Help /advice 10 year old autistic traits

[Maisiemoo13]

Hi everyone , I have just joined after seeing mums net threads appearing when googling some of the many questions I have and seen the help other mums have received and am hoping for some advice

My son is now 10 and has had difficulties since about the age of 3 , he is very clever but has issues with change, obsessively sticks to rigid routines he has imposed on himself, will become extremely stressed in social situations and frequently lashes out at other children if things don't go his way or they get into his personal space or use something belonging to him, he's very sensitive to sound and taste , he comes across as being cheeky corrects people and questions everything takes things literally. These are just some examples the list goes on.

He was always gotten into trouble at school because of these issues and finds the unstructured time at playtimes and dinner times extremely difficult.

When he was 8 the educational psychologist finally spoke to me and assessed my son and said there were autistic traits and she would put some measures in place and review him in 6months . She never returned and every time I was called in I would ask the school to find out when he was being reviewed to no avail, until last year when a new educational psychologist took the position and picked up his file , by this point things were really difficult, I have to drop my son of late and in the main entrance , take him home every lunch time and collect him early from school to avoid him having a meltdown in the playground , this new educational psychologist has spoken to his teacher and asked her to be very specific when talking to my son and treat him a bit different from the other kids but this does not happen I have to collect him quite often as they will phone and say he has gotten emotional and an outburst an would be best if I take him home , he tells me she doesn't listen to him and she seems to have no tolerance for him, the problem is the educational psychologist has now left on maternity leave and no cover has been arranged yet, when I speak to the head teacher at the school she has a very good relationship with my son and has adapted her own methods in dealing with him but tries to be very diplomatic about his teacher even going as far as to say she hasn't been feeling very well "you know what it's like when you are unwell" my reply was "all year" ?? I feel I am at a loss , I cannot work because I have to be at there beck and call and be there every lunch time I am being supportive to them collecting him whenever they need me to but his teacher won't adapt her methods ... I know I have no official diagnosis of anything which may be why ( the head teacher is also compiling a report for referral but this seems to take a very long time ) at the moment he is missing out on a lot of work.

I would be grateful for any advice or if anyone else has similar problems let me know

Thank you and I hope I have put this in the right category this time round

[Handywoman]

Welcome Maisiemoo wow there is a lot going on, is the HT your school's SENCO? Your school's SENCO needs to be on top of this and get a referral to a Developmental Paed for assessment. I would ask the HT when the referral is going off, if they are not very convincing then I would make an appt with GP who can also make the referral (your son does not need to accompany you to GP at first). Do emphasise to The GP that Ed Psych and school support a referral. Sounds like the school have not been 'on the ball' with your ds's needs so I would be wary of any other fobbing off and request a formal meeting to see how his needs can be better met in terms of his need for structure/routine/support at play times, somewhere for 'time out' in addition to sundry other brilliant ideas that will be along soon. An Individual Education Plan (IEP) is a good way of setting up targets and monitoring progress. In the meantime keep a diary of your sons behaviours and triggers in anticipation of an appointment with a Paediatrician. Stick around this place is a mine of great advice and help.

[willyoulistentome]

Hi maisie. First of all you have my sympathy. It all sounds very hard. My 9yo son sounds similar to yours, though all our issues are at home. He manages to keep a lid on it at school. I spoke to school who advised me to contact my gp for a referral. Luckily I have BUPA cover from my job so we were seen by a child psychologist very quickly. He was disgnosed with Aspergers syndrome very quickly. Now on the school SEN register.
I wtote a huge long essay detailing all my worries for the gp, as I knew I would howl and forget most if what I wanted to say.. Have you spoken to your gp ? Your school sounds a bit hopeless.

[Maisiemoo13]

Hi thank you for your replies handy woman I am not sure what senco is? My point of contact is always the head teacher at his school, I forgot to add in my post that I visited the gp last Friday and discussed my concerns and she said she would send away a referral letter that day but they would still need the school report before I would get an appointment , been waiting for this to be completed since before Christmas, an IEP sound like a good suggestion will definitely suggest this to the school just feel we hit a brick wall when it comes to his class teacher

Willlyoulistentome thank you , it is very difficult , it must have been harder for you to explain these behaviours if he displays them mostly at home , my son is the way he is where ever he goes only worse in certain situations which makes it a bit easier in some ways. In fact I would say he was easier to manage at home because as he as gotten older i can predict his behaviours and prevent some of it even if it is exhausting , I genuinely feel that his class teacher is in the position to do the same some of the time she choses not to , he interrupted her once and because he was excited about a project they were going to be starting because he had done something similar before and her response to him was " I'm not interested in what you have done before stop talking" I feel so angry about these sort of examples o her attitude towards him when she has been asked to make certain allowances or explain to him that she will listen to him after she's finished explaining the details to the class , so frustrating

[willyoulistentome]

Maisie sorry to say your school and especislly the teacher sounds clueless. I am really fortunate that our HT id also the Special Educational Needs CO ordinator (senco) and she is very clued up and helpful. Her son had similar issues so she fully gets it. I think you are going to have to fight for help. Try not to get fobbed off again. I think Handy was right. You need a meeting with the ht and teacher. ASD children most definitely need their teachers help and understanding and not just to be told to shut up.

[OneInEight]

Hello Maisie, your son sounds very similar to mine only I have two of them! To try and get the diagnosis we have gone through the GP after a school referral failed so this should be your first action. It is a long process - we have not got a formal diagnosis yet despite trying to get in the system eighteen months ago but are at least progressing in the right direction. The other thing you can try and do is apply for a statement - our LA has just agreed to assess our two despite the lack of diagnosis although we did have reports to say autistic traits were present. You can do this as parents without the school but obviously if you can get the school on side it will be easier. We included everything we could think of to document the behaviour such as home-school behaviour book, exclusion letters, school behaviour log and also documented every instance where they had been withdrawn from lessons or refused to participate. Even if it is not successful now it forces the school to get their paperwork in place. We have gone through multiple fixed-term exclusions for both sons before ds1 being permanently excluded. ds2 is just about hanging on by dint of having an extremely supportive teacher and interventions such as you describe for your son.

[Maisiemoo13]

Thank you, just hearing that we are not alone really makes a big difference I will just have to keep fighting for him ... I was lucky in that way he has committed an excludedable offence in the past his head teacher would not exclude him because she is aware of his difficulties and doesn't want that to be on record , that's not to say it might be so severe one day that she has no choice in the matter , I think I am going to log his behaviour what sets him off etc.... And hand in a copy to be given to his teacher if she does t take it onboard I should probably look into the complaints procedure .

Do any of you know if they have a duty to follow the advice of the educational psychologist ?? As she definitely hasn't and a plan with regards to my son was arranged between then before Christmas

[Maisiemoo13]

Poltergooselaidanegg thanks for your input we are in Scotland does the sen code of practice still apply to us?

[Maisiemoo13]

Ahh really I maybe should have also put that in the start sorry! I think there is still some good advice for me to follow will start from there and see how I get on, the schools are now off here for Easter Holidays givin me some time to get organised

[mrsbaffled]

Hello!
We are in the middle of the assessment process for DS (nearly 9).

I went to school with a list of my concerns. They observed him for a while then called me in to say they shared my concerns. They told me to go to the GP to ask for a referral. I gave the GP the same list and he sent that off to the community paeds who called us in for an appt. I handed over a longer document with more examples of unusual behaviour and some video evidence when we saw her. We are now awaiting an observation in school.

Good luck with everything!

[Handywoman]

MrsB we both seem at similar points in 'the system', i.e. quite a way along, but with a long way to go still!

[MareeyaDolores]

One thing is exactly the same in Scotland . The bit about going to the GP to say he needs referral to paediatrics or child mental health, so they can consider assessing for autistic spectrum disorder. Schools don't diagnose. They can only say traits. Even with an educational psychologist on board.

They observe, they comment, they suspect, they adapt teaching methods, they manage behaviour. But they're not doctors, so they can't say officially if he has a particular medical condition or not. Officially, the diagnosis is made by a multi-disciplinary health team, usually a paediatrician or child psychiatrist with input from speech therapy, psychology etc. A school report can be very handy as part of that process, but it doesn't replace it.

Schools often have some guaranteed hours of access to NHS therapists (speech and language therapy, occupational therapy etc) so it's worth asking the HT for those referrals, as well as the GP. The only time an educational psychologist can change the diagnosis process above is if they have additional specialist training in the autism diagnosis tests (these have weird names like ADOS, DISCO, ADI-R), this is pretty much unheard of unless they're also double-qualified as a clinical (ie NHS-medical-type) psychologist.

[mrsbaffled]

handy we were told we should get some answers by September.....I do hope so!
it doesn't help that his younger brother is also being assessed for Tourettes. We have our neurology appt for him on Tuesday....help!

[Handywoman]

mrsb our assessment is probably going to be in January 2014.

Helpful! Not.

Good luck for Tues.

[mrsbaffled]

thanks x

:( re January.

DS1 did a whole load of assessments last year already which ended up in dx of SpLDs, but we are back again! I guess the fact we had those asssessments makes this part a bit quicker? Different county too, I expect.

[Maisiemoo13]

Hi Mareeya , thank you ... I have been to the gp and she was very understanding so the ball is rolling even if the school are taking there time they will soon recieve a request for a report for my son and hopefully that will speed them up ... The thing that is driving me crazy is sending him into a teacher that aggravates and in my opinion provokes him , you would think that knowing all this is going on in the background she would be a little more understanding towards him .

Thank you everyone who was commented it helps to know that I'm not alone! And also what a difference just writing about it :)