Possible Autism

[dionnec1988]

Hey, im new to mums net but i have come on here for some advice really.. My son is six and is really struggling at school, his teacher says that he is very hands on with other children invades their personal space and when told not to do it he says ok, but then he does straight away afterwards.
He was a late developer he didn't start walking till he was 18 months, attended speech therapy and had all tests for hearing etc. (all encouragement was given at home to help all of these issues).
He is about a year behind on his reading and writing and now is point blank refusing to do his work in class, we read every night and have done from a young age to no avail. Although he is above average in maths, but the teacher has said as the maths is getting more challenging he is starting to give up on that as well.
She has suggested that he could possibly be on the autistic spectrum, but seems to have made no progress on getting him assessed as of yet. i do realise that this can take a long time but my fear is that the teacher will become fed up of his "behaviour" and just start chastising him and i dont want that to happen if he has got real problems then they need to be correctly looked at.
i was wondering if anyone else has had similar issues and if their child has been diagnosed with autism?
any advice would be kindly appreciated

thankyou x

That sounds really difficult. It might help if you went to see your own GP and explained the situation and asked for a referral as well? When DS's school thought DS might have an ASC they tried to get a referral themselves but they also advised me to go to the GP and see who got there first! The NHS referral came through first but it did take several months.

Also you might want to post on "Special Needs Children" as well - lots of people with experience there.

Thank you, yes i think that will be my next step ill make an appointment asap and see what happens. i have heard that it can take a while to come through. im just on my last straw at the moment every day he seems to be uncooperative at school i just dont know what to do. yes i have posted on there too after seeing the section for it..
thank you for you advice xx

My son is also six, he's waiting to have an autistic assesment. He also has no boundaries when it comes to personal space!

If you can ask school to put there concerns in writing so you can give it to the GP. Some GPs need a lot of persuasion to refer to community paeds. In Some areas the assesment process can be long, we waited 4 months to see a Paed then we and the school filled in some questions which have resulted in him being refered for a ADOS assesment which has a 14 month waiting list!

Maybe in the meantime to school could ask an Ed Psych to come on to give advice on how to help your son.

Thank you that's very encouraging, i will speak to school tomorrow and see if they will give me a letter.

i have been pulling my hair out as it seems unfair on the other children in the class and the teacher.

i will take your advice on board though and go and seek extra help with my GP and the school something has to give soon.

I have an Autistic 11 year old, a lively 8 year old who's not on the spectrum and a 3 year old in assessment.

My advise is to tackle this from two angles. One to pursue Autism. Or ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) via your GP the second is to tackle the school about the broadening education gap between your son and his peers.

Ideally the school should produce an individual education plan (
IEP) with clear targets for your son to achieve and actions to be taken by school, home, outside agencies. This should then be reviewed every three months so you can acurately chart progress.

You should definately request that he is assessed by an Ed psyc in the school environment.

If he has significant social boundaries issues does this effect his recognition of emotion in others? if so ask the school if he can access a block of speach and language therapy to work on his social skills. A skilled speach therapist can do great work with children using stories to discuss reactions and feelings of others. Its not all about lisps and annunciation.

Start keeping records of everything home and school that is outside of the norm.

Thank you MisForMumNotMaid :)

What do you mean by broadening the educational gap? His teacher has said she is only setting work in which she feels that he can do at the moment but i have great fear of him becoming even further behind when he reaches year 3 (next year).

i am going to book the doctors appointment tomorrow and get the ball rolling with that.

The teacher has said no that he doesn't recognise that other people don't like him in their face and doesn't seem to be able to distinguish the fact that he is doing anything wrong. but if someone does wrong to him he definitely knows and tells her straight away.

I will mention about the speech therapy to her tomorrow also as i think that sounds very relevant to what he is going through. i get a record going to and give that to my GP as evidence.

Its nice to know that other people have the similar issues to what im going through i never thought of coming on a forum before.

Good advice above.

Support in school depends on the needs a child has, not the diagnosis. If he needs support in order to cope in school and make academic progress, this should be put in place now.

When you see your GP, don't be fobbed off. There is a serious concern about your DS's development and he needs to be assessed by someone who has a good working knowledge of Autism. Some GPs dismiss the possibility for inappropriate reasons like the child making eye contact or showing affection.

Yes, thats my main concern as he is going to be in juniors next year, i really want try and help him get on track so that if he is behind then its only a little bit or get the extra support that's so clearly needed..

I have heard this before about referrals i will try and be on the ball and get DS's teacher to write me a note about his behaviour and the issues that are happening in class.

By Broadening education gap I mean I read you're saying his classmates are ahead of him and he's learning at a slower rate so the gap between him and his classmates is potentially getting bigger (broadening with his peers).

Schools want to be able to show improvement in children. They have all sorts of tables that help to show them where a child is level wise when initially assessed and they then expect so many levels of improvement per year. The children are all at different levels but they should be able to approximate the standard level of progress expected and if thats not being achieved. My eldest is phenomenally bright (not just a boasting mum moment, he has a very high IQ - unfortunately struggles to apply it in some situations) His levels through early primary were stagnant. He went from being very high for age level to being bottom of acceptable levels. Having charted this information it was sufficient (along with the autism diagnosis I then had) to get his statement of educational need (now being phased out and replaced by Education Health and Care plans EHC plans).

Autism as a diagnosis tends to be a drawn out process. Managing him now and getting support now really can and should run in parallel.

If you have an email adress for the school something I've found very useful is to back up every conversation in writing by a quick summary email. I.e. Thank you for taking the time to discuss 'insert childs name and year group here'. I am intending to discuss possible Autistic traits you raised with our GP. Etc. list any agreed actions and sign with your full name.

Send each email as a new email rather than a long chain, it makes it easier to print them all out and have them as a file if you need them down the line.

Forums deffinately helped me through diagnosis and then acessing help. The internet is an amazing thing.

That,s a very good idea on the emails i will definitely do that, i intend to go and see the learning coordinator tomorrow and not leave until i am seen, concerns have been raised for at least two months now with no progress so i guess its time to take it in my own hands with it all!

I'm guessing with your son that things improved academically then? The problem I'm having is that he is now point blank refusing to do the work and he will fall even further behind and im just getting excuses from the teacher saying that the form in which she needs to asses him is on its way, (which has been for the past couple of weeks now). I am really starting to feel let down by them.

Yes it seems that i have missed an opportunity to get this kind of advice sooner! Thank you so much for your help :)

Progress is a slow thing and taking a steady but determined approach is the way forward. You need to get everyone you can on side so being very professional in your treatment of them helps. Again keeping things backed up in writing helps to remind them what they've promised. So if the learning coordinator isn't available you can send an email sorry to have missed you on ...i would like to make an appointment to discuss....i can do monday at 9am, wednesday at 2pm or Friday morning anytime. Please confirm at your earliest convenience which would suit.

My son became very isolated in school. He had full time 1-1 support from quite a young age and by yr 4 he had his 1-1 schooled in how to do just about everything for him. He had a list of excuses and viable reasons to do nothing. We have moved areas and managed to get him into an Autistic unit within a mainstream school. Its been fantastic. The change in him is amazing. He Understands much more about his Autism and is more integrated into school life than when he was in mainstream. He no longer has a dedicated 1-1 so has to wait his turn with equally stubborn, opinionated and intelligent children. Its been a tough journey, particularly challenging his comfort zones the last eighteen months within the unit. The big thing is his grades are really picking up. He's significantly above average for reading, his maths level is high, his written English will get there if he would bloomin well put capital letters at the start of sentences and punctuate (can't have it all). He learns very quickly when he wants. He's been doing coding and is rather gifted. He's written an Ap which is apparently about to go on sale (so his teacher tells me). We ended up having a very heated argument about if he earned his first million he'd have to pay tax. He was ready to march to Downing street and tell David Cameron he couldn't have his money.

Thank you again this is all very helpful to me..

That's brilliant news about your son :) and very encouraging he sounds like a very bright boy! and definitely knows what he's on with and seems very ambitious with what he wants to do :)

The same with my son really i know its all up there but hes attention span and the wanting to do certain lessons just isnt there he would prefer to mess about and do other things.. hopefully with all this advice i will get somewhere with it all.. i just hope the sooner the better x

My DS has just been diagnosed, it took just under a year from initial concerns to getting dx.

Note that each borough uses different pathways, but this was my experience:

Teacher raised concerns that coincided with my own. Went to GP and asked for referral to community paediatrics. He suggested school also refer and see which was fastest,

School made referrals to occupational Health, educational psychologist and speech and language and also got school nurse involved to help with his anxiety.

During this time I read all I could. Go to the national autistic society website and read their guides. Tony Atwood books on Aspergers is particularly helpful.

OT and SALT were really helpful, not everyone has the same experience though. They picked up on sensory processing issues, hypermobility and social communication / interaction difficulties. They also made numerous recommendations that the school could do to aid comprehension and learning, even without diagnosis.

Comm paed carried out physical examination and a 2 hour session going through the DSM V criteria for autism. There was also numerous strength & difficulty questionnaires and observation forms.

EP met with me to discuss DS and observed in school. DS now has 3 monthly reviews.

All reports went to a panel for review, DS was given dx end of October.

My advice would be to educate yourself as much as possible. be prepared to battle as not all will be willing to see what you see. Try ASD learning strategies and if they work then all the better. And remember it's called autistic spectrum disorder, so you may not tick every box and that's fine - your DS will have areas of strength as well as difficulties, focus on the positive as well.

Hi OP my dd who is 9 is currently being assessed for autisim and I have been on an emotional roller coaster for the last 6 month I was advised by school to go to GP n get the ball rolling myself as school said it would take much longer waiting for the ed psych.
We have had two GP appointments and one psychologist app, he said some one would be coming into the school to assess her while learning then we would be back to see him within six months! It feels like no ones rushing (I do know they are really busy) but it's so hard to get my head round as since this has all come about I have went from total denial there was anything wrong to well maybes she has it and now since I have been researching I totally agree with the teachers about her.
It feels like it's a long long journey that has to be took x
for you