Auties transition to Year 1 - thread 3

[LightTripper]

This is the continuation of the thread for parents and carers of autistic children in reception year at school, going into Year 1 in the autumn. All welcome (also parents with older or younger children who want to ask questions or share their wisdom!)

Welcome!

Light no thankfully he was at school!

We would need to request the place at his next review. In the meantime i'm going to gather all the relevant information to say that this is the only school that can meet his needs, which should be quite straightforward.
There are four primary special schools in the Borough and the others are really not suitable for him. One's too big, one is ABA and the section 41 school is prohibitively expensive for the LA to consider it unless it is the only place to meet his needs.

Cross post, yes hopefully!

Liv good luck with the school, sounds amazing. This is the kind of thing I wanted to open if I won the euro millions

Ds sounds very similar needing 2-1 out of the house. I just about manage to get him to school on my own in the car but anywhere else no chance. Just too stressful.

He's gone on a school trip with yr 1 to the park today, collecting natural materials for the schools woodland theme, he's got 2-1 for that, teacher on each hand. I've been really nervous about him leaving school to walk down to the park as I know how hard work he's is but they realise this and risk assessed and I'm pleased he has the 2-1, they would of never of managed otherwise. Ds and roads do not mix !

Liv I think what you should do, is tell us all where you live, we will move down and all our kids can attend this new school.

I forgot to mention, ds thought he was going to the 'park park'

Not the park collecting twigs and acorns.

So I'm not sure how that's going.............

liv it’s great that there is another option for your ds. I’m pretty sure the sn’s schools here are oversubscribed. I think they tend to get an influx around yr2/3. I’m not sure how suitable they’d be anyway. I need to research the unit I mentioned that was supposed to be being built.

Ideally I’d want him to stay in mainstream if possible because life is mainstream, however I wouldn’t if his mental health was suffering so we need to keep a close eye on things. It’s a balancing act.

I hope he’s getting on ok today. He is getting more and more tired.

danni hopefully he’ll be ok as long as there isn’t an actual park park in sight. If there is, good luck to them!

Open it's the park we go to so he knows full well where it is 🙈

Wow @livpotter that school sounds amazing. I really hope ds gets a place in it.

I hope everyone has an ok day after there bad nights. Didnt sleep to well here either. Ds has a nasty chest infection so is now on antibiotics.
We (at the moment and hopefully will continue to do so) cracked pooing on the toilet. You have to go with make sure hes sat correctly and tell him to push and when he does he poos in the toilet. I tell him to push till nothing happens. Today 3 poos in toilet 0 poo in underwear very very proud of him when hes so unwell too.
We have a meeting with school monday the send and inclusion officer from our LA and sendiass will be attending. As silly as it sounds i am actually scared and anxious about it.

@danni0509 oh no i hope the park trip goes well.

That’s brilliant Harley. Is he telling you when he needs to go or are you taking him periodically?

Light I keep meaning to ask how the EarlyBird course is going?

Hope the trip to the park went on danni. Great they did 2:1 for him.
That would be very funny if they all ended up at the same school

Open if ds could pass at all for being NT I would definitely try to keep him in mainstream. Even though I've seen the school, loved it and basically made up my mind, I still keep thinking 'maybe he'd be ok in year 1' (he definitely wouldn't).
I hope ds was ok today in spite of the tiredness.

Good luck with the meeting Harley

It's OK thanks open! As you predicted, I think, it is nothing really new. The previous LA run course was actually better for information (basically the same content but in a much more compact form, and I'm pretty sure the leader was autistic: his sister was, he had "traits" - he was there or there abouts which meant he really got it, it was fab). By contrast the ladies leading this one aren't so inspiring. In the first week they kept saying how "we" would do things vs. autistic children which jarred a bit for me as (a) statistically some of the parents are probably autistic and (b) "we" are adults and "they" are children, which explained most of the differences they were talking about before you got to the autistic bit . Having said that, the content was not bad, and they did actually add a bit of content in week 2 based on some feedback I gave on the form in week 1, so I thought that was nice of them.

The best thing about it is getting to spend time with DD's TA (who has 2 adult autistic sons) and hearing more about how she is at school and the things she struggles with there. I think he's found it useful too as his sons presented quite differently and back when they got their Dx there was no early bird or similar, so they had to figure it all out for themselves.

Hope the park trip went well danni.

Good luck for the meeting on Monday Harley. I'd be nervous too. My approach would be to take all the notes in the world, but I am a bit obsessive like that and organising things helps calm my mind! Great that SENDIASS should be there.

@openupmyeagereyes we have to take him periodically. He has a watch that beeps to remind him to go for a wee and we tell him to go for a poo. All in all today one accident which was very small and 4 poos on the toilet i call that a very successful day.

Thank you @livpotter and @lighttripper i will be getting all my notes togther this weekend.

He had a good afternoon, not sure about the morning. He’s just gone to sleep, I don’t know how he does it. I will be having a cup of tea and then heading up myself.

danni how was ds collecting leaves and twigs?

Light I’m glad there’s a useful aspect to the course, it must be nice hearing what dd has been up to during the week. Hopefully you’ll still get some useful info too.

Non uniform day, ooh DS hates that! Not the usual rule etc. So I went to a phonics meeting tonight even though I know DS is finding it hard to engage with at school. Had a word with his teacher afterwards who said, even though he seems like hes really trying to join in with lots of things, he just finds the whole environment quite overwhelming. At home though, hes been working through his Usborne readers, telling me the letter sounds. He sight reads a lot as well but it's like he cant get the words out at school so they don't realise he knows how! Tonight, I segmented some words in his story, and he blended them back to me so he can do it. But if it's not on his terms or if he is expected to reply quickly, no chance!! It must he so tough to be unique in a world made for neurotypical people.

Ds harvest festival was this morning. They took him in for the last song he was in the hall about 3 minutes, that's fine, I don't like these things anyway, ds is too boisterous / unpredictable / can't sit still / makes a scene etc. I stood at the back on my own and videoed the 3 minutes and he's jumping up and down running around the front of the stage making loads of noise and all the parents are staring at him which was the same at the Xmas concert.

I find it all really embarrassing to be honest having 'that' child who looks uncontrollable. Rightly or wrongly, sorry! it does embarrass me. Even though it's not ds fault (i don't mean it in a bad way against ds)

After, it was parents to look at work books in the classroom, ds' books where in the corridor as his 1-1 said the classroom would be too busy, so I sat with ds and his 1-1 in the corridor looking though his books for a few minutes. He's done quite a bit of work in his books which is good.

His teacher was in the classroom chatting away to all the other parents, I could see through the window, but not once did she come out to say hello or anything to me, I've still not even met her!

What a total joke!! She's technically the one in charge of my son with complex needs and hasn't even made the time to come and say hello or let me know how he's doing, not once in the past 6 weeks he's been in her class what would it take 2 minutes?! she didn't even attend his ehcp review.

I think it's shocking !!!!!

I see his 1-1's everyday so I think they probably think that's enough, but it would be nice to just see his teacher every now and again for a quick 2 minute update! Wouldn't hurt would it. I take ds in and out via the office so literally never see his teacher.

Ds has autism and can't communicate a lot to me, I don't know nothing about his school day. They used to do tapestry in reception but not in yr 1 so I literally don't know anything.

So I don't think I'm asking a lot really!

Parents evening for 10 minutes twice a year doesn't really cut it for an complex SN child in my opinion. It's the same amount of time as a NT child's parent gets.

Nhs SALT went in Wednesday to school for a review, I didn't know this until SALT sent me the letter the day before the appointment, then she phoned me the same afternoon to tell me how it went.. great communication from school

The SALT was pretty useless. She told me ds speech is at a 4yr 8m to a 4yr 11m level.

This is a child who can't ask questions other than the basic 'what's that' he can only answer basic questions, he doesn't even know what WHO or WHY even means. Never mind know how to construct those WH words into a sentence.

There are no back and forth conversations. I ask him a simple question he'll answer one or two worded answers. Ask him a harder question he's says don't like question don't like question (it means he doesn't understand it - he says that a lot) ask him his name he'll tell you his house number and street (rote learnt) so he's not really even understanding I'm asking him his name. He knows I'm asking something and he thinks the answer is the house number and street for his name (bless him)

I told the speech all this, she said he's got a very good vocabulary (he does have, he can say any word in the world including words I don't want him to say!) but what is the point having all the vocabulary if he doesn't understand how to use it or what half of it even means.

He has lots of echolalia. That's the bulk of his speech. He's clever with echolalia, he stores things in his head and uses them in appropriate situations. This probably jades observations in the people who don't know him.

I do not agree at all that his speech is that of a 4 and a half year old, no chance. Not even a 3 and a half year old and that's being generous as brutal as that sounds.

I'm not claiming to know everything, I don't. But I do know ds inside and out and have spent a lot of time on his development so I know exactly where he is at.

The only thing I did agree with is he has made progress since his last review.

I had a quick chat with his 1-1 this morning about it and she agreed with me his speech is not at a 4.5 yr old level.

Salt wants to just keep reviewing him every 4 months and give his 1-1 sheets to work on between the appointments, suppose it's better than nothing. She said anything she would do in a session myself and his 1-1 can do.

But I'm not happy with her writing up in a report his speech is that high up, anyone who works with him knows it's not. I wish they had autism specialist salts who actually understand how they speak / work!

Might have a career change!

@Jeb86 what do you think of it all? when you get chance to read that is. Hope all went well / goes well with birth / baby. X

Ds has made a little friend at school, a little girl. His 1-1 got her to come over this morning, she is so quiet, total opposite of ds but his 1-1 said she follows him around and if she isn't following him, he is following her.

They interacted a bit this morning but she was really shy bless her, so I said oh xxxx ds says your name all the time at home which he does and now I know why! His 1-1 said she's a really kind girl and always waits for him to play with him.

I'll share a little note she wrote ds yesterday, it was put in his book bag.

(Doesn't identify any of them so I'll share pic) even my hard face Dh was like awwwwwwwwwww that is the nicest thing.

How lovely. His first little friend ❤️

danni that’s so lovely. I love the spelling too 😍

I agree about your ds’ speech, that doesn’t sound right at all. I’ll write properly later.

Thanks open.

Yes I thought the spelling was v cute!

That is so lovely!

@danni0509 i also agree with his speech it doesnt sound right. Obviosuly we couls live over the other side of the county to you but there is asd specialist SALTs out there. We was refered to her after his the generic SALT said that ds had no remarkable issues but at the time she couldn't assess properly due to ds not having enough speech. My ds sound just like yours and is very clever in using echolia people say his speech is great as his vocabulary is extensive but he like your ds doesn't understand alot on what he says and people miss it often.

Aaaah, what a gorgeous letter! I love your elephants too.

The SALT thing sounds very frustrating. I think general practice SALTs can struggle a bit with autism. The LA SALT gave DD 10 sessions (which is loads!) but I didn't feel we got very far with them. The private SALT who visits the school did lots more useful stuff (turn taking, conversation, sequencing) that the LA SALT hadn't even mentioned. I think the general practice ones are sometimes more focused on speech rather than communication. And I guess your DS's speech (in terms of ability to say words and complex sentences) may be at a 4.5yo level, but his verbal communication isn't!

You would think all SALTs would spend a lot of time on autism though, wouldn't you? Isn't it one of the major things they deal with? It's like we were doing the communication iceberg thing in Early Bird today and I just thought, every teacher and TA in the country should be taught this, as it would help with literally any child with a behaviour issue - it's not just autism specific. I would love to think they are but based on some of the experiences of parents on this thread I don't think that can be the case. Really if we could send every teacher on a compressed version of the Early Bird course it would make schools so much better for all kids, not just our kids!

I think it’s a speech vs social communication issue. I agree, his speech may be great but his social communication is definitely not at the range they said and that, surely, is what’s most important?

The LA SALT we saw was a specialist SALT and even at the drop in clinic I first went to the SALT I spoke to there was the same one who did the communication sessions at the EarlyBird-esque course I went on. Both their focus was on communication and turn taking activities, that sort of thing.

My own ds has great speech and is improving all the time but even his social communication now will be behind that of the children just started in the reception class.