Does anyone have a child with ASD who has overcome school related anxiety/phobia/refusal?

[underachieverspleasetryharder]

What helped?

We have tried everything we can think of:

• getting her an Ehcp
• getting her into a supportive mainstream school
• counselling
• adapted CBT
• socially speaking

-traffic light system, exit pass, TA support, reduced timetable, laptop, homework slips (with instructions broken down)

This is my 11 year old DD who is intelligent, actually wants to go to school, desperately wants to be good and do the right thing, doesn't have a single friend, and is just getting worse and worse.

She is becoming virtually selective mute in most social situations, v high anxiety, can't eat much due to feeling permanently sick. She is refusing to engage with all support.

School refusal/anxiety started in reception, despite this she's never missed more than a few days a year so her attendance record is ok.

I'm really really worried about her and at a complete loss.

I'd be interested in the answer to this too.

My friends child went to a specialist provision for high functioning autism and seems to have improved lots. But this type of provision is rare.

I read an article - I think it was by Bill Nason saying about 'peer groups' once and how children with autism need other autistic children to learn to socialise with as well as children without autism and in a mainstream school the child can miss out on this important peer group. It made sense.

Are there any girls with ASD social groups in your area she could join. Our local branch of the NAS has one.

Yes,
Ds2 didn't have a single friend at secondary, became v anxious and stressed.
Home educated him for two years, including a year very part time in a small dyslexia centre. Made socialising and being outdoors the main focus rather than school work.
He made friends whilst being home educated. When he went back to school he had social skills and more self esteem. He then thrived in school from end of Year 9. Did really well at Gsce. About to have 6 friends round for his 17th. He is not anxious about school at all now. He still has ASD though and an EHCP. Mainstream school. With specialist autism input. Some of his friends have SEN too, although they are academic (doing A levels)

I also think his hobby helped. He went to lots of football matches with a friend, that built up independence and confidence.

Drama was also good for ds, once he went back to school. Check your dd's vitamin levels too. Vitamin D deficiency in particular. Which was remedied in ds's case by sunshine and outdoor life. Ds2 is no miracle, he had bouts of extreme stressiness even whilst home educated, had various obsessions and anxieties when things didn;t go the way he wanted, fell out sometimes with peers in some situations, but I think the small group and the feeling he could escape from a big stressful environment and just relax and go with the flow most days really helped. We did structured school work in the morning, organised by me. Very low key academically for two years, but we did a bit. Stopped him being anxious about what he couldn't do or competing with others.

I think what we did with ds2 was a kind of "social story". We gave him permission not to worry any more about school by basically saying, you are leaving these stressful situations for now, we are in charge, and there are more important things to learn than behaving in a classroom and pleasing your classmates. Mixed age groups helped him too.

We overcame school refusal which was due to 24/7 ASD related anxiety....we got an EHCP and a place at a special school.
Since then, he has only refused his new school twice for very specific reasons.

It’s quite obvious to us that the setting has made all the difference.

Thanks for your replies.

It's seems the only answer is a change in setting or home education. The problem is there is no provision locally for children who can't cope in mainstream, but are intelligent and need a mainstream curriculum. She could go to the same school as her brother, but they don't offer GCSEs.

And home schooling would probably mean giving up my job, poverty, further social isolation and is something I really don't want to do.

So stuck between a rock and a hard place really.

Have you looked at small independent schools?
Btw, you can be in a special school and be ‘intelligent’ .

I don't think the local independent schools are suitable either. And the chance of getting one named on her EHCP is about 0%.
I know you can go to a special school and be intelligent, but there aren't any suitable special schools in my area. The one her brother goes to, which is for ASD and moderate learning difficulties, doesn't offer GCSEs. The others are similar.

Watching with interest. DS has been an intermittent 'school refuser' for the last 2 years. He's in yr 9 and currently has an attendance record of 65%

He sees a psychologist as the anxiety also causes IBS and we have spoken to the school several times but nothing has improved.

All DS Will say is that he hates school (though he has tons of friends and good social life) that the teachers hate him and he hates them. Classes too big and noisy. For his primary years he was at a small independent school which was better (though still some anxiety) and says he just wants to go back there.

Problem is not only can we not realistically afford what would be 2 years of fees but we also risk moving him and nothing changes.

Desperate to find a solution

Sorry to hi-jack