ASD behaviour management

[Tailor123]

Does anyone have experience of counselling or behaviour management therapy for ASD? Any recommendations in London?

DC is in the last year at primary school. Needs have been met fine up to now (no need for an ECHP) but has recently become very anxious and lashing out and hurting others which is rare. He is not one to share feelings very much but I’m sure the anxiety is linked to the move to secondary. He will be going to a mainstream school and we have requested enhanced transition which hasn’t started yet. The sudden violent outbursts (verbal and physical) are not just at school and have happened in other places too.

We want to seek help for him and make sure he has the tools to communicate what he feels and how to manage his emotions/advocate for himself. We are happy to seek private therapy as we know local services will be very stretched.

If you want a clinical psychologist, depending on where you are in London, you could look at Sam Peacock in Surrey. Also, Linda Campbell-Arthur and Milly Sawyer. Julia Avnon is a counselling psychologist who you could look at too.

An educational psychologist assessment &/or an OT assessment/ongoing input (OT can help with emotional regulation) could also help if you decide to go down that route. For the former, you could look at Jemma Levy, Vivienne Clifford and Ruth Birnbaum. For the latter, you could look at Aniesa Blore, Diana Pierags and Moyna Talcer.

Alongside this, request a meeting with the SENCO. What support is the school providing? Have you considered requesting an EHCNA?

Thank you, I’ll look those up. Central and north London are easiest for us to get to.

He had an ed psych assessment separate from his ASD assessment and school have implemented the recommendations in response to dyslexia and processing issues. They have also implemented the recommendations from the ASD report. At home we have made changes too (low demand parenting works best) and also changes to after school clubs and care so he is much happier with those. Up to now we all felt that his needs were being met but the wheels just started to come off very recently.

I plan to apply for an EHCNA.when he starts secondary so it is a fresh assessment for a new environment. If I apply now it will be declined several times and as far as we know his needs were being met. However, his recent behaviour is obviously a red flag. We have meetings with school next week and I plan to ask for him to spend time with the ELSA and any other additional support they can throw at it on top us us getting him some outside therapy.

I wouldn’t wait to request an EHCNA. Any LA decisions made now should consider the upcoming transition. It doesn’t matter DS’s needs were being met. They aren’t being met right now, and DS needs more support than the school can provide. You may have to appeal regardless of when you apply, especially because one unlawful excuse LAs often use to not assess is the child needs time to settle into their new school. And an updated EP assessment would still be helpful.

We never had an EHCP as in private sector but what helped my ASD dc in every one of their successful school settings the most was a mentor/advocate connected to the school (either a personal tutor, school councillor and sometimes just a very kind class teacher going above and beyond and answering emails 24/7). Therapy separate from school didn't help (much), but a school councillor/personal mentor at the school who would listen, provide reassurance and factual information and then also make changes for dc, did, e.g. mentor would go to teacher and say dc needs more concrete information about homework expectations and deadlines, and then teacher would email more details. I learned that with my dc, a lot of the anxiety and resulting challenging behaviour was caused by what seemed very trivial (to neurotypical people) things, like unclear instructions, small unexpected delays (e.g. homework was supposed to be sat every Friday but sometimes wasn't until Monday) etc, and teachers wouldn't realise that giving out homework a couple days late would cause massive meltdowns, a weekend of extreme OCD behaviours/no eating/self harm etc, so having someone who can, on a Friday night, get a one liner from a teacher telling dc what homework to do over the weekend was a massive life safer. It obviously wasn't always possible to get everything, but just knowing dc could email mentor anytime and they would do something about it already helped so much. It also worked the other way round, e.g. teacher would tell mentor what behaviour changes/learning tasks they wanted dc to do, e.g. to contribute more in lessons, and mentor then found ways to communicate it and set it as a task for dc in a way that wasn't perceived as criticism/failure but motivating/therapeutic and they would monitor weekly efforts. We don't have an EHCP but I have spoken to potential state 6forms for dc and all say that this is something they could provide only if specified and funded by an EHCP. Such mentoring support seems standard at universities, but again only if students are awarded DSA.

I would say this age is often really difficult for boys with ASD (don't know about girls). It's when the emotional maturity between NT and ND kids suddenly starts to become much more obvious. It's also an age when NT boys interests start turning towards girls/being cool etc which may be very different to an ND boy who may still be into playing, toys etc. The kids often start to really notice the differences as well IME. Struggling at school can also often overflow into struggling at home.

What sort of situations are leading to him to lash out?

In two occasions it was in sports club/PE situations once at school, once outside where there was jostling for a ball and he was pushed by another boy. In no time he had him on the ground hitting him. On another occasion he lashed out at another boy. He has been in sports clubs (at good advanced levels) since he was three so this is not something that has happened before. Maybe because everyone is getting bigger and stronger the usual jostling during sport is getting a bit more intense and he felt threatened?

The other time it was a verbal lashing out at a teacher he really doesn’t like and has never taken his class but had to stand in last minute. Again, very unusual for him to not mask intensely at school. We are used to meltdowns at home but these have been under control after school and us made changes following the diagnosis.

He has been saying that SATs prep is boring and the test are going to be forever. I have given some context and showed him on a calendar that it’s only four days but the school will be doing practise papers.