How did we get it so wrong???

[Captainbarnacles1101]

My son is currently being assessed as possible ASD. At our last apt in August the paediatrician felt we needed an educational psychology assessment to see if ds needed help at school. (He is 3 and starts nursery in sept 2014)
I should have realised at that point that there were obviously concerns since the referral was actioned straight away.
We have spent the last few months looking at mainstream nursery and hoping we will get a class room assistant for him.
Ed psych came this week and assessed the wee man. They say he has moderate to severe learning g difficulties and will need a special needs placement from nursery school.

I still feel stunned. Like I been punched in the chest.
We are both professionals and I can't believes we got this so wrong.
Anyway there r two special schools in the area. How do we go about choosing one?

Sorry for the epic take!

Manish, it's not ok to advertise, whether it be a free service or paid. IF you want to advertise, you need to ask MNHQ, who will direct you to their services for that.

Captainbarnacles, you have the legal right to a mainstream education in all but a few specified circumstances. However, Specialist education (Special School) has been the very best thing for my DD, who has moderate learning difficulties.

I suggest you do the following:

• look up the special schools - are they for ages 2-19, 4-11, 4-16, etc? How many children do they take? What is the profile of students? Some will be specifically MLD, some SLD, some MLD/SLD, some simply 'complex needs' (which means they take any child from MLD, SLD, PMLD, ASD, etc.), some Physical Needs, etc.

-Arrange to go and visit the schools. Get a feel for how the HT is talking about the children. See how you feel as you look around - can you 'see' your DS there?

-Go to MS settings and see what they say they can do for your DS.

In my experience it is often cheaper for a LA to give 1:1 support at MS school than it is to offer Special School, and Special School places are highly sought after - my Special School has demand that is 3x the number of places, easily.

Look at both sorts of provision. Also look.at what they will provide - we sent ds to ms nursery and he only got half days, and in fact only 4 a week because the service that provided 1:1s didnt do fridays....but if he had gone to sp schl nursery he aould have been abke to go full time.

ABA works well for some families but not for all, manish- it has to suit the family dynamic. Would be a complete failure in my house and home, DIR works better inasmuch as we can manage a program or anything of.

Please Op don't feel you got it wrong, you didn't. it took me ages to realise ds4 was heading down the ASD path- despite 2 already diagnosed with autism and at that point being midway through an MA in Autism. Even now I am fully aware my professional head is not my mum head, it just isn't, people sometimes find it hard to give me advice but actually, I nee it as much as anyone because you don't see your own family as you do other children. You know, in my last job I had to arrange ASD training for volunteers and staff: I did all the research, met with the providers (a disability charity),..... and sat there open mouthed as they described ds1.

As for schools- gut instinct every time. Visit and ask about (I learned more about provision in 2 weeks attending a special needs sports club than I ever had from the LA). We currently use 4 different schools- 2 MS, 2 SN- but it's what is right for them and worth the organisational hell and spreadsheets it involves. And hugs to you, it's a bloody hard time, diagnosis. But time does help you come to terms with it, find ways of coping, and our kids can develop in ways we never thought imaginable. DS3 won't ever be fully independent, but he now chats away and could not aged 6, and can read and write even if not the same level as his peers. We just didn't think it could happen.

I also categorically do NOT recommend all children should start in mainstream- I think all children who can cope should get the chance to, but for some children it makes everything so very much harder, and if a child cannot cope with noise / busy places / etc then they will potentially lose time to distress and even just coping that could be spent being educated. My youngest is in MS and whilst it works for him usually (he has a statement) times like Christmas where routines change throw him so massively that I don't think it will be right for him at all longer term. The impact on his behaviour and self esteem is actually setting him back.

I am however a vociferous advocate of the Base system, where it exists and when it is appropriate.

Totally agree with Peachy. Mainstream does not suit all children. My DS did 4 years in an indie mainstream school and all it did was give him a severe anxiety disorder and put him at high risk of a nervous breakdown (at the age of 8!!!) because his needs being incorrectly met by a mainstream school which couldn't cope with him but refused to admit it. So inside they piled on inappropriate help (how do you cope with a child who has severe dyslexia and clearly isn't coping, oh I know, we'll give him hours of extra homework each night over and above his classmates...).

I had to pull him out of school after year 3, and it took me a year of home eding him to get his anxiety back down and he's now in an indie special school. He should have been in ss years ago - possibly as soon school realised something was wrong - which was when he was in reception.

Mainstream schooling isn't for all children - even when they're very young

OP don't beat yourself up over this. The main thing is that you now know - so time to go full steam ahead and find the right school.

What is ABA?