I've been lurking on here: thought I'd introduce myself

[jalapeno]

Hi everyone, I've been lurking on here as there are some questions about DS1's fidgety behaviour, refusal to write and constant movement, he has a referral to a paed on 19th March, school want him to see an EP but he is bottom of the list apparently and I'm reading the Brain Diet Book from Tinsley House just to see what's what.

I've answered a few questions on here so thought I should introduce myself although I know some of you from the primary board

Hi, and welcome :)

Hi, nice to virtually meet you .

Hello. How old is your ds?

Hi and welcome .

Thanks all and hello, DS1 is 6.5 and in year 2.

Hello jalapeno. Hope the school list is a short one. Anything you can do to move up the ranks?

Welcome! :)

Thanks again all

auntevil I don't think so, we were told he would have to wait until at least 2013 to see the EP (she is only in a few hours every couple of months- not sure if this is normal or not but seems rather inadequate to me!) and that he will probably get bumped down at the next intake in September because his reading and maths are fairly good. He refuses to write though which is worrying us and his teacher and he can't sit still and is starting to disrupt the class with his movement and noise so we have got a referral to the paeds in March which we got via the GP.

My sister has dyspraxia and SPD so I suspect there will be something similar to that going on with some hyperactivity too. Sister is also on the autistic spectrum.

Doesn't write and in yr 2 should warrant an EP visit way ahead of new reception intake.
TBH, this was my experience with DS1 at his previous school. Because he wasn't educationally behind in other areas he always seemed to be back of the queue. I was advised that I either had to let him get so far behind that the school felt 'obliged' to do something or to sort things myself. I chose the latter option as I could not see myself letting things get that bad.
I changed school - which was a brilliant move (hindsight is a wonderful thing - might ask for some more when its secondary school ) . But that aside, I think you need to be a pita to get some more support from the school.
DS1 dyspraxia, SPD and hypermobile, yr4. It is a constant battle to get support for his needs as the older he gets, the more differences appear with his peer group.

The school ain't lying. They really do only have a few hours of EP time a year.

So they have to allocate it to the kid who's at the top of the list. And if you're not throwing chairs, you're unlikely to be the top of the list.

however the good news is that the EP report won't say anything useful anyway :)

an OT report would be more useful.....

EPs don't know how to get wiggly children to sit still, or non writers to write, or overloaded children to not be overloaded. All the EP will do is make a bunch of common sense recommendations, which you and school can easily figure out yourself.

A good SENCO won't learn anything from an EP report - and a bad SENCO won't take any notice of it.

I think it's a scandal tbh. No wonder they aren't in schools much if they can charge so much privately. We just can't afford it though without really knowing the benefit of paying for it so we will go for the OT referral and hope for the best.

auntevil sounds very similar, DS has always been the same, it just seems his peers have matured a bit...

OMG Indigo

I know how scandalously low EP hours are in school. What worries me is that it is always the disruptive/badly behaved children that get the first visits. Not necessarily those in greatest need from interventions.
At DS1s first school I was almost encouraged by the SENco to get him to behave badly so that he would be seen. In my genuine naivety at the time, I was shocked. Now, I know why. Those that struggle quietly, or with the minimum of fuss - even wrigglers and chatterers - will always be overlooked by those with more physically or verbally aggressive behaviours.

Blimey, how on earth would I get him to behave "badly" even if I wanted to (which I don't of course ) I have visions of him going round sussing out a missile with the most pleasing trajectory and never actually getting round to throwing the thing!

Why does the behaviour grading alone instigate the assessment? Surely the teacher should be able to say an assessment is needed without having to jump through hoops. Anyway (as indigo says) I said all this on a thread in Primary and a very good teacher on there said it wouldn't tell them anything they wouldn't already know. Not sure if she's met my DS's teacher though...heard some interesting stories from him today which is quite rare as he never goes into much detail about school!! Not sure what to think about so many things!!

It's not that behaviour alone instigates assessment.

It's that the EP can only see 1 or 2 kids this year. And they have to choose out of 200 - 300 kids.

Someone who only struggles with sitting still and writing, is just not going to be the kid the school are most worried about.

Having said that DS has seen the EP 3 times. (And he only threw 1 chair :) ) And none of the reports were useful at all. They recommended a bunch of generic strategies none of which were tailored to DS.

DD has seen the EP once. A specialist SpLD EP which I waited 2 years for. The recommendations were school should continue to do everything they are doing.

Basically, EPs are just shit. What on earth does the term Educational Psychologist even mean or imply?

The other problem is once you have an EP report and school have followed it's recommendations and they still haven't worked you're really stuck. Because school can now say 'they've done everything they were advised to'.

Without an EP report you can pressure them more to make adjustments :)

But OT reports can be really useful. If he's not writing because it hurts him, then an OT can actually help with that.

An OT can certainly help with the wriggling.

If he's not writing because he doesn't know how to order his thoughts - a teacher really should be able to help him with that. They really shouldn't need EP advice for that.

Yes, a lot of what he recommends is common sense. which I wasn't doing

And his parenting advice can come across as a bit patronising.

And I think if I'd picked up the book a few years earlier I would have thought it was nonsense

but by the time I read his book I'd already worked out that:

• asd, ADHD, dyspraxia and dyslexia are all caused by the same thing (handy having 3 kids to experiment on :) ) and that the cure for those conditions would involve:
• diet
• multivitamins
• vision
• hearing
• neurodevelolment

but he's the only other person ive found (besides me :) ) who is interested in all those things.

And he is honestly the cleverest man I've ever met. His knowledge of the brain and how it works is the thing that's been missing from every other professional I've met.

Totally agree with Indigo, we were also impressed when met him and can't stop thinking why won't GP or so called experts can direct us to such simple solutions/alternatives which can make a difference
Never mind we have this board to help .