Need quick advice please re ASD child in MS.

[Shimmerysilverglitter]

I am currently putting together a lengthy statement to hand out at the multi disciplinary meeting we are having for ds this week. He is in 8 and in MS and just finshed a weeks respite as he is not thriving there, melting down every day and becoming very anxious and distressed.

I am looking to remove him as soon as we can find somewhere suitable but in the meantime despite repeated requests to use a lap top to complete his work at school (which we are willing to provide) it just does not seem to be happening. I suspect this is because they don't actually know where to begin with (neither do I!)

For those of you whose kids do this, ie complete most of their work on computer rather than being handwritten (which distresses ds greatly, he hates holding a pen), what resources do the school use please? How does it work? Do you provide the lap top and so on? I sort of feel it is up to them to find out how to incorporate the National curriculum into this format for him to access it but they don't seem to want to, so I need some crystal clear ideas and tips to get them started. I am presenting this statement very soon so any responses would be welcome. Many thanks.

He's not so dependent on it now, but when DS1 had a trial loan of a laptop from the inclusion service to use at school, he was given clicker software to use. I'm on my netbook without a mouse (and with a boy periodically on my lap and lining up my hands!), so navigating and searching is a bit faffy right now, but if you google for it, there's a very good website. It can be adapted right from a very basic point and click level to being a word processor which gives prompts and it's easy to download and make national curriculum resources for it.

Oh thats brilliant exactly the kind of the thing I am thinking of. Will look now. How do you go about applying for the lap top from the inclusion service please and what is the criteria? Never heard of these. Will google now.

My ds has just been given an alphasmart. The school has a few of them, paid for out of the SEN budget.

It connects to any computer that has Word on it either wirelessly (sp?) on the newer version or via a USB cable on the older one and automatically downloads the text.

So ds can type a piece of work and send it straight to print to the teacher's printer from his desk. He's only had it a fortnight, but it certainly seems to have changed his attitude towards literacy lessons so far.

The disadvantages we've found with it are that its not as sophisticated as a lap top, you can only see a few lines of text at a time rather than the whole page layout and there's no mouse or trackpad. (This is actually used as a selling point, as its supposed to reduce distraction and fiddling with fonts etc, but I think ds should be learning about the importance of presentation, rather than just content, at this stage.)

Its also a pain that it doesn't accept a datastick, as we are running up against problems with homework which relates to things ds has done in class. Eg he had to edit a piece of work he did in class last week, but couldn't, because his was on the Alphasmart. At the moment, its looking like the only way round this would be for us to buy him one ourselves, as the school are reticent about letting him bring it home.

I'm told they are very common in schools, as they aren't tempting to steal and are very robust, so can survive the odd drop etc.

Hi. My son uses an Alphasmart, which we had to buy for him. I'd been told about them by my son's advisory teacher for communication and interaction (read ASD!) but the MS school just grumbled about the cost. We were lucky to be in a position to just buy one. I'm a TA and have seen them used in several schools, usually supplied by the school. We liked it a lot for my DS2 as it had no distractions, no games, no interesting screen, just a basic word processor. He uses it for most long written work but not for worksheets etc. He's had it since year 3 and is now in year 6. We're thinking he'll probably move on to a laptop in secondary, when ICT and presentation becomes more important. As it's a normal piece of equipment for him in school he can use it in his SATs. It's been a great tool at his age, and as your son is 8 I think it would be ideal. Not at all trendy or likely to be stolen!

My little boy is awaiting an IT assessment for school. His school use laptops instead of the Alphasmart as they believe it's more in tune with what is being usedin wider society.

I believe if he is allocated one , he uses it in school, but we are given a copy of all the software he uses in school to put on our home computer. Assuming then it would be easier to do homework etc using USB stick to exchange work he does.

xx

Ds (10) uses an ordinary laptop computer at school. He types his work into an ordinary word-processing program (probably Word or something similar) and it's then saved on to a memory stick as a back up. The teacher also prints a copy to stick into ds' book.

So really I think the only resources needed have been:

• use of a computer (no extra cost to school)

• memory stick

• paper for printing

The school provides the computer. Each classroom has at least one anyway so there hasn't been any need to provide one for him. I think one of the problems with providing your own would be the question of insurance.

It's also illegal to ask a disabled person (child or adult) to pay for something they need to achieve equality. If he can only do work with a computer, it's their duty to provide one, definitely.