Dd1 (6) has come home from school covered in bruises...

[Marne]

I have posted this in education too but feel you lot will be more understanding, i'm not sure if it has anything to do with her AS. It only takes someone to brush past her and she falls over.

When i picked dd1 up from school i noticed a couple of small red marks on her face, got her home and the marks were more noticable, dd1 mentioned something about being knocked over by another child but couldn't really remember details other than hitting her head and face. As i'm getting her dressed for bed she shows me her elbow which has a large graze, i then help her take her school clothes off and she has a big bruise on her hip (looks painful) and another bruise on her back (on her spine), by now the red marks on her face are turning into bruises and she has a bruise around her eye sad.

Am i right in thinking that the school/teacher should have checked her over? (when dd1 hurts herself she makes a fuss so i'm sure she must have been crying a lot and moaning), surely the teacher should have said something to me when i picked her up?

Of course now its half term and there is nothing i can do until they go back.

Dd1 has Aspergers and sometimes finds it hard to explain where she is hurting but for this reason you would have thought they would have checked her over.

Having come out in the bruising that she has.. I would say that she has fallen pretty heftily... And in theory should have been checked and you told about it.

The trouble is with the AS how much was the teacher aware? Did dd tell someone and was there good communication between playground attending staff and class teacher ( if she wasn't out with the children).?

I do think that this may be an area where a stratagy of a fallen over card ( or something similar) needs to be put in.. If your dd hasn't communicated effectivly that she is hurt.
A simple card to show a member of staff.. And then they go through a simple To answer list of what might be hurting might be a good future care plan.

I know that we had to tackle this with ds at school because he couldn't explain .. But he could cope with a yes or no to " did you bang your head" type questions...
There was no point asking him " do you feel okay now" type questions or asking him to explain because he just couldn't get it across.

Marne Have you taken pictures? I think you also need to get a GP appointment, so that this is documented.

Yes totally agree about going to the go to get it noted btw..
Very important if needed in the future :)

Thanks Arsenic, dd1 is very verbal and has told me that a child ran into her (or brushed passed her) knocker her over, i asked 'did you cry?' and she said 'yes, and the teacher came and asked if i was ok' she then told me that the teacher asked her if she was hurt and dd1 said 'yes but i didn't know where, i thought i hurt my knee'.

I could see the marks on her face when she came out of school, you would have thought the teacher would have seen the mark on her eye and the bump on her head. I should have asked about it when i picked her up but i was in a hury as dd2 was freeking out at the buses (she hates the school buses).

Dd2 fell over last week and bumped her head (same teacher as dd1) and i had a letter in her book bag saying she had fell over.

I have taken photo's, i have a feeling it will look worse in the morning .

Yes .. I ds is very similar to your dd in this issue.. Saying are " are you okay , are you hurt" just seems to confuse the situation when they are already dealing with being in pain and ate upset.
I think what you have done at home is naturally broken down the questions for her for you to be able to get to the bottom of it.... And a teacher wouldn't naturally do this.
If you can work out how you ask the right questions and when you ask the questions ( I always calm ds down before asking anything and then I break everything down in to bullet point unambiguous type questions for him).. Then maybe you can pop onto school... Explain what happened today and give them some stratagies to work with.
If she has a " hurty" card that she can show.. The school will know to calm her down, give her time to process the questions, and give a much clearer answer to a direct question.. Iyswim. In the future.

Just to add.. It is really easy to assume that a child with as who is very verbal can cope with unambiguous questions... Where in fact they need to be broken down and made very clear. ( for a lot of our dc's)

I agree Arsenic, the school are usually great with dd1 and cope well with the AS, i think today they had a different teacher but they have this teacher at least once a week so she knows dd1 well. I will talk to the school when they go back.