Behaviour issues in Reception - what does a referral to a behavioural expert mean

[AlaskaHQ]

DS (5) has always had quite a lot of behaviour issues at home ... will be fine one minute, and then flares into a major explosive tantrum in a split second. We have tried our best to sort these out ... after reading and trying out everything we could find, we went to see our GP in the end about a year ago (when he was in Preschool) and then got referred to the local hospital Paeds department on it. They decided he had some tendancies of aspergers and adhd, but not enough in either case to make a diagnosis. We do our best. Until recently there has been little or no trouble at school ... he has tended to be well behaved there (and last year at Preschool) with the trouble mainly at home.

However, he had a major flare up at school last week. He got upset over a friend taking a toy he wanted and ended up screaming, lying on the floor, kicking violently (fortunately not actually kicking another child), and being very difficult for the teacher to calm down. DH picked him up from school, and was told of the incident, and asked to sign a referral form to the school's behavioural expert.

The school know we have had trouble at home with him, as we had been careful to brief them before he started, but this was the first such incident at school.

We have tried to make DS realise how serious this has been.

But what do we as parents do next re the school? Obviously we will support the appointment with the behavioural expert, and attend if allowed. What should we expect from the behavioural expert ... and is there some process of formal warnings (or whatever) for serious misbehaviour in Reception? I know it has only been one incident so far, but if it got worse (which it often can at home) can they exclude him? All questions I had hoped I wouldn't need to ask.

I know the paed said he didn't have ASD - but I would want a 2nd opinion. Now that he's older he may fit the dx criteria more and get a dx.

What you describe sounds very much like autistic behaviour.

A behaviour expert is going to try and help your child and school through recommending different things they can do. If he has ASD this is the wrong person to see him.

My child with ASD was under the behaviour team at school, before he got a dx. When school just thought he was naughty. And it did a lot of damage.

A reception aged child can be excluded. Each school has different behaviour policies. But at the end of all of them is exclusion.

A lot of kids with ASD don't get a dx first time. A lot of peads don't like 'labelling' children, and therefore making a dx, even when they do think the child has the condition. For some reason the think a label is bad - whereas you are seeing the classic problem with not getting a label.

Without a label school are treating him like he's naughty. With a label, a diagnosis, school would be doing very different things. For starters they'd be calling in the ASD outreach team not the behaviour team.

The behaviour support teacher will come and observe your child in class and then have a meeting with the staff and most likely with you too to build up a full picture of your child's behaviour at school and at home and the types of things that trigger incidents. They will then put in place strategies that aim to get your son involved in managing his own behaviour. Whether or not he has ASD, many of the techniques will be similar, giving structure, guildelines, rewards, sanctions and involving school and home working together. Given his history, I'm sure the school is not just thinking he is naughty. However, even with a diagnosis, the behaviour in class that you talk about is not acceptable. I don't know if this is universal, but in the LA where I live, the ASD teachers don't support EYFS children - so maybe the school is using the best route available to it.

Thanks for the thoughts. I think we need to see how the first meeting with the behavioural support teacher goes, and take it from there. But I really appreciate hearing your thoughts on what we could expect.