ASD and school anxiety/ refusal in 7 yr old

[Wondergirl100]

Daughter is 7 , one of the younger ones in year 3 - summer born. Cries every morning this term going in, heart is pounding clinging to me - this morning got even worse, kicking screaming refusing to leave the house.

It is a kind and caring school, they are helping us with paediatric referral for ASD she is currently due to have her first appointment re. that in several weeks time.

Does anyone have advice ?? Every morning my own heart is pounding with anxiety. The teacher says she is fine in the lesson.

If she is a girl and autistic it is likely that a) she is struggling with the transition between leaving you/entering school b) she is experiencing some sort of sensory difficulty when it's time to go in (probably noise/people bustling about in her space) and c) she is masking throughout the day if she appears 'fine' in school.

Mum of a 5 year old daughter with ASD here.

My child has an EHCP which you can apply for as a parent pre diagnosis. These provided more than usual funding for children with additional needs supported in school.

What I would recommend if you can is:

• if you can afford it get her assessed privately because waiting lists for assessments are currently 2 years + (here, anyway). Costs vary, can be as much as £2000
• Have a meeting with the school SENCO, have her placed on the SEN register (she doesn't need a diagnosis for this) and this will give the school a little more budget to cater for her needs. The school need to come up with a plan to help her as best they can by making adjustments for her
• Get started on an EHCP application. You do not need school to do this for you thought it's helpful to have them on board to give evidence. This process will involve your child being seen by an educational psychologist in school.

Year 3 was the toughest transition for my son, going from the relaxed nature of KS1 up to the more formal KS2 was a massive challenge. We had refusal, we had escape attempts, we had meltdowns.

Some things that worked for us.

• going in via the office rather than the playground with others.

• being met by a TA on arrival (he didn’t have full 1-1 at this point but did by year 4)

• having a quiet space he could go to on arrival to adjust. He had lots of sensory items in there to help and he wasn’t pressured to rush to class.

• no expectations of time to arrive, as long as he got there it didn’t matter if he was 15 minutes early or two hours late.

• leaving class early at the end of the day to avoid crowds.

• visual timetables, breaking work down into smaller manageable tasks.

I am sure there is more but I can’t remember of the top of my head.

He has just started year 7 now and loves school. He goes in 25 minutes early out of choice still to breakfast club to allow him to avoid crowds and adjust ready for the day ahead

School anxiety is real, and I totally understand your feelings of failure, because my son has asd and I remember the looks from other parents well!

I just came on to agree with previous posters. His current mainstream secondary school have just said they cannot meet needs and the LA have agreed to a special school for him ( he has masked all the way up to year 9 and this term has flatly refused to go into school any more ).

Following with interest as my son has been repeatedly saying he doesn't want to go to school and has been crying at drop off. I suspect ASD/PDA. Of course the teachers says he's fine for the rest of the day but if it is ASD/PDA then he will have been masking.

It's shit