School not telling parents their child has suspected autism.

[Biscuitsaretheworkofthedevil]

The SENCO of our primary school has some very apparently thought that my child has been on the autistic spectrum. I was surprised to find they don’t mention this to parents. Is it reasonable for them not to mention this to families?

Er, she only needs to mention it if she thinks he has autism and is recommending further investigation,

If she just happened to see him in class one day and thought "he might have autism" then no, not really....

It cannot be diagnosed by a teacher. I've often thought it but as a SENCO or a teacher I can only describe the challenges a child faces at school and what I am doing to support them. It's not my job to suggest possible diagnoses. If a parent said 'I'm worried he might be autistic, what do you think?' then I might agree that there are some traits consistent with autism but that they need to see a doctor for referral (or whatever the local procedure is).

My cousin is a TA and told me they aren’t allowed to, they have to wait for a parent to suggest it. They can talk about needing support but not outright tell parents. They also have quite a few parents who don’t want to acknowledge their children have difficulties.

Ds2 nursery teacher, took me to the side one afternoon and asked me some questions about ds2. Which lead to me signing some papers for him to get assessed and including getting his hearing checked.
His hearing was fine, I knew he needed help from spech therapy. The autism came as a surprise.

Maybe senco wasn't sure he wouldn't benefit from any assessment. Or maybe they wanted to see your child more before making an assumption?

It took nearly three years for ds2 to get diagnosed. Maybe she was observing your child more, before taking action.

Well obviously they can't tell a parent their child's autistic because they can't disgnose ,they can however tell a parent they have noticed certain traits/ behaviours etc that might warrant further assessment.

This tends to be the case, especially as the SENCo will in most cases not be qualified to make that diagnosis, so it can cause problems later if the child does not get diagnosed at assessment. They will tell parents the individual concerns/observations they have made, but it is up to parent weather they would like the reason behind the concerns to be looked into.

Personally I wish this wasn't the case, as I see lots of probably neurodiverse kids left to struggle because their parent are in denial. However I see why it's done, some parents can either become defensive or aggressive if they think staff are saying there's 'something wrong' with their child, or in some cases disengaged the child from education entirely.

It came to light in DD's autism assessment that her school have always thought she's autistic (they put it in their report for the assessor). Other than the agreement to refer her, they'd never mentioned it to us.

This is not true it was my sons school who first suggested he was autistic I had no idea

I think this might be area/ role specific. One if my friends is a primary school teacher and was saying at the weekend she was worried about a tough conversation where one of her students has signs of autism and she had to break the news to mum who had minimal English.

So I think in these cases the schools do suggest that an assesment may be useful

Different ND but the school told me they thought my child has "dyslexic tendancies". We knew anyway but she is too young for the full assessment. They have put interventions in place, and it is helping and I don't know what else they would put in place if we had an official diagnosis at the moment anyway. We have an appointment already booked for next summer holidays.

I feel that schools are definitely encouraged not to diagnose or even suggest it.

At our primary school the headteacher dropped multiple hints. They clearly thought it but wouldn't back it up. When we completed a referral for assessment it was declined! Because the school didn't provide enough information. I'm glad the headteacher dropped these multiple hints because as a single mum with one child it took me time to see it.

I was gaslit so terribly. I wanted someone to just say oh yes definitely seems to be autism here.
We had to pay in the end which isn't fair or right.

I do feel that teachers just don't know enough about all of this. Although the Headteacher saw it clearly, the SENCO just didn't back it up and tried to put us off assessing. It was so incredibly confusing and stressful for me. I don't think teachers should be discouraged but they don't want to pay for extra support let's be honest, plus many don't understand it so aren't always in a good position to know tbh.

Maybe this specific TA works at a different school.

Then poster should specify that it only applies to that school

How the fuck am I supposed to know? Going on one person telling me they aren’t supposed to tell parents. Am I supposed to magically know it only applies to their school? FML.

I have seen posters on here absolutely livid when teachers/sencos have suggested there might be traits of a particular SEN! Schools can’t win!

I used to think schools would share any concerns but no, I now think it's normal not to.

The problem with this is we tend to assume they are not seeing any signs of it. Talk to teachers yourself and ask them explicitly if you have any concerns - and even if they don't, bear in mind that they are often not experts in autism and they are almost never qualified to diagnose. Most will not stick their necks out to suggest a diagnosis, they are too busy trying to meet 30 kids' needs as best they can, with or without diagnosis. Plus some parents can get mortally offended by the suggestion.

Oh god, I’m about 98 percent certain my child has some sort of neurodivergence and me and her dad have been discussing for years whether we should try and access some sort of help for her. The reason we haven’t sought help is because we thought that the school would let us know if they had noticed anything that would indicate neurodiversity and they’ve never raised this. We have convinced ourselves that we are just overreacting or anxious because the school has never brought this up 😳 I’m shocked to find out that they don’t have to! This is wild. I have no idea how to access any sort of assessment services or whether our concerns would be taken seriously by a medical professional - I haven’t really been in SEN circles.

I think that's the exact reason they don't want to do it. In our case dad was in serious denial and reacted very badly at the suggestion - proving the point you made. I was the main carer desperately wanting clarification and support in assessing. I wanted to know and wanted back up to help the assessment. We couldn't get an assessment because of this reluctance.

If it's blindingly obvious to schools, they should absolutely say something. I feel that the funding implications and extra work on schools is a key reason they don't push it tbh. In this climate, schools don't get enough support so I get it.

They said their cousin wasn't allowed to say anything.

They did not say that applies every TA or school staff member at every school.

You are arguing against your own misinterpretation of what they said.

I no longer suggest this to parents unless they raise the fact that their child is struggling, or if his difficulties at school are sufficient to require adjustments or support.

If the pupil is coping in school with no obvious difficulties, and the parents seem oblivious, then I don't raise it. It's not worth it. Too many parents get angry and defensive.

And it's not like it was decades ago - much more awareness of autism, all human knowledge at our fingertips for research purposes. If parents suspect, they can google and find out more.

@Icannoteven I would start with class teacher or GP to signpost. If teacher, they should involve SENCo quite quickly

They really shouldn’t be saying think they have autism. They should be saying I think they have problems with - what ever teh particular issues are and would benifit by being refered to salt/lang and comm team/EP.

I work with children and families. I ask "has she ever been referred for an autism assessment" and "you've told me abc and school staff have told me xyz, are you aware that abc and xyz are traits of autism?" because I've come across so many families where someone dropped a hint once 5 years ago and no one ever followed it up. I think it is unfair to expect families to just figure it out, especially as there is a hereditary element, so traits are seen as "being just like x" rather than "being autistic just like x who was never diagnosed at school in the 80s. "