If you have a child with autism that can be violent..

[Colouroutsidethelines]

How do you feel when you find out they have attacked school staff? How do you respond?

I am a teaching assistant. I was playing in the garden with another staff member and four children who all have an autism or ADHD diagnosis.

The child I was playing with in the construction area is in year 4 and very articulate. We were conversing nicely, talking about his favourite cars. He then got up and walked off and before I stood up, he had gone behind me, picked up a large wooden log and cracked me hard over the head with it.

It caught me completely off guard and I did cry with the pain as I ran inside to seek first aid.

Curious to how you would respond if this was your child.

Well that's deeply inappropriate and I'm sorry that happened to you.

At that age my articulate child was violent when disregulated, but also struggled with impulse control and often lashed out unprovoked when calm. It sounds to me like they had a intrusive thought that they couldn't deal with and acted on it.

Whenever this happened with my child I was appalled, apologised profusely and my first thought was always to check in that the adult/child in question was ok and to see if we could do anything to help them.

With consistent boundaries, excellent support from the school and a lot of hard work from my child they have grown out of this behaviour all together; which is something I didn't ever envision happening when they were four. Now if they're disregulated they remove themselves from the situation and use taught methods to regulate and calm.

I agree that the waiting lists are a problem that need to be tackled. But the children do not need a diagnosis to have EHCPS. I really do not buy that it is the children that your colleagues feel sorry for, if they cannot be bothered to follow the process to get support in place and make the school a safer environment for everyone they really don't care all that much. And as a TA that has had the process explained to you, if you really care about these children you should be advocating for them at school and take some accountability rather than blaming the children and parents. By ignoring the problem and letting these children drown, you are letting the children down.

There were probably 1 or 2 undiagnosed autistic children in my class at primary school. They weren’t violent and they probably didn’t have EHCP either. There’s so many violent children with SEN nowadays. I used to teach a class (mainstream) where half the class either had EHCP or not diagnosed yet. There’s definitely been an increase in children with SEN and the violence has increased too.

The reasons for this have been discussed upthread. The OP has said that a group of four DC are deemed too disruptive to be in a regular class so are removed and left with two TAs, but they do not have EHCPs. One of which has now been violent to the TA. Clearly these children need an EHCP.

There likely has been an increase, a reason someone mentioned earlier for example was older parents - that’s a known factor that increases the likelihood.

There are more complex children in mainstream too. The children who we’re referring to as violent would probably have been moved placement 10 years ago before it reached this point. The threshold for “suitable for SENd” has moved dramatically.

It’s also worth remembering we’re still dealing with children who were locked in their houses for 2 years, so are less able to cope.

There’s lots of factors. But the fact is, mainstream schools are quite likely to have to cope with complex children for the foreseeable, and it’s becoming a key part of working within schools. I don’t see that changing any time soon.

not hostile at all, blunt.

And i'm definitely not burying my head in the sand considering both my teens are SEN, and i'm going in to the younger ones college today to read them the riot act over her legal rights, their obligations, and all that it involves to get support for a teen with SEN/Disabilities in the current environment.

As i said upthread, i agree that it's harder now, my son (despite having to complain to the LA about his primary school at one point) was relatively plain sailing to get his EHCP done 10 years ago.. but my daughter has been much, much harder, and its down to lack of staffing, lack of funding..etc.

what i was arguing was your conjecture that there weren't violent SEN kids around 10-20 years ago and teachers weren't having to deal with violence from them in the classroom.. i'm telling you there were, and they did... my son was one of many.

TBH, as someone who's worked as a NN & TA, and a parent with two kids with SEN.. i think the issue now for staff is lack of adequate trained SEN TA's and funding for more 1:1 supervision.

Once my son had that he settled really well, because his TA worked with him all day, spoke to me often, knew his habits, his triggers, his 'tells' that meltdown was coming and knew how to spot them, and how to distract/redirect.

TA's now are so few and far between, and those that do exist are not trained in SEN and having to keep eyes on the whole class.

The children aren't the issue here, support, supervision, and training deficits in the staff are.

When there has been an incident involving my son ( now an adult) I work with the adults involved to look at what happened and how it be prevented in future. Everyone who works with my son knows that occasionally people get hurt and it isn't something we usually talk about.

Agreed.

Our son managed in mainstream for one very difficult year, and dramatically improved there with a dedicated 1:1.

He’s been in specialist the last 3 years and had 1:1 there last year - another improvement, and is now 2:1 because of his size. His meltdowns and “violence” is far far less because he’s surrounded by people who know him, who he knows and trusts, and who can take steps to make sure he doesn’t reach that crisis point. There’s also no ill feeling if it ever does reach that point, because they know that’s a possibility or he wouldn’t have the support package he does.

To meet his needs you’d have to have a range of training that just isn’t available for mainstream TAs, and without it you’d be on an automatic back foot trying to manage behaviour like his.

I'm 57 and have a diagnosis of ADHD. Just because it wasn't heard of doesn't mean it wasn't there, it just didn't have a name or many of us went undiagnosed. My brother is 47 and was diagnosed with ADHD as a child so it certainly WAS there even though you hadn't heard of it. My son was diagnosed with severe ADHD 19 years ago.

Part of the reason you are seeing so many children in mainstream school with these issues is almost certainly down to the reduction in special school spaces. Now more and more children with SEND are expected to cope in mainstream classrooms and they just can't, particularly those children with autism who are struggling with the noise and bustle of a class of 30 pupils.

I am genuinely sorry that you've been hurt, that should never have happened but it's very possible that the child meant no malice from it and it was just an impulsive action in the moment. Its also entirely possible that the parent(s) have a level of autism which meant their reaction to the news was inappropriate. One of my (autistic) boys has a bucket load of empathy, the other can't even grasp the concept from an intellectual point of view. It's unlikely that the parent meant their reaction to be unsupportive but that they simply didn't know how to respond to the information.

DD1 started in the infants over 25 years ago. She was in an additionally resourced unit for children with speech and/or language units; but the children could also have ASD, ADHD, dyslexia or dyspraxia. The criteria specifically excluded children with challenging behaviour, who tended to go to EBD units instead. However, there were always several boys with challenging behaviour. One boy, who bullied her in the infants, was permanently excluded at 6, although he caused trouble all round, not just to her - he went through 4 primary schools.

In the Juniors, one boy regularly punched her, and another hit her with a stick - she still has a scar below one eye, from when he hit her with a stick there. We complained to both the infant and junior schools, who were useless; until eventually my education solicitor threatened judicial review for failing to keep her safe.

So, OP we knew the violence was there, even if you didn’t!

(I also was working for a disabled children’s charity at that time. I was expected to understand fully about ASD, ADHD, Elizabeth Newson and what PDA was inter alia)

Oh, I forgot to say, DD1 can be violent as an adult. I always ask what the antecedents were, because the cause is usually right there! Either she’s afraid, or often the care staff bombard her with language she can’t understand, because they don’t take on board the written advice on communication from the speech therapist.

I might tell her off, because it makes them feel better; although I know she won’t remember what I said 30 seconds later!

At no point have I blamed the parents or children? I’ve merely explained that the SLT tells us that there isn’t the funding or staffing available.

Parents can also apply for an EHCP but these ones have chosen not to.

“Im telling you”

Who do you think you are? You couldn’t be more condescending. Im speaking from MY experience and you are speaking from yours. Both can be right. You must be impossible to deal with.

All we do is SEN training. Every single Monday.

Ofcourse there isn't extra funding if support plans aren't in place. The school are reporting issues with these children, you have experienced violence and the school have decided to remove these children from the classroom. The school clearly need the support or the children wouldn't be missing classroom time. It is almost impssible for a parent to get an EHCP in place without the schools support because as far as the LA are concerned, the school haven't reported any concerns so their DC is doing great at school. I get that your SLT are refusing, I am explaining that this is a failure of the school and not the norm.

It's hard enough to get an EHCP with schools full support. There's no funding or staffing because SLT aren't supporting the parents to get EHCP's in place.

It's madness that they are complaining about lack of funding and staffing when something can be done about it.

Absolutely this. It’s wild that these children are - effectively - on a reduced timetable (unlawful for starters) with no day to day input from a qualified teacher, and yet neither the school nor the parents are doing anything about it. I’d be raising merry hell with the LA! The funding follows the EHCP, not vice versa.

Sounds like the SLT is the biggest problem here!

Oh it absolutely is but I don’t know what we as a staff can do about it.

Something feels really off about your posts and I can't quite explain it.

Not troll hunting but I would prefer not to have you around my kids.

Wow

Honestly, I hate to be ‘that’ poster but 10/15 years ago I had only ever heard of autism in the context of the Rainman. I can think of a few kids who were likely autistic at school, but nowhere near the numbers seen now. Diagnosis has gone up 800% I think I read? With all sorts of complex ‘profiles’ emerging, and new traits and behaviours being described as ‘autistic’ all the time, yet people are genuinely surprised that in this short space of time not everybody is an expert and schools can’t cope?

Some of the disdain for the education system here is just so unfair - how can a stretched service possibly expand to ‘meet the needs’ of so many children with such diverse, high risk, unpredictable behaviours in a way that suits all of them and somehow finds a way to engage them?

OP is a person, if a man on the street had picked up a log and hit her with it you would be rushing to sympathise, the effect on the victim doesn’t change due to the traits of the perpetrator. I’m seriously worried about the young adults we will have in 10 years as violent behaviour just seems so common now, to the extent people just shrug their shoulders and say ‘what do you expect, you work in education’. There won’t be anyone left to work in it if this carries on. What if OP had been concussed, or had her cheekbone broken, or blinded in one eye?

There need to be tough consequences for children with the intelligence/comprehension to understand violence is wrong. The law will not treat them like the education system, things will be brutal for them as adults. The public won’t know or tiptoe around their triggers and if he picks up a log and whacks a woman as a grown man, he will either go to prison or be on a hospital order (and the latter is actually worse than the former)

The vast majority of replies on here after posting about, let’s not forget, a violent attack that left me injured, have been nothing short of victim blaming tripe. It reminds me of the contempt that is shown towards us teaching assistants every day and confirms why I desperately need to leave the profession.

Despite giving my absolute all for 25 years, couldn’t physically and mentally do this for another year. By the sounds of it I deserved every bit of what I got.

Hope you’re happy

Quit, OP. Find a new job. The entitlement that you should willingly accept being a child’s punchbag is gobsmacking. You don’t need to live like this. Sending you my very best wishes.

I wish I could. I’m a single parent and need the wage until I find something else. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to go on long term sick leave and become another statistic.

Thank you for your kind words, truly x