Education for children with an ASD

[Lauren274]

Hello, I am 15 and I am writing an essay on whether children with an ASD should be educated in mainstream/comprehensive education or in a specialist school. I have created a survey and if there are parents out there that have a child with an ASD that are 4+, and are in some kind of education, it would be really help if you could quickly fill in my short survey - www.surveymonkey.com/s/9CVCMQC.
Thank you in advance!

You do realise that ASD is such a broad spectrum, that the essay question cannot be answered....

(Sorry I forgot you're only 15)

Question 6 is very misleading:

Many mainstream school's now have a special educational needs department, but do you think that all mainstream school's should be required to provide education for children with a disability?

All schools in the UK have to have a SENCO and are required to provide education for children with a disability.

Yes I realise that and I am just going to try and weigh up the arguments, come to some sort of conclusion using my opinion and other responses and just sort of have an overall look at the current education system. I think I may have worded it wrongly and I understand it may be quite misleading, I will definitely go and look at it again, thank you.

Your survey is actually quite good (for a school student) - but I think the problem is that ASD is such a broad spectrum that your answers won't be useful.

The answer to your question is that some kids with ASD benefit from specialist education and some benefit from MS. I guess you can write that in an essay :)

And you have no questions in your survey about the extent of the child's problems. So no way to qualify which kids benefit from SS and which from MS.

Um, question 2. What differences do you see in a child with an Autism Spectrum Disorder than one without it?

My answer would be an essay in itself, lol

Is this any use? NAS report It's a few years old, but it might give you some of the information your survey is asking

ASD is something I am studying at MA Level.

And what others say ehre is right: there are no right or wrong asnwers as children on the spectrum vary so much. And even then they may have different needs within their education- my eldest started out in mainstream and transferred to specialist provision at 11.

Also, there is more variety than just Sn school or Mainstream: mine attend bases which are specialist placements within mainstream schools that give them access to both types of facillity as needed; other children I know have mixed palcements where they do a day or two at at a specialist resource and a few days in mainstream.

Whereas my three have managed mainstream all the way through, with support.

Exactly; it is dependent on so much- child, school's ability to cope, LEA policy, funding, place availability...

I started to answer your survey but gave up because I don't think my answers will be that helpful. I have two dc with ASD who are both totally different and whilst there is no way my ds could be educated in mainstream as he is too severely affected, my daughter is currently in a mainstream setting. Her success and I think the success of any mainstream placement depends massively on a variety of factors including funding, willingness of staff to engage, training of staff and ability of parents to battle for the right help for their child. Your survey is good, but it's a really massive subject, which makes it hard to answer some of the questions.

I understand everything you are saying and am not planning to base my whole project on this - a survey is one of the requirements. I realise I can't completely answer this question, it is just a base guide to the discussion I am going to write about and I was planning to take into account all the other factors in my essay that I was not able to get into survey. I will be sure to talk all of this through at my project review. Thank you to those who have completed my survey.

I understand everything you are saying and am not planning to base my whole project on this - a survey is one of the requirements. I realise I can't completely answer this question, it is just a base guide to the discussion I am going to write about and I was planning to take into account all the other factors in my essay that I was not able to get into survey. I will be sure to talk all of this through at my project review. Thank you to those who have completed my survey.

Keep reading on here, or asking us, to learn more.

I think you'll find our experiences are nothing like your text books suggest :)

What subject are you doing this essay for?

Yes, I will do :)
For an extended project qualification - we could choose what topic we wanted to do it on.

Yes, I will do :)
For an extended project qualification - we could choose what topic we wanted to do it on.

Yes, I will do :)
For an extended project qualification - we could choose what topic we wanted to do it on.

I've done your survey, I think its really great you're interested, and didnt find any of the questions too problematic.

Autism is fascinating but very complex, I hope you manage to get your essay done without getting bogged down too much! x

heres a link to your survey to make it easier for others to do

Thank you so much! Yeah I completely agree, it's very interesting and something that has always fascinated me. Hopefully I should just be able to get through it with all the information out there

NAS did report this year called Great Expectations which you might find useful

Oh yes just found it, thats brilliant & very helpful, thank you.

I have to agree, it's too broad a spectrum to answer clearly and helpfully. I don't wish to be a pedant, but aren't these types of things supposed to be cleared through Mumsnet first? (not sure, just asking)

Also... question 7... it should be "their educational environment"... not "there" Would hate to see you get marked down on a spelling error.

And don't forget that lots of home educated children are on the spectrum, so you might want to think about that as a different educational setting that offers a whole different selection of opportunities and challenges.