Hope and the future for SEN child

[Airtentmamma23]

My 8 year old is autistic. Lovely, polite boy. He struggles with everything educational. He can count, but loses focus and struggles even to 20. He struggles reading, writing etc.

But.... he's 8. In mainstream and popular/ well-liked. He's pretty good-looking too in my parental judgement (ha!) and autism isn't that obvious if you don't know him.

Soooo what I want is stories of older children that are happy with their lives. They don't have to have achieved academically, but stories of those who have suddenly "got it" and have achieved academically are welcome.

Yabu- an autistic child won't suddenly "get it" and find life/ education easier as they get older

Yanbu- they may find things get better (+ anecdotal story if relevant)

Autistic son, school was hell and he ended up in a specialist school. Mainstream 6th form college and is now in the final year of a law degree. Happy, healthy and with many friends.

It's going to be ok 💐

Tbh my ds senco was shit and if I had listened to her advice he would be sitting in a room doing nothing. They aren’t always the best at what they do. You are you sons best judge and advocate. It is a battle but you can take it little by little and keep fighting for him. Never listen when they say no, just find a different path to move your boy forward to where he wants to be.
My son has friends ( good friends) he has just learnt to cook ( cleaning up afterwards- that’s another battle), he is good at keeping himself clean and is finally getting better at looking himself. He has had many many battles but he is happy with the right support.
You need to keep fighting for him but you also need to look after yourself. That is v important. I learnt the hard way that not looking after me meant I burnt out looking after him. So my advice is to find some way of carving out support for yourself so you can keep your bucket from overflowing and never listen when they say no to him, just help him find another way to get where he would like to be.

I'd love to hear if anyone has a child who dropped out of mainstream near the end of secondary so hardly got any GCSEs / wasn't ready for college but then went on to fulfill their potential later on. In our case, primary went well (was achieving in line with her peers) but secondary was the trigger for the ASD diagnosis aged 15 when it all fell apart as the mainstream environment became too much. For the OP, I'd say having the support in place now and going forward will make all the difference. My DD didn't get any support because she flew under the radar (was so polite, quiet and hard working) so it all came crashing down.

My friends dd was v much like this. Not my story to tell but after a difficult couple of years she is back on the track she wants to be and is heading back to college this year to do the course she originally wanted.

Thank you for this. Assessed for dyspraxia and adhd and doesn't meet criteria for these. Being assessed for dyslexia/ dyscalculia and SpLD next week. He's almost certainly got these too. He is progressing though. It's just very slow.

These posts are really helpful. I think we're doing all the right things and we'll just carry on going.

We used a maths tutor for 2 sessions over the holidays. I went back and forth on this. But it was brilliant. My son avoids numbers and so will play games without numbers/ dice like labyrinth. After 2 sessions he's asking to play "magic maths" (he doesn't do the sums, he rubs to reveal the answers when we're playing), but just seeing him no longer avoiding numbers already is brilliant.

He loves books and audiobooks. We've read the first 4 harry potter books and roald dahl books to him, which has meant his vocabulary is very good. We are fortunate to have medical insurance from work and they have assigned us an educational navigator. Looking at these stories really is heartening. As a family, we're a strong unit and we are very positive that things will be okay.... just occasionally I have a wobble.

This thread is so helpful and I will read it when I have those worries. :-)