parent partnership and to be honest they wasn't very helpful at all.

 

I am running out of ideas as since her diagnoses everything seems to have stopped! At least before there was meetings and Dr appointments. :(

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Hi

 

I have a son in year 3 also at mainstream and he was diagnosed age 4.5 but has coped well with mainstream until now. The expectations are greater from year 3 so I think that's why mainstream is not working.

 

His 10 year old brother was diagnosed age 6 and was in year 2 at the time. He had been playing up for two years before someone suggested ASD. He has been attending an ASD unit attached to mainstream for 3 years now and does very well. I am hoping to send my other son to the same school. I am fortunate in that there is a secondary school with the same set up not far from the primary and most of the kids move up together so he will not feel unfamiliar with things.

 

I had to fight to get him into the school and he was out of school for six months. It was worth it and the LA provide his transport. You need to look around outside of your locality as there may be something better and the LA have to provide transport to the nearest suitable school. However you will need to provide evidence as to why the school you chose is more appropriate. Saying "she may be bullied" unfortunately won't be reason enough.

 

First and foremost you need to speak to the school senco and express your concerns. By having them on your side things are more likely to go smoothly for you. If she is doing well academically at a mainstream my suggestion would be to try for a specialist unit within a mainstream. However if she is borderline and below average a special school would be better for her. You need to get a list and look around there is a lot of difference between each setting.

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I would be very cautious about a General Special Needs School - particularly at primary level. An Autistic pupil has very specific needs and requires specialist Autism teaching.

 

You may be able to transfer to a mainstream school with an AS support unit, or other special provision, but even then the sort of pupils in the unit are likely to be much more severe than your daughter.

 

When we were in a similar position (in Yr 4), with no appropriate ASD specific teaching close enough - we chose to go down the route of getting the provision he needed provided in mainstream. This was hard work and took some time (plus the cost of experts). We got independent reports from SALT, OT and Psychologist to recommend what support he needed in his current school - then went to the tribunal and got almost everything. (almost 2:1 support, specialist SALT, Sensory Integration, OT, CBT...).

 

To be honest this was not a great success but provided just about enough support for him to continue in mainstream for long enough (or until he was old enough) to choose a more appropriate long term setting - he is now in Yr 6 and is about to start at a residential AS specific school.

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If your daughter has a Statement you should be absolutely clear in what that is providing. The whole point of a Statement is that it details what provision is being provided for the child that is over and above what the school typically provides.

 

Part 2 should identify all her needs, and part 3 should quantify and specify the provision to meet each and every need.

 

My son was mainstream primary, which did not work well. He moved school to one that had additional expertise of children with an ASD and who had a high proportion of children with an ASD in that school. He still did not cope. He refused school for the whole of primary year 5. We had our second educational tribunal and he moved to an ASD specific independent school for the start of year 6. He will remain there until he is 19.

 

To help you make the decision you need to know what her cognitive ability is [must be assessed using standardised assessments and by an educational psychologist]. Is she at that level academically? If not why? If she is below her peers in certain areas or all areas that needs to be investigated if her cognitive ability is around average. If she has general learning disabilities the Local Authority "may" have a suitable school for the lower than average cognitive ability, but not necessarily a school specific for those on the autistic spectrum - so it would not be suitable.

 

I suspect your Statement is badly worded and therefore not legally binding and probably does not contain everything that she needs.

 

For example, she must have difficulties with expressive/receptive speech and social communication and interaction. Has her speech and language and social skills been assessed by a speech therapist and using Standardised Assessments such as ACE or CELF4? Provision by a SALT in my son's statement is such:

 

"xxxxx has a severe/profound speech disorder with specific areas of difficulties in word meaning, expressive speech, narrative, formulating sentences. This has inpacted significantly on his ability in literacy and he is additionally diagnosed with dyslexia and problems with poor working and short term memory. xxxxx will receive xx hours per term of direct 1:1 therapy from a speech therapist who will devise and deliver and SALT programme on a weekly basis. xxxx will also have group therapy delivered by a SALT to improve his social skills.

 

xxxxx will receive 6 hours a week of specialist teaching, 3 for literacy and 3 for numeracy. This will be devised by a suitably qualified specialist teacher qualified to level 4 to teach and assess. These sessions will be delivered 1:1 on a weekly basis."

 

From the above you will see that I know exactly who is doing what, when and how often. Is your Statement so specific? If it contains words like "access to" "significantly more" "extra help" "as required" "when necessary" "regular"- those are phrases that are not specific and cannot be enforced. For example what does "regular" speech therapy mean? Once a week, once a month, every day etc. And for how long and who is delivering it?

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I have a daughter with ASD diagnosed when she was in year 1. She was well supported in her infant school and happy with slow academic progress so we eventually after a fight get a statement for her. She had 1:1 support on her statement but it was lacking other things such as speech therapy so we appealed. Meanwhile she moved up to the linked Junior school and despite her statement the school didn't take her issues seriously. In year 3 the level of work jumped up a notch and her self esteem fell through the floor. She changed from the happy to go to school kid to pleading with me not to send her. Meanwhile once in school she rarely fell apart in front of them so they thought I was making her stress up. The timing did us a big favour and we were able to show a deterioration in her academic performance based on the move but with the support of the current useless statement. Long story cut short we looked at other schools. Mainstream enquiries were met with very negative feelings from staff so we looked to specialist placements. One sounded and looked good on paper but was clearly not right when we went to visit. The other that we saw however felt very different and welcoming, supportive and right. We went to tribunal having changed our appeal to include her placement as well (based on updated private reports) and we were awarded the specialist school we wanted with SALT and OT support for her. She moved last May and the difference was almost instant. Given change is hard for her too clearly this placement was working from early on and now she goes to school happy virtually every day, enjoys her work, does her best to talk to us about her day rather than shutting down when she gets in.

 

However...I truly believe that if we had not found this particular school for her, none of the others we looked into would have been right for her as an individual. Do go and see the schools and get a feel for them knowing your own child and their needs as you know better than anyone.

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