Apologies in advance for my poor grammar and the general long widedness of my post.
I've ranted about this before but Im really getting fed up of the help (kind of like Portage) we are getting for DS from the borough. At the beginning they gave me all the big sell tactics about how they could help me and offer all these services ST, OT ED psych music therapy etc help with choosing schools etc. What they have actually given my DS a poor standard service; The portage lady comes as she pleases it seems, constantly cancelling and moving around our appointments as if she is squeezing us in. She is not properly trained- she was teaching PECS very wrong -I don't think she has been on the course - The SALT we have seen about 4 times in 7 months has completely ignored the PECS stuff and just freaks him out by being in your face touchy feely.
When I said we were considering Treehouse (ABA school) they insisted DS was not ready but they would help me when the time comes. However when I employed an ABA team for a while they quickly changed their minds and said DS should be at nursery (They didnt want the drop out statistic I think). Now they are putting heavy pressure on me to send Ds to a school of their choice. I flatly refused one because it looked rubbish. I asked for help applying for our local primary -very good MS. They conveniently kept forgetting to help me. Deadline has gone now. We went to see 2 primaries one with an ASD unit one a specialist nursery. The ASD unit was ok but there are 6 places in the nursery and only 2 for each year in the primary. One of the nurseries was ok. Our portage worker came with us and the teacher was asking her questions rather than us I found it very offensive- I think I know my child better than someone who sees him for a few hours a week.
Anyway. Im not completely happy with either of the nursery choices. I feel completely unsupported in real terms because if I consider something that they don't like they discourage me.
They concentrate on compliance; sitting nicely, doing as you are told, anything to make sure Ds behaves himself at school and is no trouble. In terms of real progress I can say they have help with his turn taking skills and helped him learn action to nursery rhymes. They do nothing with life skills, imitation and very little pre-school skills and everything she does is on her terms so if my Ds wants to draw he has to draw just swirls. Im working hard to get him to be more creative with his drawing and she wants to stop him . I feel so warn down my it all. When she comes I spend my time wishing she would go. Im so tempted to get rid as I was about to before when we started ABA but realistically we cant afford the lengthy battle it will take to get Ds into Tree house or to fund a long term Home ABA programme.
They are creating biased results by claiming responsibility for Ds gains when in actual fact I work very hard with DS myself many more hours than they put in and his Biomed stuff has really helped as well. I feel they are very manipulative and all about their results- getting children with ASD into mainstream schools.I'm fed up of these bloody target led organisations that don't give a crap about the individual child.
And I want to burn her bloody note book because it really pisses me off when she says "oh Ive not seen him do that before" I inform her that DS has done that for ages. She then says "Well Ive not seen it" and starts writing it down in her note book arrgh.