Aspergers on Radio 5

[Davros]

Info via NAS:

"BBC Radio 5 Live will be having a discussion on the lack of appropriate educational provision for those with Asperger syndrome at 11am on Sunday 26th September.

I think the discussion will be hosted by Mark Chapman and there will be several people from SAFE - the parent's Asperger syndrome support group in Essex as this is the LEA they will be focusing on in the programme."

(as its R5, does that mean that Aspergers is now a sport? )

i haven't been on MN for ages....trust me to miss this!

was it any good?

And will Asperger's be in the next olympics????!!!!

Mrs F - I was given a newspaper cutting about this programme after it had gone out, but found it on Listen again - will try and do a link - it was all a bit depressing, not so much about the educational side, but along the lines of children with Aspergers being mistakenly identified as abused or 'at risk'. Didn't post on it here, as I thought it was too painful..
But here goes aspergers on Radio5

Have to confess that I didn't listen. I often don't listen to or watch progs on autism/disability, get enough of it already!
Nice to "see" you MrsF, been wondering if you'd laminated yourself!

I listened to this (because I'm a radio 5 listener and happened to be listening at that time!). I thought the boy who told his story was amazing - I felt like reaching through the radio to give him a hug!

It was a bit negative - though only from the point of view that the relevant services (social services, child protection, education authorities) didn't seem to have any grasp as to how aspergers can affect children, their families and their schooling. I also thought it was quite interesting that the program made the point that because the learning problem wasn't visible (by this I mean it wasn't obvious that the child had special needs just by looking at him), the education authorities didn't seem to think he was a priority for having a one on one learning assistant (even though his statement had clearly stated that he needed one). They seemed to ignore the statement and believed the problem was with the family. I thought it begged the question, why on earth have the whole statement thing if no-one pays any attention to it!

Anyway, they made it clear that this was only really from the point of view of one family (and one obviously useless education authority) but it was still fascinating.