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

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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.

Ah @SleeplessInWherever the phase with DS when he was smearing nearly broke me.

DS would also be useless in a warehouse. He’d be trying to re-wire the forklift and jump off the racking from a great height.

Taxation is at the highest levels since the second world war. Government debt is over 100% of GDP.

There is no more money. If the government don't make cuts, we're going to have a debt crisis and, if we're lucky, an IMF bailout. If we need a bailout, the cuts will be far deeper than anything you're prepared to accept, but it won't matter. They'll happen anyway.

"Decent care for the disabled" is completely subjective. 99% of the world's disabled people don't receive the level of care provided by the British state. It doesn't mean that they're being abused, if they receive less than they're currently getting.

Yes that is a good point

Yeah because it’s so easy to get jobs these days!

The ignorance is rife. I’m a single parent with a mortgage and zero family help so need the school holidays. I am trying to find something outside of education. It’s extremely difficult.

I actually meant ask to be redeployed elsewhere in the school if it’s bothering you that much.

Why such disdain? Do you speak to people like this in real life, or is this just your keyboard persona?

I’m not really sure what you mean. If you don’t like a job, don’t do it or ask to be moved.

It’s not disdain, it’s fact?

You seem to be out of touch with reality and the real world.

You’re obviously in a far better financial situation than most to have this attitude

It not as simple as age meaning less impacted. Schools have become less and less suitable for autistic children. Children are under more pressure at primary now than 5/10/15 years ago.
When I was a child deferring a child was coming place now it's almost impossible.to have your child start later. Many autistic children aren't ready for school at 4. We tried to defer as we knew this but despite it being a legal option the LA refused.
We had a disaster of experience of primary and this has followed into high school. Child just wasn't able to cope at 4. And every year the pressure and expectations increased and they couldn't cope..
Im not sure if they would have managed even if we had been able to defer but the odds would have been better.
The system just isn't suitable for autistic children and it is getting less suitable every year.

Many aren't diagnosed for years but they struggle all that time without support and their needs increase

yes, like my DS who was one of the violent young boys we're talking about on this very thread. He is also high IQ, but he also has more co-morbids than my brother which impact him more, leaving him more 'disabled'. It was actually my sons dyspraxia that first flagged him at school as needing investigation, not his AuDHD. My DS didn't get violent until between 8-10 and it was isolated incidents during meltdown, outside of meltdown his was/is fine and quite a happy, chatty person.

My brother didn't flag much IN school, and you will find scores of autistic kids on here and in the world who are denied diagnoses because they're 'fine' in school, , but not at home, its known as the bottle of pop phenomenon. He did get violent with me, and my parents. He is where i learned very quickly to gauge a mans emotion before engaging with him, and to duck flying objects he'd launch at my head.

My brother was at primary in the 80s, and i can assure you, his teacher would rather staple him to the wall by his jumper (yes, that did actually happen) when he misbehaved, rather than refer him for any kind of assessment.

As i said, it was enough that when he went to college that they realised something wasn't right and finally referred him, but by mid 90s there was more of an awareness of autism and other SEN in boys as being more than just 'naughty'

Mencap estimates £536 million is spent on adults with LD in ATUs. They will mostly be funded by NHS CHC funding. The government is supposed to reducing the reliance on ATUs, after Winterbourne View, but they are way behind on their own strategy, because LAs should be creating more places in the community - but guess what? They are not doing it fast enough. It is a choice, they are making!

The Alzheimer’s Society estimates £42 billion is spent on dementia, although 63% of those costs are borne by self funders and adults.

So the costs of dementia far outweigh the costs of learning disabled people with mental illness/challenging behaviour?

In my LA, they had 6 adults in ATUs in 2016 - projected to be zero in a few years from them. 85% of people in receipt of adult social services have dementia.

My LA’s published strategy is to move people from out of county residential care homes to supported living - but that is only juggling the costs around. The LA bears the hotel costs of care homes, whereas central government bears the hotel costs of supported living!

As for OP, if two adults are looking after 4 primary aged children, who cannot cope in mainstream classrooms, they have access to those children’s records and know they have SEMH. IMO, the school should have put those children forward for assessment for EHC plans. Many parents believe what schools tell them, and do not understand the SEN system. How would parents know to request an assessment for their child, unless they have been lucky enough to get external advice?

There is a world of difference from being attacked in public by a stranger, who is much bigger and is not your responsibility.

Have 3 children , all grown upon and left home. Its a great question you ask.
I would feel terrible if my child did that to a member of staff. Terrible. Apologies would definitely take place. Autism or not , consequences, appropriate ones, would occur

“they have access to those children’s records and know they have SEMH… there is a world of difference from being attacked in public by a stranger, who is much bigger and is not your responsibility.”

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

My point was that there is no empathy or compassion shown to those people with severe mental illnesses who then commit violent crimes, it’s lock them up and throw away the key.

Violent children/ adults with LD or ND are excluded from blame.

Illness is illness and both should have the same understanding shown.

Either way, a log full force on your head from behind with no provocation is a serious incident no matter who the perpetrator was.

The circumstances are different but the consequences won’t be when they are 18.

Exactly - you can’t seperate one from the other.

The bar for incapacity is very very high. If he goes clobbering somebody with a log for no reason as an adult, he will be arrested and sentenced as anyone else would be. I feel it’s unfair they’re lead for believe for 18 years that there are few consequences and nothing unpleasant.

I dont think thats quite true. Violent adults with ld/autism are only excluded from blame if they lack capacity and they would still have hospital orders in that scenario. The same as severe mental illness. It would be assessed case by case.

Children are different as they are developing, they all are given the benefit of the doubt under 10.

I agree either it was a serious incident and when your head hurts thats what matters to you.

That’s currently a fictional reality.

By 18 he might well be better regulated, medicated, in residential or education setting that can keep him and everyone around him safe, he might be more emotionally developed, more cognitively aware.

All of those things are as likely as him still hitting people with logs.

By 18 he might well be better regulated, medicated, in residential or education setting that can keep him and everyone around him safe, he might be more emotionally developed, more cognitively aware.

Absolutely this. And if we want to minimise the future risk of people getting brained with logs, it’s vital to support autistic children with and without LD’s in an environment that is conducive to learning and social/emotional development.

I don’t think they are led to believe that. Certainly my DS’ school - where all pupils are autistic and/or ADHD - it’s the manner and timing of the bollocking that differs from NT kids.

There is tremendous variation between even autistic children, but DS struggles to connect the incident with the punishment so it has to be immediate, meaning that if he acts out at school, they deal with it (and there are no further consequences at home). The converse also applies. The consequences imposed also recognize that the DC may have very poor impulse control relative to a NT child, and will typically have emotional maturity of a child 2/3 of their age. They are not admonished for behaviour that occurs during meltdown until after they are properly regulated again.

There is no SEN child in the land who is encouraged to do whatever they like, and bugger everyone else. That is the polar opposite of what SEN schools (and presumably, units) set out to achieve. There is SO much curriculum time devoted to positive relationships and communication skills that I often wish they’d crack on with a maths test or something. 🤷‍♀️

I mean it’s disheartening to hear that even after ever-more SEN units, 121s, special schools, ‘autism awareness’, spiralling SEN costs, hall passes and reasonable adjustments, you don’t feel enough support is given. What will be enough?

Not putting children in disused libraries with unqualified teachers, and actually applying for their EHCP’s, perhaps?

OP’s situation is representative of issues across the whole country. Children put in environments that don’t work for anyone involved, putting them and staff in shitty positions that lead to things like this.

The EHCPs aren’t even enforced properly because the sheer volume of demand and complexity of the requirements means they’re all but impossible.

No they’re not?

There are people on this thread who have children with EHCPs, who are currently having their needs met.

It’s a long road getting there for most, but it can happen.