DS with ASD starting school Sept 2018 - I am feeling overwhelmed

[Hurricane74]

Hi

My son has a diagnosis of ASD and is due to start school next Sept. We are in discussion with the LA about an EHCP and have a Joint Assessment Meeting for early December. I had hoped he would go to a mainstream school and see how it goes, with the option of a school with an autism unit or a SS is things don’t work out. But now am feeling very doubtful a mainstream school could meet his needs. We had a report from the LA yesterday based on observations of him at preschool and it makes such sobering reading. It puts his developmental age at 8-20 months for most areas (he is 40 months) and his understanding and listening skills at 0-11 months. (His moving and handling skills are almost age appropriate). His main issues are social anxiety, sensory issues around noise and his lack of understanding and speech. Has anyone experience of a child with similar issues managing in a mainstream setting? If so, what kind of provision did you ask for and receive? Thanks for reading.

Ahh bless you Liv that’s lovely of you and exactly what I need to hear right now!

Wonderful to hear that your little DS is making such strides with his speech and communication. There’s something about 4 isn’t there. Our kids suddenly make so much progress it’s brilliant. And just in time for September. You must be really pleased. Long may it continue.

Hello to everyone else 👋 I’m avidly reading everyone's updates about 1:2:1s etc and realising it really is around the corner now!

Xx

Oh I'm glad they like it Liv! Did you see they have a colouring book version too?

Congratulations seeking! And well done deciding on the school. It is so hard to choose but I'm sure it will be good. I can't remember, are you planning to take DS yourself in a car or public transport, or does he get picked up? I'm sure once you're into the groove of it it will be fine. And babies are great at sleeping on journeys, so he/she won't notice until they're older and then it will just be part of normal life for them.

We've had a full on weekend here. End of term concert (after all the anxiety in the run up DD actually wore her costume and sang and even did a couple of actions - OMG!!) on Friday and a picnic with some of the other kids after. Then birthday party on Saturday (again outdoors at lunchtime, SO HOT, but DD did OK) and another school picnic thing yesterday (we really should just have ditched that one - DD and I both struggled, though not a disaster at all, just tired out!!) I know we're not supposed to moan but I'm really not very good in the heat, hoping we get a bit of more normal summer weather soon. 23 degrees and a breeze with the odd summer shower would do me just fine thank you!

Hope everyone else is coping better with the heat!

Hi light, wowzers I’d feel exhausted just reading about your weekend! It sounds full on but loads of fun. (I hear you on the weather. I’ve always been a summer bunny but I over it now! Can’t sleep!).

Sounds like your DD did brilliantly at the concert. You must have been chuffed 😊

We are doing the travel ourselves. It was the carrot that got the LA to agree to the out of borough school without a big fight. I’m sure I’ll rue the day we came up with that plan after a week on the tube, but thank you for what you said! Hopefully it’ll all be ok. It’s a small school, they seem very nurturing and my DS gave his new teacher a kiss when we left after having taster day (DH and I were 😮) so he must have been impressed with her. I hope I lasts though!

Are you all set with school now Light? Xx

Many congratulations seeking, I wish you a very happy and healthy pregnancy. It sounds like you have made the best decision for your ds, hopefully it will all just become routine for you all by the time the new baby arrives.

Light my SALT loved the Colour Monster book too, she had not seen it before.

liv we have the Topsy and Tim start school book too. It’s quite good.

Yes I think so seeking - we are keeping her at the reception of the pre-school she's already at. It's a new building (but she has been going there one afternoon a week to use the playground all term, along with her classmate - plus her teacher is moving across to be her reception teacher, so the transition is not too big I hope!)

It feels good though some of the parents are a bit "flash". We are more your classic earnest/nerdy types so I find some of them a bit hard to manage and it does make me wonder if we've done wrong by going private (if we don't fit in what hope does DD have?) But actually a lot of them are nice one to one, I just find them overwhelming in a big group (wonder where DD gets it from???)

Plus yesterday coincidentally it was mainly the parents we don't know very well who showed up (who are also the more flash ones) - presumably all the ones we do know sensibly decided Friday's picnic and Saturday's party was quite enough school socialising for one weekend thank you! Anyway, in any group I think you'll get some nice and some hard to take, so this is life really, I need to stop overthinking it.

Light congratulations to your dd, you must have been so proud of her.

Congratulations Seeking!

Light - congrats on the concert performance. My son's nursery 'graduation' is this afternoon and I'm dreading it!

We are meeting my boy's 1:1 on the last day of term at 3pm - a school full of hyped up children - I can't see any way of that going wrong!

Good luck dimples.

Hope it goes OK dimples: he may surprise you! Hope he is calm enough to have a good meeting with the 1:1 anyway.

I was pretty amazed by DD. She sang all but 1 song (and has been singing that one at home, so it's not that she didn't know it - it was the last one and I think she was just worn out poor love - she didn't look upset but just zoned out for that bit!) Fair enough. It was a big room with probably 25 kids and maybe 40 parents and siblings etc. so it's a lot to take in! She had said in the morning that she might not want to wear her costume, and had been saying for weeks that she didn't want to sing and was worried about it. We said it was fine if she didn't want to, but if she did manage to do it she would get a pop-up jelly bean for each song she managed to sing, which I think was a good incentive! We always worry about wanting to give her a reward for doing things that are hard, but also not wanting to put her under too much pressure if she is already feeling anxious...

It went pretty well - he was not disruptive. He didn't join in the singing of most of the songs (he had been practicing at high volume at home) but did do the actions. The venue made it hard for him to focus (an old town hall reception room) he spent a lot of time staring at the ceiling which I can see would fascination him. About ten mins before the end he shouted out that he needed a wee - cue 3 trips to the toilet with me and no result.

It was v warm and v.long (over an hour including a mini speech about each child) so all in all I was v impressed by him. It was a bit depressing listening to the speeches about the other children's learning and friendships but I'll try not to dwell on that!

Light and dimples your little ones did super well. I think NT children often struggle with these things too and yours coped amazingly.

Ds’s nursery doesn’t do anything like that. They have a leavers picnic with parents on Friday afternoon which, unfortunately, ds will not enjoy as he refuses to sit with everyone and eat. We’ll stay for a short while and then go.

He did fine at school this morning I think from the small amount of feedback I got. That’s it now until he starts in September. I’m looking forward to receiving the draft EHCP.

Open it's strange isn't it moving from nursery where I get quite detailed feedback to school visits where it's v short snappy. Glad he had a good visit though.

My son would be the same at a picnic - probably he would say 'shall we go Mummy?' from 1 minute in!

dimples we have a communication book at nursery and I’ve asked for it to be continued at school. The case worker (?) is going to include it in the EHCP.

That's so great light, you must've been so proud of your dd!

Glad the visit went well dimples.

Thanks for the recommendation open. I'll take a look.

We should have put my DD and your DS in a team Dimples, then we would have had words and actions!!! Very impressed he (and you) managed an hour. Ours was about 20 minutes I think which already felt like enough!

Definitely Light! and yes it was way too long the other family with SN child in the class had to make an early exit. It was really sweet as they read a little speech about each child (but there were 22 of them). Fortunately my boy loves applause and clapped through the other speeches and gave his classmates thumbs up - he knows when to turn on the charm!

We have received a draft EHCP!

It is typically vague on who will provide support to meet the outcomes. It says ‘TA, school staff and SENco’ and under how often ‘Daily; reviewed termly by SENco, school staff, parents and child’. The details of the provision say he will need an ‘individualised curriculum and intensive adult support’. The cover letter says that ‘no school placement or resources are specified on the proposed plan’. It seems we have to agree it, or not, and then they complete the details.

How does this compare to the drafts that you received? I am arranging to discuss with Core Assets but do we push them to firm up the details of provision before we agree?

Thanks

That's great Open!

To be honest we just left it as 'daily' and 'educational staff'. I know it's not right but I really didn't want to go to tribunal. Also the provision in section F was really detailed, so some timings were specified within particular provisions. They did specify SALT times though.

It was really helpful having someone read it through with me. Definitely worth doing!

I went on a getting ready for school talk the other day and they said in our borough they don't do 'velcro' LSAs anymore, which is probably why it is 'educational staff'.

We don’t have any SALT or OT provision. We didn’t expect to get it though in our view he needs SALT until such a time as his social communication is on par with his peers. He’s certainly not there yet despite all his language.

Hopefully the school will allow our private therapists to visit him at school, I have mentioned it briefly and they seemed happy but need to have a proper discussion.

Having said that, he is still not gelling with our SALT and I don’t know if it’s the pressure of the situation - she visits him at home so very much focus on him - or her. The OT sees him at nursery and he seems fine with her. Not sure if it’s maybe something he doesn’t like about her. He seemed to improve and then it got worse again. The last session he refused to come downstairs until she was leaving. If there’s no improvement soon we either need to find someone else or change it so that she goes in monthly to give the TA’s stuff to work on with him daily in the classroom.

Yes that's tricky one. How long has she been working with him?

My ds was seeing a private salt for a while (about 6 months I think) and they didn't really click. She didn't really get autism and my ds was struggling so much with sensory stuff I don't think he was taking most of it in. We had a brief period when it seemed to be going well, then it went really downhill and he would have a meltdown every time we went it the room. I think we left after 10mins on the last session!

I'm sure the school will be flexible. I haven't bought it up with mine yet.

I think since March. Sporadically for the first couple of months but then mostly fortnightly for the last couple. The other option is to try and find someone else and try a couple of sessions alongside and see if they connect more. Tricky.

Thanks for your comments liv. Dh and I will go through the EHCP tonight. I have a call with Core Assets tomorrow morning and in the afternoon I’m going to the school to do a risk assessment with them so I can discuss it with the teacher.

I think some of the targets are too light. Off the top of my head they include to learn 2 phonemes within 12 months and count to 20. Well he can already count to 20 and I’d hope he’d make more progress with phonemes if he can focus on it because he has such a good memory for stories etc. I’m not sure what is realistic though. We want them to be slightly stretching surely?

I think the idea is that you have a variety of SMART outcomes over different time periods. But if he is already counting to 20 then that seems a bit moot!
I suppose the worry is that you don't want him to massively over excel or they might use it for grounds to try and take the EHCP away. Although in reality I think it's very hard for them to prove that if you take the support away he would still achieve. I definitely wouldn't put it past our LA!

My EHCP is quite vague in the ‘how often’ and ‘who’ columns but then there is a resources column. This includes items such as:

185 minutes per week allocated for targeted interventions (1:1) costed at LSA rate ..
If you add up all the 1:1 minutes down the resources column it adds up to FT 1:1.

Some of my son’s outcomes are v woolly - no ‘academic’ targets like that. There are things such as ‘with light touch support’ he will be independent in all basic self-help skills (toileting, dressing etc). I’m not too worried about that as we are having a review in Feb. I agree though Open you don’t want to include outcomes that he can already do - as well as potentially risking further support it does not feel ambitious enough for your child.

dimples were the minutes in your draft or only put into the final document? Ours doesn’t seem to have a resources column.

He can count to 20 and can recognise the numbers certainly up to 10 and starting to get the concept of 11-20 rather than saying 1 and 1, but he can only count smallish groups of items. I think that is one that can be fleshed our a bit, the outcome is just being able to say the words I think? I need to speak to the teacher about what they’d expect a typical child to do by the end of reception as I’m really not sure. They certainly wouldn’t set targets beyond that - I’m not remotely implying he would need them to.

It seems to me like we could go back to them on so much if we want to be real sticklers. I need guidance from Core Assets on whether there’s any point doing this or whether we just focus on what’s most important.

I feel like I need to be an expert in what children typically learn through the reception year and really I have little idea.

One of his targets, for instance, is that he will attend to mark making for 5 minutes. If he sat and scribbled for 5 mins that outcome would be achieved. Surely it needs to be that he’s also able to draw some pre-writing shapes (per the info provided by the OT) or to write his own name? Within a year that doesn’t seem too stretching but maybe it is?