help!!! Special schools advice please....

[nutmeg]

Went to see two units today. One was an ASD unit and one was a Language unit. The Language unit was lovely. I don't know that will meet ds's every need as the visual element isn't that evident. He has a diagnosis of ASD but most of his difficulties centre round Sp and L rather than other issues , so Lang unit was thought very appropriate. The hour I spent at the ASD unit was one of the most depressing I have ever had. I felt the children were 'contained'! There was no obvious organisation, the displays were non existant and there were a few activities lying around. I wanted to go in and say "let me paint this room and do some art work of any sort with the children and then mount it nicely and put it on the walls". The teachers seemed to be slumped and going through the motions. Please, tell me that there are other places that might be good to look at for a boy with ASD tendencies but no behavioural issues. Perhaps it is a case of go with the lang unit and provide the visual timetables, etc, myself... Or maybe there are some great mainstream schools out there??? Don't want to put the area at this point.

Have you asked the LEA if there are other sn schools in the area that your ds can attend
or mainstream that offer facilities

are there other mums close by who have children at said schools and offer advice

good luck and hope you find one you and your ds likes
xxx

Do you have a local NAS support group? Other parents in your area will be able to tell you about which places to apply for/avoid.

Good luck.

ds is 4. We are moving out of London and into a new area so I haven't any of the contacts that I have in London. All your advice is great. I think the display thing got to me because in the classroom there was just a mish mash of scribbly paper overlapping all over the place.
I will go on the NAS site and I will try and find some people in the local area. We don't move until July which makes it hard!

DS's school has lovely displays and themes etc. Lots of photos and artwork as well as the visual timetables etc. Maybe a lang unit or something like an ICan school (few and far between) would be good?

do you think that lang units can accomodate a child who is asd?

Personally I don't as ASD has so many other dimensions and I know that some won't take children with ASD, but there's always a possibility. Mind you, Blossomhill's DD goes to such a unit (now emerging as AS/HFA) and it sounds great. There are more and more ASD units attached to m/s schools these days or there's the option of m/s with good support (can be done but difficult).

ds1's school has loads of displays as well. His last classroom was lovely and light and full to the brim with stuff. What they do is use screens if they need to remove distractions - they have these fab light plastic screens and if a child isn't paying attention to where they are going next, the screen gets grabbed, the child is cordoned off out come the PECS and go through the next activity.

Might be worth asking parents if there are any other options.

DS1's is PMLD phsyical and everything. They split the classes though, so each year group (well several year groups combined) has a physically able and physically challenged class, In practice this means that for each age group you have a class of children with CP and a class of mainly autistic. They have a couple of PMLD classes, and 2 outreach classes on a mainstream site.

DS1's school, although sheltered is preparing him for the real world far more than his mainstream school. At m/s he wasn't allowed to accompany his class on school trips (not even to the park, or to tree planting), sports day was arranged for a time when he wasnt there, he was often taught in isolation.

At his special school he goes out all the time, has to order stuff in shops/cafes using PECS, has to take part in school plays, sports days etc, the work within the school is focussed on life skills and that gets built into lessons. Lots of learning to eat independently (he now spreads bread with butter if its left lying around, will try and wash up, clean the table etc, socks get taken off and out in shoes, cakes get mixed etc).

TEACCH is more bays isn't it, which i think the moveable screens can recreate if need be, but are more flexible. I think plain walls is a son-rise idea :o

Is a bit of both a possibility. It can be tricky to do, and one would have to be outreach. Maybe based in special but outreach to m/s 3 afternoons a week or something, that way you can try before you buy, I'd ask about the possibility maybe.

A lot of providers of prgrammes seem anti special school, not sure why, mayeb they're stuck with the old image of them (bead threading etc) or maybe they're so focussed on normalising. I think if a child has a certain level of functioing then mainstream is the best place to practice living in the real world,. but they need that level. Maistream was and always will be a waste for ds1, but your dd is obviously higher functioning, but I do think to get anything out of m/s a child has to be very socially high functioing AND able to cope with the sensory onslaught of a m/s school.

Oh God - this thread has started me worrying again. We're thinking of m/s for DS2 and he doesn't socialise with other children AT ALL. He's not frightened of them and will tolerate them being close - but imo it's because he's so indifferent to them. If they make approaches he just turns away. Having said that I have seen the beginnings of some flickers of interest lately - but flickers is all they are. I don't think the noise etc would be a problem as he is under-reactive rather than over-reactive to things. He would 'cope' in m/s, I think,(as long as he gets 1:1) but I don't want him to cope, I want him to thrive!

Our problem is there are no ASD specific schools nearby and the special school with the best reputation is miles away. I met a mum recently whose 6 year old son with ASD goes there in a taxi with three other boys and her stories about the journey made my blood run cold. There is a small glimmer of hope about our local Language Unit though. Apparently they do sometimes take children with an autistic dx if their autism is 'atypical'. God knows exactly what that means but I'm hoping DS2 might fit the bill!

Returning to the subject of the original post (having wandered far, far off it ) I agree with Davros in that I can see why some Lang Units don't take kids with ASD - too many different learning styles for them to cope with - and I'm still far from sure that it's the right place for DS2. I guess you just have to look at which place has the best approach for your individual child. And I thought choosing a school for DS1 was scary!

sphil- children change a lot in the next few years so worht hanging fire a bit,
The noise isn't ot be underestimated Socci. I remember going with ds1 to look around his special school then taking him back to his ms school. The noise of the classroom just hit me. I hadn't noticed until seeing the contrast.

Yes JJ I know - that's the only thing keeping me from completely pulling my hair out. I suppose what worries me is that his sociability with other children hasn't really changed at all over the last year, when so many other things have.

How old is he? 3? I think its really hard to tell at 3. Some children have everything click and off they zoom and you;re looking at HFA, others (like ds1 grrr) stay still. Think you have to play a bit of a waiting gmae unfortunately.

That's one thing I've realised from being on MN - you just can't tell at 3 how they'll develop. People sometimes ask me where DS2 is on the spectrum and I have to say 'I don't know'. Low down for some things; high for others. It's just difficult, isn't it, for things like school where you HAVE to do a certain amount of planning ahead.

By the way, it sounds as if your DS1 is making great progress at his school.

Definitely! I'd be quite happy to continue with DS2 at home/nursery for another 2 years at least.
Must go to bed - screen's going all blurry!

Socci, can you try m/s with shadow very part-time without it being a commitment via your LEA? That's what we did. I think ABA providers are not anti-special school as such, its just not on their radar as the program is fundamentally supposed to prepare a child for m/s and provide the best support along with it. When DS went to m/s school with an ABA shadow from home I was extremely skeptical but I was proved wrong as he DID learn some things (e.g. lining up, not calculus!), observing and following the group, at least looking at the teacher if not really understanding what she was saying/doing. But we did it very much as an experiment on our own terms and realised that, although it benefited him, esp as he had no siblings, it was never going to be a fulltime option.

Its hard for you Sphil as you have a little oddbod but that might work in your favour if you can find a Lang Unit???? But 3 is very, very young to predict anything and, whatever you do at this age, try to think of a get-out option if you might need one. Easy to say, not so easy to do though as usually we end up with one option.
TEACCH is very much based on fitting the environment around the child, therefore avoiding anything they might find alarming or inappropriately interesting.... this is one of the main things I don't like about it. Although none of us would deliberately expose our children to an environment they find distressing, if you can help them learn to tolerate noises, other children, lights etc then that's got to be better than always avoiding it imo.