Have a meeting with the LEA tomorrow about refused statement. Feel unprepared and worried!

[trunkybun]

I need HELP!!
I have been offered this meeting to discuss their refusal to offer a Statement and I presume to have an opportunity to change this decision before going to Tribunal.
I have copies of all the reports from Ed Psych, SALT, OT's etc (but these are the same reports I sent with my request for Statutory Assesment, so they have already seen them)In addition I have written a list of reasons why I feel he needs a statement and how I feel he will be affected if he doesn't.
The school agree that he does need one, primarily to assist with his social skills, writing, self management and sensory seeking behaviour. But the LEA seem to think that because he has made progress academically SA+ will be enough.
They have issued a 'Note in Lieu' which in itself is quite long and detailed and I would argue would need extra funding for the school to be able to comply!
I have spent hours this morning trawling through the old threads on MN regarding this issue and think now that my document is too wordy/emotional and not concise/punchy enough. Any advice at all, including 'killer' quotes/phrases would be much appreciated.
I have used the IPSEA and SOS SEN websites for advice, but have been unable to get anyone on the phone yet! Also spoke to Parent Partnership whose advice was 'try not to let them intimidate you' GULP!!

Thanks Moondog. Lots of food for thought there. I am a lawyer so I kind string togetehr an argument for why something should be done, it's finding out specifically what he needs that can be the problem.

The stuff you mention seems very interesting but I feel like I need a beginners course to make it all make sense - there's a money-spinning idea for you Moondog!

This thread has got me thinking about small specific areas that I can work on and being able to measure that progress in a quantifiable way but I'm not sure how you apply this.

For example, I can't get DS (for love nor money) to stop lashing out at his little brother (or other children) when they get too near him and he's having one of his 'anxious' times. Postive reinforcements (stickers - money!), using one word shouts for help e.g. 'alien' (going to get an adult is too much to ask), none of it has worked.

How do you tackle behaviours like this?

Or how do you get him to stop talking across people? Or to pay attention? Or to answer people when they speak to him? Or to go and ask and adult for a drink or other help instead of sitting crying for attention?

I would like to work on small areas and build up skills but I don't know how to apply all the things that you've mentioned and the experts that I thought would help aren't even beginning to look at these areas (and wouldn't know what to suggest)

I'm going to use some of the ideas from this thread ,though ds does not need ABA in it's purest form am going to use the smart target ideas and insist that they record how there going to meet what there going yo do and how they will measure them and how we will build on them

slightly differnent as ds3 needs are speech problems ,pd and. Gdd and touch wood ATM he has no behaviour issues but can see how I can adapt it to meet his needs

Thank you

Well Debs, Bangor uni is looking at developing an MSc in evidence based education based on behavioural principles as there is a huge need for it. We have moved on from the full on home based intensive behavioural intervention althoguh there is a place for that too of course.

My mission ius to help peopel understand that behavioural principles can be used to help everybody, everywhere at any time.

If you go to an ABA conference, you are dazzled by all its applications, from sex education,hospital management, heavy plant safety. The lists is endless.

The problems you mention could be sorted out very quickly and easily by someone with a firm grasp of the principles of ABA. I'd look for a board certified behaviour anlayst whose interest isn't solely in intensive work with very small children.

I'd post on ABA UK Yahoo chatroom to pursue that.

debs This is a bit of a strange, but the single most useful 'training' I have had (as well as REALLY researching things Moondog has suggested) is attending the 2 day PECS course.

I knew in the first hour of it that PECS wasn't appropriate for ds and spent the next 15 mins of the course wondering how I could have made such a mistake.

I decided to stick with it anyway as having completed the course would be a defence against the shoddy PECS pushing SALT that was working with ds, and what I learned was the foundations of everything that has been discussed here.

PECS isn't a communication strategy, it is a behaviourist strategy that has been applied to communication. In particular, initiating communication is such a simple and concrete concept that it is excellent one for beginners to begin to hang their early learning on.

Not only that, but I met 'professionals' on the course who gave me inspiration, confidence and a belief in what 'professionals' CAN be like, who told me my son was lucky, who clubbed together and bought me a pack of reinforcers to take home with me.

I'm not sure that I have come across training like it. Other agencies offer 'workshops' on various forms of ABA or evidence-based practice but as far as I know they don't make you do it over and over until you've got it like they do on the PECS.

I'd agree.

PECS training is superb and it set me on the road to all of this.
I remember leaving the 1st PECS workshop I did, back in 2002 in an absolute daze thinking OMFG.
I had never felt that about anything vaguely work related until then.
I got back to the hotel where dh was with baby dd and just talked and talked and talked.

These days, PECS are very clear about the fact it is ABA based. They start by referring to Skinner and his classic tome 'Verbal Behaviour' (not advised at this stage ladies, it will have you running screaming into nearest bar but certainly a life goal. I laboured through it last summer. Nearly killed me!)

I have discussed this new openness with the PECS folk-they say they do it because (with exception of people that Stark dealing with)folk are actually stopping and relaising that ABA is a revolutionary (but not new) technology that can and does transform lives beyond what anyone ever beleieved possible.

The days of white teethed Americans being flown into the UK at huge expense to set up ill thoguht out intensive programmes are going.

It can (and is in mycase) embedded into boring old public services. Doesn't cost any more, involve any more staff, necessitate buying expensive equipment. You just get on and do it. Staff love it, the kids love it and the parents love it. If parents are happy, the lEA has less shit to deal with.

What is not to like as they say?

WOW, you guys are amazing. Thanks - I will spend a day looking at all this next week when the kids go back.

Moondog and Star - what a team!

They have a PECS workshop in Exeter or there is this

Workshop Description - Language of Emotions with Dr Andy Bondy

This talk, which explores how to help people with autism acquire language related to identifying and expressing emotions, was a highlight of last year?s Celebration of 10 Years of PECS in the UK. We have now expanded it to a full day to include more practical lesson ideas. You will learn the theory behind developing effective lessons on teaching emotions, as well as real-life inspirational examples of how it can be done.

What do you think??

This book is a gem too and very easy to read

Essentials of evidence-basde academic interventions

I'd be there like a shot.
Andy Bondy (a behaviour analyst) devised PECS with his wife Lori Frost (a SALT) so it combines the best of both worlds (and together, SALT and ABA, underpinned by sound EB academic interventions are dynamite.

He's a wonderful man. Hearing him speak is incredibly inspiring.
I was at the ABA International conference in Texas earlier this year, where he did a keynote speech (that's a must too if you have the cash. I go every year. Costs about £1000 all in for 4 days of amazing events, thousands of them ,chance to meet and hear the best people in the field a 5 star hotel and just some really good fun.

I do it in my holidays, I love it so much.

See anyo f you there next year?

Debs I think that one is higher level than you need. It might sound great, i.e. teaching emotions is important but you probably need to foundations from the beginners 2 day course.

I think the emotions one will be a bit more complex and given your ds is verbal a little less relevant perhaps, but I don't know your ds and I haven't done the emotions one so I don't know.

And thanks for saying nice things about me. But all I do is search and search for the right approach for my ds and I have to because no-one else is helping.

I come on MN to get pointers and ideas and I 'try' hard to give advice where I can because I find that having to explain things to other people clarifies it in my own mind and makes me understand things better, - as well as giving me the satisfaction that all I have learned is not wasted because it is 'just' for ds. Whilst this should be enough of a reason, if it was the only one I would get SO angry because it SHOULD be unnecessary. The people PAID to help him should be doing it, not me.

Yes, good point probably Stark.
I'm not sure how familar Debs is with PECS generally.

Ring 'em and ask though.

Thanks Star and Moondog. I really appreciate your insights into this. I am not familiar with PECs at all but wasn't sure, as DS is verbal, whether it would be as helpful as the more specific emotions which DS struggles with. But I will ring and check.

You have cheered me up - almost broke my foot this week and now we all have nits!!

Plus, Ive got the inevitable back to school gloom. DS has a trip next week on the same day as an NAS Help! course on siblings and ASD that I really want to go on. So I can't go with him but there has been no planning - yet again. I know now this is because they don't know what to do at all.

It's so draining. I need you wonderful folks to keep me going.

Thanks mucho!

Oh, it does say...'This workshop is appropriate for family members as well as professionals. PECS experience is not a requirement'.

Okay, well perhaps it will be helpful then for other reasons. I have done it and don't know what it entails, but I suppose I would question (of them if you like) the relvance of it to your ds.

The benefits I was mentioning of the intoduction course was about learning the techniques, rather than learning them to do something iyswim.

No harm in looking into it further though. Their courses are certainly high quality.

Definitely Stark. Thanks