Advice about school behaviour

[jonnytekno]

I am hoping to get some advice on appropriate course of action for a situation with my son. I have been struggling to find where to go.

The brief background: my son is 5. When he was around 2.5 he was assessed for autism because of concerns raised by his nursery. The story between then and now has been a roller-coaster of confusion which I won't cover here. Where we are now is that, whilst he now displays virtually no obvious signs of autism and is highly unlikely to ever be seen as such in the eyes of the NHS (he has been discharged from SALT and has more or less been discharged from the child behaviour center), he is individual and has a unique personality which is now causing him some problems at school.

He has no issues in any other part of his life other than at school and is happy. The issues at school seem to revolve around: a) following instructions/doing what he's told first time, b) impulse-control, in the sense that he needs to ask questions and struggles not blurt them out, and c) if he is particularly enjoying something, he struggles to abandon it in the middle of and wants to see it through.

His reaction to these things is not aggressive (and there seems to be some conflict between the school staff as to how serious it actually is), but nevertheless it does cause disruption. The interesting thing is that, having spoken to his teacher several times (who is old and very old-fashioned in her ways), it is clear she just finds him very annoying and probably picks on him a bit as a result. Knowing him, I can well see how this situation would be a downward spiral which would make him worse, making her more annoyed, and so on.

So, on the one hand: I accept that he has background and needs some help with the way he thinks and fitting into the structure at school, but on the other: I don't trust that his teacher is using the right techniques/strategies to help him, and needs as much help if not more.

What I think is the right thing in my head is that we find a private specialist (I have the perception that if we tried to go back through the NHS it would take forever and probably not result in anything useful, although maybe I'm wrong?) - who would actually go to school and work with him, but also work with his teacher/the school to make sure they understand how to help him. What I don't know is whether this is possible and, if it is, how to go about it.

I believe this is fairly urgent. My fear is that the situation is damaging his self-perception and confidence. At the moment he has this behaviour chart which they use for naughty kids, which I think is not helpful and he often gets upset about his inability to get all green on this chart, despite trying his best and really wanting to. He really isn't naughty and I don't want him viewing himself as naughty.

Hopeful that you could at least give me some clues or point me in the right direction,

Many thanks in advance

[Lara53]

Sounds more like ADHD to me

[AladdinMum]

Was he ever assessed by a developmental paediatrician? as SALT tends to deal only with language delays and not development issues. The struggles you list are commonly associated with ASD specially the last one which would be classified as cognitive rigidness.

[TigerQuoll]

Have a look into inattentive ADD

[user4564376534875487]

My dd (same age) shows at least two of the behaviours that you describe. I keep thinking it is time to have her assessed but she doesn't tick all the boxes and it is confusing as to whether it is an age related thing or something more. She also has friendship issues. Watching this thread with interest.