I am feeling especially down about DS1 today & I am worried about him going in the juniors.

[Pinkchampagne]

He hasn't got a dx yet, but we are going through the assessment process with him at the moment.
He has always had problems with social skills, fine motor skills & organising himself, but as he is getting older the problems seem far more noticable.
While his class mates are all up on the field kicking a football, my DS is either walking around alone flapping his hands every now & then or kneeling down running his fingers in the soil. (I work in the school, which is why I get to see this)

In class he is very lathargic & needs constant pushing to get on with his work. His handwriting is like that of a 4 year olds & he still reverses a lot of letters & numbers. (He is 8 in September) He seems to really dislike school as well & has no motivation to learn.

Today was class swap day & he spent the morning in his new year 3 class, which he will be moving into in September.

His new TA came up to me at breaktime & said "We need to have a chat about your son soon - there are worries there aren't there?"
She went on to tell me how long it took him to even sit down as he just stood there at first, and then it was real hard work to get him to even attempt to write anything.
I am so worried about him going up to KS2 & all the extra challanges. I am also aware that the other children may soon start really noticing how different he is & picking on him.

My youngest son had his morning visit in school today (he starts reception in Sept) & seeing him charge around with the other children just brought it all home to me how very different DS1 is.
I have been feeling really down all day, and I'm so worried about the challanges he faces.
I am also finding his behaviour really hard to keep on top of, and I feel especially low today.
Feel free to ignore my ramblings, I just needed to type it all down because I can't talk to anyone about it.

PC Your boys are about the same age as mine (Ds1 goes into Yr3 in September and ds2 starts Reception in September). Yr3 is a big step isn't it?

Has anyone said yet what they will be doing to help ds with his difficulties, or is everyone waiting for the assessment results?

Year 3 seems a very big step & one I wish I could delay.
I have made year 2 harder for him with the whole separation. I wish he could have another year in year 2, but obviously he can't.
Don't think there will be any talk of extra help until we get the assessment results.

I am in a bad way tonight. I'm worried DS1 is also a bit depressed & I'm not helping.

Every year since Ds started school, I have worried about how DS would cope with the new challanges he faced, but the thought of him going up to the juniors seems far worse. I just don't know how he is going to cope with all the extra work load & demands.
His assessment process should be complete by early December.

Hi Pinkchampagne. I am in the same position as you but luckily we have disagnosis. Given that the school are well aware of his problems I don't think they should be "waiting until he has an assessment". Obviously you need to get a diagnosis but that should not be an excuse for the school to sit back and do nothing.

I am afraid it will be up to you to forcefully explain your concerns to the school and demand that they urgently put more help in place for your ds. For example my ds always finds the start of the first term very hard with a new teacher/routine. The school have therefore arranged for him to receive one to one support for a few hours each week until he has settled in. He also gets two social skills sessions a week, support from a LSA (who also helps others in the class) and extra help with fine motor skills - another extra session each week. These interventions have made a great difference to ds but he only started getting them once I had made a BIG fuss at school. THe SENCO has admitted to me that nothing would have been done unless I had forced the issue.

I'm afraid that kids with an ASD do tend to find life harder as all the other kids get more mature. They can be helped however so don't dispair!!

Pink champagne, I should add that I too am very worried about year 3 transition even though ds is getting appropriate help.

It is a big difference going into juniors so I can understand your concerns totally. Please go and arrange a meeting with the SENCO/Head teacher and explain that your ds can't wait until Christmas for extra help to be put into place. IMHO lots of parents don't press for help because they are adopting a "head in the sand" approach. This gives the school an excuse to do nothing unless the kid is actually smashing up the class room or regularly having temper tantrums.

Oh mate
Well you'll find may a sympathetic ear on here. And this is the problem we face when our children integrqate in a school with NT children.

However I still believe that although it's hard sometimes, and upsetting to see the differences, i'm still doing the right thing. That might not always be the case but it's right for now.
But it's hard for us aye.

So is he statmented or not?
And yes look there are going to be worries. It's not goin g to be easy but ther is nothing that can't be dealt with, nothing that together you can't oversome. He is different but that doesn't have to be a negative thing. It's not always going to be plain sailing but grin and bear these rought days and you'll come out the other side smiling.

And Fwiw, I'm feeling very tense about DD1's transition from reception to year 1 but we'll get through it and take each day at a time.

Thank you for your messages.

He isn't statmented, TC, but he is down under school action + & has an IEP. Little seems to have been done recently though, even though they find it really hard to know what to do with him in class, and I had to take it upon myself to push for the referral.

There have been concerns about DS since nursery days, but at first I fought & fought against him being labelled. Think I just didn't want to admit there was a problem, even though I knew deep down there was.

He was seen my a pead 2 months back, and he is being referred onto a OT, child psycholgist & speech therapist.
He has been described by the pead as a complex child with complex difficulties & her thinking is that he is somewhere on the AS.

As he is getting older the differences are becoming more & more noticable & it breaks my heart to watch him in the playground.

The juniors is going to be a big challange for him.

Hope all goes well for Lottie in year 1, TC. You can't help but worry for them can you?

I totally empathise with you. I think what we have to think about though, is are they unhappy? Are they noticing their differences and is it breaking their hearts?

I often have my heart squeezed while watching Lottie trying to catch up with her peers in the playground etc, however she seems really happy, perhaps a little frustrated by the fact they have run on ahead a bit, perhaps a bit irritated by the odd thing, but not unhappy. In fact the opposite is true. She delights in watching her peers do things she doesn't yet have the confidence for yet. And on the whole, at the moment, although she is obviously very different to her peers and their abilities are off the scale compared to her, she intergrates well. I have to remind myself of what she can do and not what she can't, and not compare, after all what's the point. It would be like comparing a a kitten to a lion!

In general in terms of the school and their support and understanding and willingness to provide the right care for him, are you happy?

PC

I am sorry to read you are going through all this.

Even though you don't yet have a diagnosis I would start the ball rolling with regards to getting your son a Statement. This (unlike SA plus) is a document worth getting if you can because it is both legally binding and carries some clout if it is written properly (again unlike School Action plus which is not).

You can write to your LEA asking for your son to be assessed - there is nothing to stop you doing this. IPSEA's website (www.ipsea.org.uk) is very helpful in this regard.

It can take up to six months to get a Statement issued so time is important here. I would certainly not wait until he starts year 3 before doing this. Also don't let the Juniors say to you, "oh we'll see how he does in Y3".

I feel quite strongly about this anyway as I've seen too many children now struggle in Juniors without adequate support.

It does seem outrageous that he would have to wait until December even to start applying for extra help as a result of whatever the assessment concludes...can you press this through the Head or through the paed? Is there a dept in the LEA that deals with all this?

I suspect that you will have to push ('forcefully explain'), as caroline says...

it never rains, eh?

It is a very worrying time. Can I make a suggestion that helped my son for the transition. His LSA took him round the school on his own and with a camera and took photos of the dinner hall, classroom, teacher, playground etc (some of which with him in) and put them in a book with captions. It was thought to be such a good idea that now the school do it as a matter of course and produce a booklet for all transition children. I went through it with him in the summer.

A lot of the work they do in year 3 is repetition of some of the stuff in year 2 and there is much consolidation (some children are pushed in year 2 for SATS but arn't actually at that level so a year 3 teacher quite often has to go back to basics) so I wouldn't get too worried up about the academic side. Quite a lot of juniors have 'quiet areas' in the playground - could your son sit in there. Mine spun round and in the end the school marked out his own spinning spot

Good luck.

Thank you all.

From what I gather, it is really hard work getting a statement for your child. We have one autistic boy at the school with a statement, but he is quite badly affected & his statement took quite a while.
Because my DS doesn't yet have a definite dx, I kind of assumed my chances of getting him statemented were pretty minimal.
I will try to catch the SENCO & have a word with her because I am beside myself with worry.

DS does get a lot of extra TA attention, but his TA is the general class TA, so she obviously has to also help all the other children. I doubt he will get his own TA tbh.

They do try to encourage him to use sloped writing boards & laptops, but he doesn't really like using them because he is aware the other children aren't using them & he doesn't like to stand out.

TC - the thing is, I'm not so sure he is a happy child because he doesn't really look happy when I see him wandering alone.
He never gets invited to birthday parties or play dates because he isn't part of the gang. When he does go to the rare party he just sits in a corner, so I don't think he really enjoys them anyway.
He was tried at Beavers once, but he sat on a chair by the door the whole time, which he also did at a recent school disco that he told me he wanted to go to.
He seems to be missing out on all fun things that go with being a child.

Have filled out the forms for his OT, so just need to wait for the appointments to come through.

Will definitely have a talk with SENCO about my worries & see what can be done.

PC

It is possible to get a Statement without a formal diagnosis. It is bloody hard work getting such a document granted but if you manage to secure one of these it could help your son through his school life. He will not have his own TA without a Statement.

Hopefully the SENCO will be helpful in that she'll suggest something like using photos and social stories. However, if the school say anything like, "oh we'll see how he goes and then decide whether we (school) apply for a statement or not" that should raise red flags with your good self. Do not let school anywhere near a Statement application; you as the parent need to make it. You have far more power in this regard than school does.

So how would a parent start the process of getting a statement, and what is needed in the way of documentation etc?

I saw that Aloha had started it all...what thread is that?

Also, is there a source of information about social stories and pictures etc, and how to use them?

Hi Pinkchampagne. My ds has similar social problems to your ds (AS). However things have started getting a bit better since the school have been doing the social skills sessions. It has taken a couple of tems but he seems be interacting with the other kids more and has had a couple of play dates. No magic wand but I feel things are going in the right direction now. I really feel the social skills sessions and extra attention from the school have been vital here.

Are your school offering social skills sessions? This is absolutely the first priority for AS kids - they will not stand a chance of developing the appropriate social skills unless they receive specific training. Sorry I don't mean to keep going on about this but you need to take this up ASAP with the school so it can be set up for next term. I agree with all that Attilla says about a statement but whatever happens about that you can't afford to wait for another 6 months for help. I really believe that there is a lot that can be done for AS kids at primary school, they can be taught so much and this could make all the difference to how they cope with life. They can't just pick things up and develop socially like NT kids however so things won't get better until they receive that help.

Hi Blu

You just need to write an initial letter of request to the LEA. You do not need to send anything else to them. They have to reply to you within six weeks.

IPSEA (www.ipsea.org.uk) are very good at the whole minefield of statementing and their web address is shown above. They also have model letters you can use.

Thanks for that ATM, I wouldn't have a clue where to start with all this!
what are the chances of my DS being considered for a statement if he doesn't yet have a definite dx?

Thank you all for your replies & suggestions. I will have a proper read & reply later on as DS2 is being very demanding atm due to not having his brother for company!

My DS isn't having any kind of social skills sessions at all. He has had a pretty disturbed year all in all too, with his teacher going off sick with stress for 4 weeks, and then when she came back they had a student teacher take over teaching the class. His teacher has only been back in class for the last 2 weeks or so.

Last year in year 1, he went out with the S&L group to encourage his social skills, but this year there has been none of that as far as I am aware.

I really really need to talk to the SENCO & see what is going to be put into place for next year.

A lot of the TAs have had no AS training & even DS's teacher told me that there are times when she wonders how she will get through the day with my DS, and she is a very experienced teacher who has been at the school 14 years.

Going to take a look at the IPSEA site now.

thank you all.

Pinkchampagne, your first paragraph of op could have been about my ds.
He has dysraxia, and I have found the various web-sites about dyspraxia to be very helpful.
I do think that I am inclined to judge my ds by my standards, and sometimes I think things are more important than maybe they are; things like the joy of a sleepover with friends, or playing a board game, or chatting on the phone to friends. My ds is fairly happy, but different.
We are lucky however in that he is with the same class since he was 5 (he is now 13 and due to start secondary school in Sept.). He has been accepted for himself, and so even though he hasn't real friends, he feels part of the gang in school.
That said it breaks my heart to know he has no real friend to invite on an outing or whatever with us.
But the point of these ramblings (sorry) is that he is reasonably content, and I try to accept that.

My Ds seems to tick all the boxes for dyspraxia, POT, but the pead thinks there may be more to it than that as he appears a complex child with complex difficulties.
I think she is thinking AS, but I guess the two are pretty closely linked aren't they?

POT - does your DS do any of this hand flapping?
My DS is constantly either flapping or waving his hands atm, which I have always thought was a AS sign.

He doesn't now, but when he was younger his hands were always on the go. We usen't really notice it until we were in church every week, and then would realise that he looked really weird.
I can't even describe the movement he used do; it was more than normal childish fidgeting, or not sitting still, it used really embarras the other dc, and made me really fearful that he had more problems than we realised.

Only now do I realise he hasn't done it for quiet a while.

My DS has had a variety of odd tiks since the age of 3, but I've only really noticed the hand flapping/waving in the last year or so. He now does it very frequently, especially when he's excited. The movements are very rapid too, and I can see other children in the playground just looking at him, even the young reception children. I can just see it all getting so much worse when he's up in that junior playground with the older children.