ABA in school - what would you do?

[salondon]

Please bear with me while I explain.

Sept 2009 girl. Starting reception in 2014. Nursery year - 10 hrs ABA in nursery, 12 hours at home. Privately funded. Tribunal in march 2014.

I visited the local schools and most said yes to the child but no to ABA. How do I name a school now?

• school F,local, good school, i know some mums. The senco and Ht said no to ABA. I can still name them, but they said they don't know enough about ABA to adopt it. Declined the offer to chat to my consultant, watch a session in progress, attend workshops, my tutors coming in. They spoke to current day care manager who acknowledges that the child has made progress but he doesn't agree with all the approaches on ABA(he has always agrued that my girl would have been fine without ABA. I don't get into that argument with him).
• school V, not local, told me they don't know anything about ABA. Dont want to know anything about us. But will take us and our program if the statement comes with funding.
• all other schools said no to ABA.

What would you do?

Name school F because it's local, and once they see ABA they will like it.

Name school V because they are going to take ABA so long as the funding is there. They are not local and dropoffs and pickups will add another complication to an already complicated asd family

Don't name a school and let the lea find a co-operative school. (I have spoken to them all already)

Ask for an out borough school(I have no clue where to start looking for one).

Ask for homeschool because none of the local schools can implement aba(their words not mine) and ABA is the only way this girl learns(EP has validated that).

Thanks!

Don't name a school. I know this will be stressful but in my tribunal the fact I named a school went against us as an implication that we felt a school could meet needs.

I would name ABA only, to be integrated into a mainstream education over a minimum period of 2 years. Then leave the problem of placement up to the LA. If they have prepped their LA schools to say no then they'll have to unprep them. If they cannot find a school either willing or that they are able to persuade then the LA will have to find a mainstream independent if the tribunal has ruled ABA.

Love that one star - unprep them. Because they HAVE preped them :D. The senco to me he has spoken to the lea EP and my case worker. I knew then where this conversation was going!!

My worst nightmare is being given a school 10 miles away from where we live.

They won't give a state school 10 miles away because it will either take too long to travel to for the well being of your child, justifying considerable MORE home tuition, or cost them a bomb in transport with escort costs.

Lots of early years providers are registered to take children up to the end of reception age btw, so as long as you don't mind out of year (the LA will mind very much) that might also be an option once you have heard the LA's proposal.

Yes, as starlight says, don't name the school yet.

Is the tribunal to get a statement, or to get ABA in a statement? If the latter, then you can just say "ABA + mainstream school", then whichever school you choose has to oblige (or provide solid legally backed-up reasons against, which again you could appeal if you wanted).

If the tribunal is to get a statement only (regardless of ABA) then imo it's crucial that you find a school who support ABA, as if you want to continue it privately funded, school have to agree to this.

In any event, even with ABA on statement, you do want a school to be willing accept and embrace ABA, as it can be really difficult to work it out if they don't want ABA but are forced to have it . In that context school V sound most suitable, as sounds like school F really don't want it. But you still don't have to name them until you (hopefully!) win ABA.

How far is considered too far? Should the travel and escort be covered as part of the statement?

We really don't care for the school initially. She is going there just to generalise the skills. All her learning is at home

Baily it's for ABA + mainstream. But we don't want a second fight after the tribunal and want to cover it as one process.

I am not too sure now if the schools are anti ABA or have been asked by the lea to discourage me

'How far is considered too far? Should the travel and escort be covered as part of the statement?'

I 'think' no more than 45mins in a taxi. Escort and taxi don't need to be included. If the school is more than 2 miles away (I think), the entitlement is automatic.

You can sometimes get direct payment if you want to drive or arrange transport yourself. These are usually fairly easy to get agreed.

It's a standard tactic to get you to name a school, get the HT in front if a judge saying he/she doesn't agree with ABA, that it doesn't fit in with ethos of school and is against ABA tutors on premises, and have the judge subsequently feeling unable to force the school to take it.

Judges have no jurisdiction over schools, only LAs. So it is the LA the judge needs to require to arrange ABA-schooling.

Ok. So looks like letting the LA choose the school is the way to go. Would the LA genuinely make an effort to convince/prep the school to take on ABA? Or would they just pull a name out of the hat and leave the school to deal with it?

I doubt the LA would do anything to get the school on-side with ABA. (They'll probably want to try and get rid of ABA at the first annual review in fact.)

The LA will almost certainly have prepped the school to be anti-ABA, o you can't really tell if it's the school's prejudice or because they've been got at, but even if not, many schools are fearful of something they know nothing about esp as it involves someone external coming in (as schools always know best, dontchaknow ). Dudesmummy recently won tribunal for ABA and though the school stood against her at tribunal it turned out afterwards that they only did so under duress from the LA and are really supportive now.

But I don't know how usual that scenario is - more likely is what happened to us, which is an ongoing battle for control with school, and them trying to remove ABA from statement as soon as they can.

Have you got a statement atm? What school does it name?

Yes Bialy, we have a statement - 15hrs/week during nursery year and 25 from recepti

Yes Bialy, we have a statement - 15hrs/week during nursery year and 25 from reception. However it doesn't have ABA on it. It says teachh or ABA. I need that teachh bit struck through. And n

Sorry the phone is messing about with me.

....and the statement says the lea's special teachers will offer carrots termly. We need ABA consultant coming in.

So yes, in short what we need is a cooperative school. Everything else is secondary at this point in time. No school is named. Only the nursery is named. Semi annual review is due in march

You can't actually do teachh in mainstream. 29 other kids bouncing around, an untrained TA and a teacher trying to infuse the national curriculum into 30 little brains.

It basically relies on modifying the environment in whatever way necessary so that autism isn't a barrier to learning.

So leave the teachh in for now, and concentrate on your dc's right to mainstream.

Maria - they may not be doing teachh but they are all saying we do teachh. There was a workstation in classes in all schools.

A workstation excludes.

ABA on the other hand facilitates inclusion.

Inclusion is not about the location of the space your body occupies.

I know Star. I just wanted to do this amicably and not involve the tribunal etc

I think the IP care less for the school than for ABA. At that age, ABA can be done in most independent preschools.

However, If a school that an LA has told to take the child who has needs and provision ordered by a judge as the only adequate provision to meet needs, and they refuse, they are in breach of the equity act in the same way that they would be if they said they disagreed with allowing hearing aids as they preferred to sign, or with wheel chairs.

Star, my daughter will be 5 in sept 2014. She won't be able to stay in her current mainstream private day care(where we are running a privately funded program) beyond Dec 2014.

Have you asked them?

It's just that most are licensed for Early years and that includes reception.

I know this because Ds was 5 in November and yet remained in his toddler group until the following March.

In truth the setting may have never heard of anyone doing this, as nearly all are into school, but it IS possible.

And actually he wasn't the only one as shortage of places at good schools meant some parents kept their kids there whilst waiting for a place.

Okay. Makes sense and I will check. Her urgent setting want to get rid of ABA and the tutors too. So they aren't a long term solution either. And anyways, she will need ABA beyond reception.

What happens if school do workstation and we run an ABA program at home? ABA should help them generalise skills anyways. Right?