Mainstream or special school for ASD child?

[whichdirection]

My son is 3 & a half and we are awaiting a formal ASD diagnosis - it has been suggested that he is at the what was formerly known as Asperger’s end of the spectrum (sorry I have no idea what any of the correct terms are, still learning, trying my best not to offend anyone) with probable ADHD.
To summarise he is very bright particularly around numbers and letters, very loving and affectionate, loves being around other people but has real social communication issues so although he is verbal and able to answer closed questions and make statements, he cannot maintain back and forth conversations. He struggles to follow instructions and is very impulsive. I am still trying desperately to toilet train him but seem to be getting absolutely nowhere with it. No issues as yet with noise/lights/sensory issues. He can have huge meltdowns when tired or when something triggers him.
He is due to start school next year. The EHCP request has already been submitted, obviously yet to have the assessment and have it all agreed and ironed out. My question is, is
anyone with ASD experience able to advise whether mainstream or specialist school provision is most suitable for a child who presents as my son does? SEN Advisor who visited him said he is very bright and would ideally go to mainstream but his reduced attention span/ability to sit still etc means she isn’t sure. He has a year to go until school but that will go fast and obviously not actually that long until I need to start making applications.
Any advice or pointers gratefully received.
I am in such a low place with all of this at the moment. Worrying how life will be for him and desperately don’t want to make the wrong decision for him.

Everyone says mainstream then Sen school if needed later on. The issue is if your child is struggling it isn't automatic that they will get a Sen school place. Or that it will be near by. I've watched one child struggle horrifically for 4 years and finally after much fighting , umpteen exclusions , being restrained he's got a Sen school place 30 miles from their house. He will have to do a 90min commute.

My son thrived in nursery, reception and year 1. The last couple of years have seen a decline in his behaviour/interest in school it's a battle to get the support he is legally entitled to.

If I could go back I would choose Sen school

Everyone says mainstream then Sen school if needed later on. The issue is if your child is struggling it isn't automatic that they will get a Sen school place

Exactly this. Your child needs to have refused to go to school or have serious issues to access a SEN place later on. And you have to battle for the EHCP whilst your child is struggling or out of education. Start as you mean to go on. I really really wish we’d done this.

It all seems so nice and supportive in little school. But then they start secondary and it’s like a bomb going off.

My son is academically able, but only in the right setting.

He started in MS, was a disaster. He was forced out of the classroom and isolated at all times. They didn't want to support him.

We got him moved to a MS with autistic provision. Which was fantastic, he left a week ago and we were all in tears. Same teacher for all 4 years who clearly adored him and a very small class. But the school itself was inclusive, the children and staff all cared about each other, it really is a wonderful school.

He's now going to a SEN highschool for autistic students. They do btec instead of GCSE, unless the students want to. It's very holistic, they teach life skills, they have sensory areas throughout the school. Small classes based on ability.

The change is a worry, as it always is and it's very far away, but the feeling I got when there was that he is going to thrive.

You will know pretty soon into mainstream if it's not right. Trust your gut.

He would benefit much more from specialist provision where they could help develop his language etc. However, now that he's older and his parents want him to go to specialist provision there is no space available.. We just do you assume being one of a class of children with additional needs would be better for his language development than MS with support?

It’s not for us to decide what educational setting your ds should attend - I’m assuming he’s in a nursery at the moment? However, one very important issue is the state of SEN provision in your area.
Im a Senco. Last year, we had 4 children in Nursery who only attended for about 1 hour a day. All had a diagnosis of ASD. All had EHCPs before the end of the school year. All EHCPs named specialist ASD provision rather than mainstream. All went to panel in June. Only 1 child has been allocated special school, the others agreed at panel that they needed special school, but no schools in the LA could accommodate them as they were full to bursting. Their needs are extremely severe. The LA have agreed to fund 2 TAs for each child from September to support them in school and also some time in the home.
Special provision is dire the length and breadth of the country.

It's easy to move from a special school to mainstream. It's extremely difficult to move from mainstream to a special school.

As for which will suit him...well that will depend on your local authority. I've taught in special schools for several decades. The LA that I worked in last used to have three types of special schools, ones for moderate leaning difficulties, ones for severe learning difficulties, and ones for children with physical and learning disabilities.

When inclusion became big (and money became short) they put all the children with moderate difficulties back into mainstream. So now all their special schools (for children without mobility issues) are only for those with severe and complex difficulties.

So yes, in that authority, special school might not be suitable for your child. But in the next door authority, which still has schools for moderate learning difficulties, a special school might be perfect for him.

I'm not the poster you quoted, but the level of expertise and the resources available to develop language (including availability of SALT) will be massively better in a specialist provision.

Most of my job as a class teacher in such a school was developing language and communication. It's so fundamental that it was part of every single subject lesson, and multiple resources such as PECS symbols and technology were used.

A TA in a mainstream school simply cannot offer anything like it.

Sadly children with a language and communication disorder don't just 'pick up' language from other children. It has to be specifically taught, practised and developed.

Hey, I would say mainstream for primary but most definitely specialist school for secondary. My daughter has completed her 1st year in a secondary for Girls with autism and she is flourishing.

@whichdirection suggests that her DS has a high academic profile (not 'high functioning'). Moderate learning difficulties schools will have a significant proportion of children who only do entry level qualifications. My DD1 has 'MLD', and still at the age of almost 18 can't read with any fluency (she can read sentences if she recognises all the words but her phonic awareness is poor and she relies on 'first-syllable recognition', which means she often gets the word wrong).

How can you tell a 3.5 year old is autistic?

Sorry. I should have said that the special schools for moderate difficulties in both LAs have/had ASD bases within them, that accommodated children of a higher academic level, but with speech and language and/or social difficulties that couldn't be managed in mainstream.

Is this a genuine question?

A child at special school is highly unlikely to have the level of 1:1 support one in ms would get with significant communication difficulties. Salt is specified by ehcp and work differentiated regardless of setting.’ Children with communication deficits usually find 1:1 support infinitely more helpful than group work.
In this instance an academically able student could be significantly disadvantaged by lack of access to for example enough GCSEs to attempt Alevels or or other higher qualifications.

Children with ASD can miss social developmental milestones, or develop in an asynchronous way that shows the challenges they have with their social development. Some children will have general learning difficulties (global developmental delay) alongside their ASD, but many will have a 'spiky profile' that may show typical development in some areas and big lags in development in others.

Nowadays, unless a child has severe sen you have little or no chance of getting SEN school provision. Kids who are in the middle ground have to go to mainstream school & suffer for it. What is actually needed is smaller schools with smaller classes where they can flourish instead of drowning in the masses in mainstream education.

A newish high school has just opened near me specifically for children with higher functioning ASD and it’s like being in a different planet. No stupid strict uniforms, small classes, differentiated syllabus, breakout areas with soundproofed booths, calm outdoor spaces. Mainstream curriculum with a variety of other options.

My son is likely to go there but there are at least three other kids in his class alone that would benefit but who don’t have an EHCP so it’s not even a possibility.

Depends on local options and your child's difficulties. My children find mainstream very noisy. Can't cope with assemblies, lunch halls etc. Even with full time 1:1 it's difficult despite being bright children. This makes mainstream a daily struggle.

If there is a specialist you think would work for your child I'd pursue that now. It's going to be easier to move back to mainstream later than the other way round. Start by viewing potential schools and then make your decision.

I think the best thing is for you to visit the schools that might be possible options.
It isn't a case of "mainstream vs special" as one mainstream can be very different from the next one down the road, and there are all sorts of different special schools.
Where I live, your ds would not fit in any of the special schools we have as the needs of the children that attend those schools are far more significant than the needs you describe your ds as having.
Now, in a perfect world, it would be lovely to think that there was "the right school" for all sorts of dc, but, sadly, providing the right support for children with SEN is expensive, and no Government will consider funding schools, or LAs to even the most basic level. What you need to do, is find the school that you think will be the best fit for now. From your description, it sounds like it may well be your local school, where his sibling is, but I would still go and look at the specialist resource base and see if you think that would be better.
Sadly, in my LA, he wouldn't be allocated a special school place even if you wanted one though, as there are so many more children needing one / families wanting one than there are places.

There is a special ASD school in my city that is for the academically able. They do GCSE and A level.

No, EHCP places are not given on catchment areas. My son's at a specialist unit within a mainstream school and it's the only one in this quarter of the county.

We've been through the mill others have described of him coping less and less well through primary, spiralling mental health difficulties, burnout and if we hadn't got extremely lucky to get this specialist secondary place he'd still be out of school. If I had my time over and he'd been diagnosed at 3.5 I would try for the specialist place. Children can and do move from specialist to mainstream - ideally they get the input early on to develop their social and communication skills, and that enables them to navigate mainstream demands later. The question you need to ask on visits is not could he cope here, but could he thrive? Do your visits, make your call.

Personally I think there is an element of luck in securing these very scarce specialist places too, so I would err on the side of trying for it now to get an extra roll of the dice. But ultimately it is your judgement call. We are all just winging it as best we can. We started out on this journey thinking someone would be along to advise us on what would be best for our child but no, that has remained stubbornly our call to make. And we have become more confident in making it over the years.

That’s interesting. How many GCSEs and Alevels where do the children go on leaving and how does it compare with your local schools?

My son has just finished primary and is heading to mainstream secondary in September. He was diagnosed ASD aged 9, despite me taking him to be seen at 18 months and his preschool suggesting I take him to be seen again aged 4yrs and having the LA EP in to assess him. He got his ADHD diagnosis aged 10 and the meds have helped. We applied for an EHCP at the start of the year but have been turned down. His school’s SENCO was not great, but his class teachers have been amazing - I think we really lucked out with them. It was his year 3 teacher who suggested we take him to see someone for the third time, and that was the time that led to the ASD diagnosis. Year 4 was a write off due to Covid, but his year 5 teacher was amazing and was the one to suggest the ADHD assessment. She was quite newly qualified and I think all her studies helped her identify what my son needed. She realised that asking him to stop talking did nothing but make her frustrated, but a gentle hand on his shoulder stopped him mid-flow! She did a fantastic handover to his year 6 teacher who I was very weary of initially due to her having taught him maths in year 5 and it going badly. But she took everything the year 5 teacher told her on board and has helped him so much.

He totally aced his SATS - 100% on all the maths papers (he was in the middle group in year 6 as couldn’t cope with the top group, which has been an interesting lesson for me as it tells me his well-being is more important than an academic setting and the results will then follow) and greater depth for the reading and SPAG. He sat them in a classroom with 2 other pupils and 3 staff and the school dog! He was allowed breaks and at one stage when he became dysregulated the school dog comforted him and he was able to go back to his desk and carry on with the exam.

So AuDHD children can do well in mainstream but I think it really depends on how good the school is at understanding and accommodating their needs. It was good luck in our case as it was our local primary, but ask around and find out if there are any parents who can recommend one. I’m terrified about how my son will get on at mainstream secondary, but also hopeful that the school he is going to are very hot on mental health and well-being (more so than grades) and that it will therefore suit him well.

Good luck!

mainstream has been hell for us and they just ended up sticking dd in the sen class most of the time anyway ,or on a table by herself
im currently looking for a special school
the positives would be
.smaller class size
.being around other children who have the same difficulties
. staff are more equipped and trained to deal with SEN children
.better facilities

i should've chose special school from the beginning

I worked with autistic children. I recognised the traits in my son from about 10 months. He was referred to pathway by our paediatrician at 2. He was diagnosed at 4.

Go main stream with high numbers of SEN. Post on your local Facebook page asking for school recommendations for a child with SEN. Also read the ofsted reports. Avoid schools with particularly low SEN, it’s likely parents have voted with their feet after their children have had poor experiences.