my son has autism!!! what now?

[kayla25]

hi my 5yr old son has just been diagnossed with aspergers. i felt that getting a diagosses would be great and that finally after 5 long hard years that i'd get the help and support needed for my son and also for me and my daughter. yet nothing seems to have changed and we have to wait 6-12 months for a another trip to the child pycologist.does any one no if i can get more help ie a course or support which would help me with his behaviour.as its so frustrating for all of us.
any advice will be greatly recieved
thank u

A diagnosis can help open doors but unfortunately you are still the one to knock them down and show the diagnosis to get help. The battle begins :)

Firstly school.
What help if any is he getting there? Has he got difficulties and issues in school that would warrant a statement of needs or are you and school happy with the way things are going.

Contact the NAS website and find out if your area has a branch near you. They have guest talks and such and arrange courses and have advice both autism and parenting wise and education support wise.

Are there any SN support groups near you that you could join? Not only for company but you could well pick up on some good tips :)

Buy some books online with parenting strategies for an AS child there are some great ones on Amazon.

Have you looked for your local autism support group? They should be able to point you in the direction of these sorts of things. You should be able to find your local group from the National Autistic Society webside. I don't know if they are countrywide but here we have autism outreach who come into school to help advise the school on issues that they may need help with too. Does your son have problems coping with school (academic or social/communication issues) and are you happy with the help he is getting in school? If not then you may need to consider asking the local authority for statutory assessment with a view to trying to get him a statement of special educational needs to gain him better support. IPSEA is a great website to visit for help with this if you feel this is something you need to do.

NAS do a course called 'Earlybird' or 'Earlybird plus' in some areas, which you may find useful. TBH, the best part of the course for me was the networking with other parents of recently DXed DC. Are there any support groups local to you? NAS may have some details, or HV?

This board is a great source of help, so hang around.

he's not currently at school another issue were facing. we moved in january following a split with dad so the new school are trying to do an iep and social stories for him so apparently its a smooth transion.but i worry the longer he not at school the worse it will be when he goes back.i was told that i would be put on a early bird course but as yet nothing has happened. i will now look on nas website. thank u so much x

Hi Kayla25 - we're in a similar position with DS (5) diagnosed with AS a couple of weeks ago. My local NAS branch has produced a really useful guide of local resources for people with AS/ASD so I'm going to try some of the contacts in there. In my case both school and CAMHS have been very active and supportive since he returned to school this week - due to some really 'challenging' behaviour related to him attacking another child at school (very complex situation related to his negative obsession with toy story of all things...) - anyway, school and CAHMS have been on the case and hey presto, school have kick started the statementing process.

How do you feel? In a way, I'm very relieved to 'know' for sure, but still finding it hard to deal with :(

WW

hi ww yes i do feel very relieved to no for sure and may sound very selfish but its nice too know that its not something i have done.his behaviour is also very challenging an at times and at last school they put it down to him just misbehaving.he has a fixation on meerkats so most days he would take 1 2 school(teddy meerkats not live lol) which they refused to let him have. im just hoping that when new school finally get sorted he will get on better as they now aware of his condition.
yes im finding it hard to deal with 2 as there dosent seem many things round here help wise. i have now signed up as a member with nas tho so hopefully advice from them.kayla