Help with SA please (asd)

[BialystockandBloom]

Happy new year to all.

Could do with some advice from old hands please!

I'm in the process of completing the statutory assessment for ds. As part of this they ask for further evidence/views from parents. My original request was a three-page letter including all my concerns about ds, his difficulties, etc.

Do I simply repeat this? I'm not sure what more I can say except expand on this.

Am already worried about the paed report as he has only met him once (when he was dx in September) and was rather blase about his difficulties, blithely said he wouldn't get a statement as he is so "borderline" asd (ha!) and didn't present with "behaviours" (again, ha ha!), so I don't hold much hope that his report will help us much.

And am feeling a bit despondent already, as I originally wrote the request in October but due to the wrong address provided on my LA's website and , had it returned to me 6 weeks later by royal mail, so had to resubmit the whole thing - meaning that if no statement is given and/or we have to appeal, this won't be in time for when ds starts primary school in September... sigh.

Anyway, any advice much appreciated, thanks.

My parental views were fairly similar but updated following Ados test comments. We were told there is no ASD just 'behavioural difficulties'. Paed also asked why we wanted assessment when ds had no educational difficulties . Needless to say I ignored his remarks and we have now got a statement for 22 hours with no dx! The hard part is actually getting the LA to assess in the first place (we were initially refused but they backed down later after my persistence).Good luck.

Is the LA wrong address still on the website? If so get a copy of it and date it as well as the return address envelope etc.

There is not much you can do about it now but it might help during an appeal later.

Have you got a copy of the Code or Practice? If so, go through the criteria stuff there and as closely as you can write it word for word. It can be short and sweet as you have already submitted the bulk. You are simply pointing out the relevant bits of law/code.

You don't need to provide evidence particularly at this stage but it will help if you reference the statments to a report that you are already aware of. Don't get hung up on it though. The process is looooooong as you know.

Thanks for your replies.

I haven't got any further evidence to submit in any case, so I guess I'll just reiterate (and expand on) what I previously wrote.

fighting that is great news about ds's statement!

Yes I am preparing myself for a long slog.

Star thanks for advice re code of practice, will have a look.

The address on the website is still wrong - the office moved a year ago apparently, but the pdf Handbook for parents obviously hasn't been updated. When I re-sent the request I enclosed my original letter and royal mail return envelope - not that it'll do much good I guess but may hopefully speed things up?

Can I also ask your views - do you think we should say anything about ABA at this stage? I ultimately want any provision during school to be from an ABA-trained assistant. I've already been told that our borough does not fund ABA but I still intend to puruse as much funding as possible. All a bit complicated as I don't even know if the school ds gets into (if he does get in) will accept a tutor, though they are very very ASD-supportive, but at the least if ds gets 1-1 support we want it to be using ABA approach, if not one of our current tutors. Maybe I'll start another thread about all this, but just don't know whether to even mention that we're doing ABA in the SA letter?

TBH, I would not mention ABA at all as this is really quite irrelevant and gets people's back up.

What you are doing is an invidivualised home programme using evidence-based practice including formative and summative ongoing assessment.

Your ds needs an education that focusses on outcomes and partnership working with parents and you would expect that any provision/support will visit your ds at home on his programme to enable any good practice and learning to be transfered into the education setting where possible and appropriate. It is therefore essential that any 1:1 support has experience of working on home programmes or is willing to undergo training with your home-programme providers in order to build on your ds' prior learning.

Does that help?

Brilliant, thank you.

At what point during the assessment/statementing/school-starting process should we bring up ABA? I feel like this whole process is a series of tactical manoeuvres, and am not sure of when to play which cards!

I don't think there really is a right time.

Mention as often as you like 'Positive Behavioural Support'.

You might want to refer to ABA as EIBI (Early Intensive Behavioural Intervention) as this is becoming a more acceptable term for it and doesn't carry the stigma of ABA to the ignorant.

TBH I would stick to this all the way through anyway. You can say you want the TA to have experience/training in EIBI as it is proving to be very effective for your ds and you have been keeping data on it. You can say that a TA with experience/training in ABA should be okay.

Stragically, I regret the day I ever mentioned ABA and wish I had stuck to EIBI. I lost the tribunal but am finding it incredibly difficult to work with the school because they have a (probably encouraged) assumption about what ABA is. Every time I speak to them they have something to say like 'well, ds needs to learn to generalise', as if that is news, and 'his drawings are very formulaic' as if I taught him he can only draw in a certain way.

Don't hide the fact that it is ABA, but do keep your langauge neutral and EIBI is fine.

SOME LA's fund home-programmes that are NOT ABA (Even when they are) as they don't like their statistics to show that they fund ABA or other parents to find out, so sometimes you can get further with just an individualised home programme iyswim.

BUT, I can only guess at what's going on politically in your LA right now and the whims of the personalities involved.

Good luck.