Home schooling and Aspergers Diagnosis

[Intersat]

We have recently been told by our DD's secondary school that they suspect she has Aspergers. The school arranged for DD to see a Speech and language therapist but we haven't heard anything about the results and it was 2 weeks ago.

We made an appointment with our GP in meantime and he referred us to CAMHS and they passed the referral to a paediatrician's office.

We have been considering home schooling for a while now but we wanted to see how she coped with secondary school. I had hoped that things would improve but as well as her social difficulties she is now having problems with her education. The children in the school are disruptive and the school is now going into special measures.

I want to home school her so she gets the help she needs and stops feeling so down on herself and to add to all the complications she recently had a seizure during the night which scared the hell out of us. She was observed in the hospital but they couldn't find anything wrong. We can't help but think she is under a lot of stress and she isn't communicating all her difficulties to us. Sorry this is turning into a long post.

If she is homeschooled will this mean a diagnosis for Aspergers will take longer or be more difficult? The GP asked us which school she goes to so will they be needed to give additional support to the diagnosis?

I have googled but I can't find any answers.

Thanks to anyone who read through all this :)

Sorry 'some' of the children are disruptive. Obviously not all. I am a bit stressed at the moment

I have no idea about the diagnosis practicalities, but wanted to say that a formal diagnosis is very much less relevant if you are home educating.

It would be useful to have a formal diagnosis if you are intending for her to return to school at some point later.

Of course the help that would be available to her with a diagnosis would only be available within a school setting (or, you'd really really have to fight to get any help outside school - I really don't know what is provided - not much)

The really important thing, though, is that home ed can be an environment in which children with AS really really really flourish. So you might well find that you can gently help her to learn whatever things she needs to learn to function ok in society independently, but there's no need for external help, because she won't be under stress every day.

Get the book "PAths are made by walking: home educating our autistic spectrum children" - there are lots of accounts by different families, and at least some of them will speak straight to you :)

what ommmward said....plus have a look at the Home Education Special Needs website and their associated email support group
people there will be of great support, as they are actually home educating their children in similar circumstance.

Regardless of how your daughter is educated, the ASD diagnosis process will vary depending on where you live, so it's hard to say how your assessment will be affected by home education.

However, the main reason they look at school and ask for input/reports from teachers etc is that most children spend a lot of time there and that's where many have the most difficulties - their methods are tailored to the majority. They need to know what the school situation is so that they can recommend strategies for supporting the child during the day. But it's certainly not essential and if your school is unsupportive it can actually be counter-productive to have their viewpoints, especially if they don't understand autism, what the indicators are, and how your daughter is affected by the school environment.

My ds got his AS diagnosis while still at school (eventually - there was a lot of ignorance) but we also suspected ADHD - none of the staff would agree with this (on paper - countless discussions suggested otherwise) and two sets of Connors forms from two schools were inaccurately completed so psychs wouldn't diagnose. Once he was out of school we took him to a different psych who was willing to consider how ds functioned in other environments than school and made the dx based on our Connors and written reports I had on file from social groups ds had attended. OK, that's about ADHD dx but I guess the principle is the same. A lot of professionals diagnose by tick-box and that will include a school opinion, but some will think medically rather than administratively.

It's true that home education might mean that she'll thrive without routine autism interventions that are commonly used in school - a lot of them are crowd control anyway - and if she's made it to secondary without anyone suspecting AS then perhaps her condition is mild enough not to need them. But you never know, so personally I'd still go for the diagnosis because once you've got it you can choose what to do with it, even ignore it if you want. But it's there for your daughter if she might need it in the future to access support - perhaps in college or university.

The best thing about home educating a child with AS is that you can tailor the way you work to their specific needs. We cut back dramatically on academic workload to focus more on personal and social development, which has helped ds enormously. He's a lovely, confident young man now but he'd never have reached this point had he stayed in school.

Thank you for the replies :)

ommmward, thanks for the book recommedation and the support. It is good to know that homeschooling can be so beneficial.

julienoshoes, thanks for the links. I have had a look at the website and contacted the e-mail support group. It would be nice to talk to more people in a similar situation.

streakybacon, thanks for writing down your experiences. How did you find a psych that would assess your DS even though he was home schooled?

DD has been to 2 primary schools and no-one had told us they suspected Aspergers. The primary schools have always put her in groups to learn social skills since reception though. I read Tony Attwood's description of girls with AS and it was like he had met DD. I don't think she blended in but she is well behaved and does well in her lessons. Maybe they felt there was no need to look into it any further. The secondary school must have thought differently though because out of 100 plus children only DD and 3 others were selected for a 'friendship group' taking place one hour a week in lesson time (which they didn't tell us about ). They told me they suspected Aspergers when I went in to find out about the friendship group DD was telling me about.

I don't know if a diagnosis would be helpful or not but it is good to finally be able to understand what is happening. For a long time I thought maybe I hadn't taken her to enough playgroups or provided enough social opportunities. My DH thought I was crazy thinking that though because he said we were always meeting people when she was younger.

Thank you for all your help :)

Word of mouth. I went to an ADHD support group where one of the volunteers was a paediatrician who put me in touch with the psychiatrist she worked with. It was luck that we found this particular person, but no psych should refuse to assess simply on the basis that they can't get a report from the child's school. There are opportunities to observe in other environments but a lot of professionals are stuck in a rigid way of conducting their assessments so might get a bit flummoxed when they can't get a school report. I suppose you'd just have to be firm in suggesting they consider accounts from other sources as well.

That said, your daughter is still in school at the moment so you could take this opportunity to gather as much written evidence as possible to back up the assessment if you decide to pursue it. Keep a diary too, for example of the time you went in to school to discuss the friendship group, and any other discussions you've had with school staff about their suspicion of autism.

All this should be documented on her school record too, which you are entitled to see at any time, so perhaps it's worth asking for that as well.

Thanks for your help streakybacon. We have spoken to DD about home education and she didn't seem to think it could happen at first but now she doesn't want to wait until the summer holidays to try it out and seems relieved that she won't have to go back. Maybe requesting the school records will help us.

Hi Intersat
I remember well the stres. you are experiencing now! Random people I vaguely now comment on how much calmer I am two years on! (as well as my dc who have also chilled out)

A diagnoses can be helpful when claiming DLA - home educating can be as costly or inexpensive as you choose, exams generally cost (if your dd chooses to do any) - DLA might make it financially easier. Cutbacks etc might mean it's harder to get though.

All the best to you and your dd :)

stress

DLA = disability living allowance
I am confused by the propsed changes/cutbacks (sometimes I wonder if even the govt. understand what they are proposing)

ThreadWatcher, Gosh it's nice to think I could be a lot calmer in the future about all this. Right now I just keep wondering if we are taking on too much. School is such an established part of society. I only hope we can help DD reach her potential.

Mind you I am not sure that there are a lot of choices. When we thought the school was phoning DD suggested we just ignore it and move away. I don't think she realised it but she was making a fist with her hand.

I hadn't even thought about DLA.

Thanks for your help :)

We have de registered our nearly 13 year old son from school in the last week he has aspergers was dx last september it is good to know they have it ...so we could tell family and hubby understood better ...our son didnt actually attend secondary school they supplied a tutor for over a year and a half....we are happy now as mainstream couldnt give us what we wanted .....he has anxieties........i did apply for statement and what they offered was what we had in the beginning difference being he had to get tutored out of home which didnt suit him ......we applied for DLA right away and got it and carers allowance as well.......

lindy20, Thanks for telling me your experience. It feels like a big jump deregistering. I think that we will have to do it next week when school starts again. Did the doctors diagnose Aspergers without the school's imput?

Interstat - can I suggest that you request to see your daughter's school records before you deregister? It's unlikely that the same thing will happen to you, but in our case ds's records mysterioiusly disappeared as soon as we took him out of school and were never recovered, including his workbooks. If you want your daughter's notes to use as evidence in the assessment process, it might be worth asking for them sooner rather than later, just in case.

streakybacon, :) I was going to see if I could manage that.