No Paed appt til we've seen 'family steps' [hmm]

[Sops]

After seeing our school nurse we've been waiting for 8 weeks for a referral to Family Steps and the Community Paed.
Today, we get a letter saying that at the referral meeting it's been decided that we should see Family Steps first and see how we get on with that.
How that translates in practical terms is that in an unspecified number of weeks someone is going to come and see us and 'help' us implement dozens of behavioural techniques that we (and nursery) have tried to the nth degree already and met with complete failure.
We have read literally dozens of parenting books and tried it all to the absolute best of our abilities.
I can imagine this will take endless weeks of trial and inevitable failure. After weeks of horrendous meltdowns and 'fallout' that we have already experienced with ds when implementing behavioural techniques in the past, ds will again start to believe he 'can't be good' that no-one likes him, he can only be naughty and his self-esteem and behaviour will be at an all time low.
Dh and I are 100% convinced that ds has PDA and that explains why we've failed in the past.
Implementing PDA techniques has met with a great deal more success, a much happier ds and much happier family. BUT we have not solved it all.
On the Strengths & Difficulties questionnaire he scores as very high for overall stress, his pro-social score is a big fat zero, and he's at high risk for emotional and behavioural disorders. On the CHAT he scores 16, which is just into possible ASD territory.
At school (reception) he manages to conform quite well, my theory is that he just the bare minimum he needs to do to get by without attracting too much attention. My fear is that next year things will go horribly wrong at school as so much more will be expected of him.
I thought of going to GP and asking for referral to Elizabeth Newson Centre a while back, but dh was worried that we'd alienate the professional by being 'too aggro' with them.
Do I just do as Family steps ask and 'make' things go wrong to prove the point to them and await the inevitable breakdown when year one begins? Or do I push for more action right now?
Ds is not that bad, but if I ignore the warning signs now, will I miss the opportunity to help him avoid the 'breakdown' I can see on the horizon?
Confused...

Absolute calm and reflective listening works best for ds, but it's hardly ever not always quick!
The lack of learning issue has been playing on my mind a little lately. Over the course of the easter hols I felt like ds just 'blossomed' back to the boy he was before he started school. Behaviour was still very problematic in many ways but he was full of questions and it felt like he'd got back his 'spark'.
He was always very interested in history and associated mythology; ancient egypt, vikings, saxons, native americans etc. and dangerous animals; komodo dragons, hyaenas, wolves etc. and over the hols he got those books out again and asked me to read them to him. I had thought perhaps he'd just grown out of that phase but now I think maybe that's not it...
When we were watching the royal wedding we had a constant flow of questions; who's that with the red cloak on? Why do bishops wear cloaks? What's he doing at the wedding? Is he important? Why are there so many people there? What's happening now? Is that car a limo? Why is it called a rolls royce? etc etc etc... It reminded me that he used to be like that all the time- interested in everything, and I enjoyed seeing that spark again.

You are right in that when he kicks off it's best to say as little as possible, sometimes 'i can see that you feel really angry' helps, other times it can wind him up further!
I am sure that ds would be the same as yours in that empathy example, I'll try him with it tonight. He never even blinks if someone else hurts themselves, but when he is hurt we have a full scale dramatic interpretation from him!
Have you done the strengths and difficulties questionnaire? I mentioned it to the family support worker and she said shell be doing one with us on her visit. Ds got scored zero on the pro-social scale (kind and helpful behaviour). He has never in his life managed to tidy anything away properly, never helped with jobs around the house, never shown any empathy for anyone who is hurt or distressed. He won't say hello or goodbye either- ever.
Chatting to a friend this morning she said 'oh, we had a bad day with A yesterday. She threw a toy at her sister, I sent her to bed early' made me realise that ds does a hundred of those kind of things a day- we just accept that frequency as normal, but it really isn't.

Lenin, glad it went well with the counsellor btw. How often will he see her?

False laugh- check
Pretending not to see people-check

One thing for sure, they blimmin wouldn't say 'hello' would they?!

Unfortunately, violence and aggression rough and tumble is ds' speciality.

Lenin, i've got another thread going about motor skills. How's your ds with gross and fine? Mine can't write name properly yet

Hi sops, when you used the word 'sparkle' it reminded me immediately of my son who I now home educate. When I first took him out of school he got his sparkle back. 9 months later he insisted on going back to school and within a day his sparkle had gone. I was so shocked to see it vanish in front of my eyes after just a few hours. Needless to say that didn't last long and he came out a second time within a fortnight.

I have also had that experience of seeing aspects of my child reemerge which I had thought were gone for good. It's lovely to hear about all his questions and how he is turning to you for his information, knowing that you will do your best to answer truthfully. When my son did this (he has now moved on to independent sources of info, the internet etc) it felt like he was a flower and he was turning to me as if I were the sun in his life.