It went REALLY well. Better than I could have dared to hope!
The portage assessor spent about 1.5 hrs here, talking to me, observing DS3.
She is going to recommend that he has a high level of Portage, and that he should attend the Nursery class at the SN school that I viewed last week and he was informally accepted at.
She saw his Autistic behaviours too, and they were all noted down, and will go into his report.
This report will form the basis of getting his statement, if she suggests SN Nursery or school, then he needs a statement...
She was from a different part of Essex, known to be more likely to go for early intervention, and she was asking done pretty, erm, searching questions about how hard it was to get help with Autism issues in this town, and to get a dx. I told her the truth, that it was very difficult.
She was sent because 2/3 of our towns portage assessor a are on Mat leave, so they are very short staffed.
It seems like she was partly sent by County to see if there were reasons for the number of parental complaints in our town...
She also asked about his siblings, so I explained about DD, DS1 & DS2. She rolled her eyes and said that it was obvious that with a discrepancy between DS1's high IQ and his total lack of social skills (documented by school), that he has Aspergers, that she can't believe that I have been left for 15 years with no help.
She is going to send me on some courses, but I can't remember their names (except that it wasn't early bird), and hopefully one of them will help with my DD and DS1's behaviour too.
I just can't believe how well it all went, that he is going to get portage AND that she is going to recommend the SN Nursery placement.
It was almost too easy! The lack of need to fight has got me stumped tbh. Just so glad I have some happy news for once. This report carries SO much weight with the statementing process in my LA, too.