Any military parents of children with autism

[Lucy955]

Hi,

Trying to get our three year old assessed. Preschool are all pretty sure he's suffering from ASD. Worried how long assessment will take. Will we get to see someone before we get posted? How good are they at sharing info from one area to another? Would love some advice from anyone whose been through anything similar. Can/do the army help?

Hiya,
My DS 6 has ASD/ADHD, and DH is army. First thing to say is definitely get DH to tell work, they are very understanding and it is a good reason for posting preferences which they will help support. It's worth getting in touch with the Army Families Federation because they should be able to give you advice specific to your location, oh and there is the forces children's education service, worth getting in touch with them too.
Diagnosis wise you are probably looking at years not months, we moved halfway through our process and everything did move with us, but because different trusts do things differently we had to repeat some assessments etc.
Lastly, I just want you to know that you are not alone, it can be very isolating being an army wife, add a DC with SN and it can be very very hard, make use of the Unit Welfare Team

Anything else you want to know give me a shout

Thank you. Been on the phone all day. Very frustrating. Just trying to get the people to bed. May fire some questions at you later if that's OK.

Lucy

No worries, fire away!

Hattie has probably got you covered (AFF and SCE are key) but just wanted to check that you both knew about the SSAFA Forces Additional Needs and Disability Forum? We have been out of UK for a while but they used to run annual conferences and workshops for parents with a family member with additional needs etc, and they covered an absolute ton of information - lots on posting info etc etc. They are a goldmine of information and I always strongly recommend that parents get in touch - it also helps with visibility, and policy making. We managed several postings with our child, as well as arranging to stay in post for an additional year to allow what was then statementing to take place.
Obviously a lot of the nitty gritty still falls to the parents (arranging referrals to next posting - I used to start 3 months out and can honestly say we have never waited for an appointment on arrival). Sometimes the new area will prefer to reassess, but to be honest, we found that was great - and we didn't ever lose services (we were usually transferring physio, OT, SLT, paed, optometry and ophthalmology). The only thing we decided not to go ahead with was Botox treatment, as there was no guarantee that would be offered by a new orthopaedic team on next posting.
We only had one occurrence where a posting was in danger of being cancelled due to dd2's needs, but we worked with SSAFA to get an assessment done at the new posting location (we arranged private travel) in order for them to make a decision as to whether they could meet her needs.
The only thing that we found difficult was that dd2 found change very hard, so this required a lot of work on our part to make the transitions as easy as possible. I have met some families at the SSAFA conference that decided it was better for the parent to serve unaccompanied for this reason, and to ensure stability for the family member with additional needs.
Good Luck!

Littleoldladywho- i didn't know about the SSAFA Additional Needs and Disability Forum, thank you I'm going to get checking it out!

Just wondering how you are getting on lucy?
DH was army but we didn't get a diagnosis of high functioning ASD until after he left at end of 2015.
If your child is approaching school age, CEAS are brill too.

Also, you could contact IASS once he is in school. They are local to each county and give really good support.
At each of ds' schools, we were able to manage ok just by passing on necessary info....like his selective eating issues and auditory processing issues by at that point, we didn't know it might be ASD.