Nephew with autism

[Bananacloud]

My nephew who is 6, is currently in a local public school. The school have stated on a number of occasions they’re unable to provide the care he needs.

The parents are reluctant in putting him in a special education school and are fighting the school on this matter.
Where would he be better off though? Will the environment in the public school be better for developing his social skills?

Thank you

You can't catch autism (though I'm afraid I did wonder about this a little when DS was 5/6 - his three best friends at primary were all autistic and I thought he was picking up some behavioural traits from them such as handflapping. Of course, DS was in fact autistic himself...)
But whether a kid with autism needs to be around other autistic kids or will be better off in a more mainstream environment depends on the kid and the set of autistic traits that kid has. Some genuinely don't like other people and need a lot of time alone, for example.

It depends what school.meets the needs of the child ,my son has severe autism and learning disabilities he goes to.a special.school,s we also have a couple of autism hubs in my LEA, i think If we he school are saying they cant meet his needs this parents probably need to get parent partnership / independent advisory service or whatever your nephew LEA call it.

It’s generally the other way around, often you have to fight to get a place in a special school!

Involved *

Well their question is, how will he benefit from being around other autistic children

they’re afraid he’ll pick up bad habits from the other autistic kids

If he was going to pick up behaviours from other kids, wouldn't he have picked them up from the NT children in his existing class..? I presume he hasn't, so it's more likely that your nephew is not interested in other kids at the moment and won't care what they do if it doesn't impact him. And to be frank, since he is currently lashing out at others in his current setting, he's already presenting [bad habits] less than ideal behaviours himself. You can bet that the school are under pressure from parents of children in his class who are being impacted by his behaviour, naturally they will not want their dc either being hit or having their learning disrupted. This isn't a criticism of your nephew, his behaviours are a result of his not coping rather than his personality. Banging his head on walls etc very much speaks of a child who is under considerable stress.

Ultimately your nephew's parents should be acting in their son's best interests, which is to get him into a school setting where he can feel calm and ready to learn. If that is in a specialist provision, then that's what they should be looking for. It is very hard, and certainly not what any parent dreams of for their child - you just have to get on with it though.

The school have stated on a number of occasions they’re unable to provide the care he needs
I'm not sure what else your nephew's parents expect the school to do - in what way are they fighting the school? Are they trying to get the school to get funding for extra support, or are they saying things should stay as they are?

Is this in the uk?

Can’t say I believe this because he’s never showed any of these behaviours at home
It is well documented that autistic children may display completely different behaviours in different situations. Sometimes they hold it together at school and explode at home. Sometimes the meltdowns happen at school ...

There are many reasons why a school specialising in asd could be beneficial.
For example having whole school systems in place for structure and routines. Having smaller classes. Having OT to support children with sensory processing difficulties,

But it is possible that a more inclusive mainstream school could provide much of this.

You say he has a special teacher? Is this person asd trained teacher or a 1:1 assistant?

Does the school get advice from specialist services like asd outreach and OT and SaLT?

I have a step d who goes to a special needs school therefore I would try my best to keep him mainstream.
Sd was supposed to have speech therapy and never has because of lack of funds.
Shes 18 and I have managed to teach her to read as all her school life we have been told she isnt capable.
Ive only been her sm for 7 approx years and I had to give it a shot. And strangely enough I took her book into school just last week and showed them her capabilitys.
A stunned silence
Please do try and keep him where he is.

I think that's the school.rather than special versus mainstream @KUGA yes special.schools arnt perfect and sometimes it's a one size fits all but as the parent of a child with disabilities ( at a special school) I hear the same complaint ,s from c parents of children with disabilities in msinstream.

I was talking to my friend (whose adult son is ASD) about schooling the other day. He went through mainstream rather disappointingly and she reminded me that, although he was supposed to have 1:1 support, his support assistant was often used elsewhere in the classroom as a TA, so he didn't really get the support he needed.

Could that be the case here too?

Thank you x2boys,and yes I think you are right about the one size fits all.
Sadly all 3 schools Sd has attended have been the same.
Basically a waste of time.
But at least sd has made friends.