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?

I think this is a great approach and the reason you give is spot on. My son's father was very against it and quite vocal - he's definitely ND I now realise

Once you initiate the conversion they will suport you, they just don't/can't make the first suggestion. Write down all your concerns and arrange a meeting with the class teacher & SENCo. Tell them you suspect autism/neurodiversity and why, then ask them if they have also seen those things or anything else they are aware of. They will then tell you what you need to do next.

If your child is under 5, it will probably be your health visitor that refers to a pediatrician, who then passes on to assessment team if they think it's nessecery. If your child is over 5, either their school will refer directly to CAMHS, or will ask you to go through your GP (depends on area), who will then do the referral. If they ask you to go through gp, get them to write up their observations, so you can the both your list and theirs to to go appointment.

School or the gp may also suggest they be seen by speech and language or an educational psychologist, depending on what needs they present with.

I can understand why teachers/schools wouldn't want to suggest it to parents, in case the parents get angry, but for the sake of children who might go undiagnosed I would hope they would at least suggest assessment.

I'm not in the UK so rules might be different here but my son's nursery noticed he had struggles (which I had no idea about because they weren't so evident at home) and put him in occupational therapy to help straight away before even raising the issue with me.

I think schools are in a really difficult position. SENCos are often overstretched, and unfortunately they often prioritise a) the children who really aren't coping and b) the parents who shout the loudest. It's also very difficult to suggest a child might have ASD, as a school there's not really anything we can do towards diagnosis. Dyslexia etc is different because we can offer a screener in house, and we would ask permission to do that if we had concerns.

Also, a lot of parents do unfortunately rebuff you when you raise concerns. I teach a child who can't do a lot of things that would be expected of his age (teenager) e.g. catch a bus home from school, and also seems to show signs of face-blindness (e.g. not noticing when he has a cover teacher etc). We raised this with his mum, without suggesting any sort of diagnosis as we are not qualified, and she explicitly said she "doesn't want to label him". Unfortunately we can't take it any further, even though arguably it's a safety issue when he gets on the wrong (public) bus.

If a teacher/TA/SENCo mentions any concerns, then as a parent if you say something like, "What do you think might cause X?", then they are more likely to share their suspicions. Or, alternatively, ask to meet with the SENCo, and say you have concerns around X.

Unfortunately, I think far too many schools/school staff have been burned by parents who don't want to have the conversation, whereas if you bring it up, they're more likely to openly discuss what you've noticed.

Sen cos most certainly do not diagnose nor do teachers. Remember just because you are presenting as neuro diverse it might not be an issue. So it really has to be assessed by a trained qualified professional to support a need.
It's incredibly unfair to expect schools to be responsible.

Who told you this?

It depends on the specific circumstances and where you are with monitoring the child and if it is still at the early stages of questioning and what the need is.

I would expect the SENDco to have a meeting having identified a need and discuss support and addition to the SEND register and the reasons why.

But until you have all the information from the data and observations you might not have spoken to parents yet.

It's schools responsibility to identify if a child shows signs or symptoms of neurodiversity, to speak with parents and to offer a referral.

GPs don't have time to do all of the autism/adhd referrals.

Most Sencos don't have adequate training/understanding of different presentations especially in girls. They cannot diagnose but they can and should make camhs referrals.

Inappropriate referrals will be screened out through our questionnaires being sent out and every referral is triaged.

Some school staff say they are not allowed to speak to parents about neurodiversity. This is incorrect. It's just something they think.

Parents can also make referrals direct to camhs in most counties and can certainly call cpe to talk through making a referral and the referral process .

I have three children. We raised autism concerns regarding the eldest two and school immediately agreed with us. They gently made suggestions regarding the third.

Teachers do not have the knowledge or skills necessary to make a diagnosis. They can suggest a referral to other professionals.

Having been at meetings where a diagnosis of Autism is agreed, the diagnosis is made by a multi disciplinary team which includes doctors, educational psychologists, SEND support staff and teacher. The diagnosis is based on months of observations and support work including, at each reporting stage, involving the parents.

At the diagnosis meeting, ( the ones I have attended were held in the Child Development Clinic at the hospital) the child is discussed, using the wealth of evidence in the reports, discussion and views sought by all professionals involved and all with the parents present.

Don't wait for your school if you have concerns. My son is diagnosed autistic and the school still claim he doesn't appear to be. Its like they've never heard of masking

School cannot diagnose so cannot say they think a child has autism. They should tell the parents about any difficulties in school and make appropriate referrals.

It's possible your child is masking in school so the school really don't see what you do. My youngest is diagnosed ASD but hides it very well when in school, they only noticed a problem when EBSA kicked in and the attendance stats plummeted! Since then I've had a lot of conversations with the SENCO so they understand a lot more.

In the nicest sense, you maybe overreacting. 😉

Whilst teachers do not make a diagnosis, they are responsible for your child’s progress in learning and will be discussing this with you.
This is part of the class teacher and SENCo role in all schools.

Do they plan support for her? Is she keeping up? Does she require anything extra to support her?

All of that is the school’s responsibility under the SEND Code of Practice that we all have to adhere to.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-code-of-practice-0-to-25

Maybe she doesn't need anything extra and the good quality class teaching is working.
A formal diagnosis comes after the school has provided all of the support it can and the child is still not making progress or is still unable to access a full education. The diagnosis involves other skilled professionals.

If SENCOs don't mention it to parents then how do oblivious parents know their child may need assessment?! I've been waiting for the school to raise it with my niece who to me clearly has autism traits but I don't want to bring it up with DS and DBIL myself. Are you saying they won't say anything?

Can they not say they have observed XYZ autistic traits?

I am so disappointed to read this. We have been hanging on since he was about 12 months old hoping someone would notice the issues with our DGS. He starts school in two months and we were hoping against hope that it would be then that someone would act on his very poor motor skills, his speech delay, his situational mutism, stimming, special interests etc.

We have tried regularly to talk to his parents without success. They are in complete denial and actually think he is advanced for his age. He has not seen a GP since he was three weeks old, only seen a HV once, and concerns raised by nursery about his complete lack of social integration have been ignored, so he has slipped through the cracks.

If school can't open the conversation, who can?

As a Senco of many years, I frequently had to remind teachers and TAs that they are not clinicians and cannot diagnose conditions. Neither would I tell a parent that I thought their child had ASD / ADHD etc. What I would do would be to recommend some assessments by the correct professionals to determine what additional needs, if any, a child may have.

Yeah we're not allowed to say we think they have ASD, we can say we've noticed they have struggled in certain areas and we would like to put such and such in place to support them.

But unless the parents ask us we can't discuss it. Once the parent opens the door for the conversation it's a lot easier. When my son was suspected of having ASD this came from a health professional, only then did the nursery he was at discuss that they saw traits and thought the same one I had asked them for their opinion.

Anyway he is in fact on the spectrum.

What on earth. I honestly don't understand this. Of course you're not diagnosing autism but school staff are the best people to notice and identify traits and bring it up with parents I would have thought.

Unfortunately DS's school didn't recognise his autism despite the diagnosis on NHS headed paper. One teacher of his was surprised that he said that he's autistic and she had been the SENCO at the point of his diagnosis and we'd exchanged correspondence on the matter previously. On one class video about a music project, he was head down on the desk with hands clamped over his ears- apparently he loved it really. [glare] Totally beyond belief as that was the kind of pitch of noise he finds deeply overwhelming.

This blindness to his issues made dealing with multi-agency matters very difficult because school's line was always that all was hunkydory, and undermined the difficulties we have at home when he stops masking.

Fortunately his secondary school is far more clued up and isn't dancing a dicey path to a shutdown. They are much more proactive at preventing issues from escalating.

Having worked with young people in schools and extra-curricular, I appreciate that it's a difficult subject to approach with parents. A lot are quite ablist in their approach to their children's difficulties and don't like "labels". But often staff aren't very clued up at recognising and joining up patterns of traits either, especially if masking is occurring.

You can't assume that people will mention it even if they recognise patterns of traits.

I keep trying to explain.

Teachers have a responsibility to plan and deliver a good education for all children. Teachers need to make sure all children make progress. They, with leaders are monitoring this progress for all children. If progress slows or the child is not making progress teachers adapt the curriculum and progress is assessed again. It maybe interventions are put in place or behaviour support is sought. dependent on need. Again all checked to see if this has a positive impact on the child’s progress.
Specialists may be sought to help teachers plan the support for children. All to help the child.

If this doesn't work, we will be questioning why. Through all of the meetings with parents, we will be discussing the child’s progress and support. We will, be seeking the views of parents.

All of this is the teachers job.

What we don't do is make a diagnosis. We do not have the relevant knowledge but supply what we do know into the diagnosis decision making. The diagnosis is made by a team of experts over a period of time. Teachers feed into it but are not qualified to make a diagnosis.

Think of it just like an ill child, as a parent, we might know that a child is hot, we might see a rash or see that a child is thirsty or not eating, we might support the child with water, cream, or a cold flannel. We might ask a friend, what they think and try this. This might work -all good.
But it might not and we will ask for medical help. The medical staff will carry out more tests, ask for reports, discuss further with parents and make a diagnosis as we, as the parent, don't have the medical expertise diagnose what the illness is.

As I said above, and gave the link, the SEND Code of Practice sets out what the schools responsibility is in much more detail than I can here.

Maybe the confusion is around the number of parents who say ‘my child has ADHD or ASD’ when in fact this is not diagnosed,, just something a parent suspects or perhaps something showing developmentally. ( schema are easily confused with ASD traits, for instance )

Maybe it's just Ireland but here we as teachers (bare in mind I'm only a preschool teacher) are not allowed to voice that to parents,only tell them where child is struggling and suggest help such as AIM support in Ireland and hopefully the parents can figure it out themselves,imo it's crazy but that's the rules 🤦‍♀️

@Biscuitsaretheworkofthedevil

Your post is a bit unclear.

How did you find out they suspect your child is autistic, if they didn't tell you?

Do you think your child is autistic?

I've taught many children over the years who I have suspected have autism. At my school, we have been told to only mention our observations to the parents if their child is very behind in their learning or has meltdowns. Basically, those that mask and have average/above average intelligence will often be missed. If a parent approaches us and asks us what we think, we are allowed to say.

SENCOS often don’t teach the child or really have much to do with many of the children on a day to day basis. Speak to them, voice your concerns and ask them to observe your child. Quite often the SENCO doesn’t know many of the children at a school and if the child masks well, they are unlikely to be on their radar. It’s not the SENCOS job to find SEN children but to support those they are aware need it and they will be made aware by the teachers or parents voicing concerns.