GDA Process

[Mumandson1]

Hi,
My son is 2.5 years old. He was the most chilled out, happy baby who loved sleep, cuddles and anything with wheels that spins!
I’ve been concerned about his development since he was 9 months old. He was late crawling, walking, wouldn’t give any eye contact, would look straight through us when we did try to engage with him and he always walks on his tip toes. Health Visitor is aware and we are under a paediatrician for this.
He has a speech delay and Speech and Language discharged him as he wouldn’t sit down long enough to complete any of their assessments.
Nursery have expressed their concerns about his social and emotional development. My son can get overstimulated at nursery and push other children due to excitement. He is built more like a 5 YO rather than a 2 YO, so he is strong and can hurt children when he pushes them. Nursery have told me that there is no malice in his pushing but it’s just because he can’t communicate that he wants them to play with him and the nursery environment can get too much for him in the afternoons. As a result, they’ve told us that their SEND team have recommended him to only be in nursery for half days.
Whenever I take him out, he screams, cries and throws himself on the floor. Or, he’ll run and run and run, not knowing what to play with but wanting to play with everything. He grabbed another child and then pushed them over, then laughed after he did it, and when I went to deal with it, he ran off and thought it was a game.
My son is so loving, so happy and will babble away to himself for hours on end and will only say certain words. We use flash cards but he won’t use what he’s learnt and put it into a short sentence.
At home and at nursery, he will not sit down and do an activity. He goes from one thing, to another, then another and back again. The longest time we’ve had with an activity is 3 minutes. He has one to one in nursery too.
We do a lot of play outdoors as he loves being outside, so will run and say ‘stop’ then we’ll do it again. He loves counting, so we count our steps and count toys.
Nursery have put in a GDA referral and have said they have seen traits of ADHD, not autism. My son sleeps A LOT. He’ll sleep for 12 hours at night and has a 3 hour afternoon nap. I think it’s because he’s on the go from the minute he gets up to the minute he goes to sleep.
The point I’m trying to get at is, has anyone had similar at nursery? What else can I do to support my son? Nursery think he needs to be exposed to going out with the children but it’s really hard when he is clearly getting overstimulated and upset by it all.
what do you do with your children that helps regulate them?

Swimming lessons were fabulous for us at that stage. Mine had a great time and was more focused afterwards.

Has an EHCNA been requested? If you live in an area which starts early years inclusion funding at 2 rather than 3, has the nursery applied for that? Has the nursery asked the Area SENCO for advice?

Is DS under physio? If not, request a referral. It is a cop out of the SALT to discharge. They need to amend their approach, not discharge. Request another referral.

Has DS had an OT assessment sent? Lots of physical activity and ‘heavy’ lifting activities can help. Some of the ideas in here may help. Also, some find the book the Out of Sync Child useful.

Some special schools run toddler sessions. It may help to go along to one of these if you have any locally and can.

Some people find using a buggy can help when going out (not when playing, but e.g. on the walk to the park). DC can hide inside with whatever helps them regulate (toy, ear defenders, big hood, sunglasses…). Reducing the sensory overwhelm for some of the time they are outside can help them regulate at other times.

Thanks so much - I’m going to try this!

Hey! Thank you so much for your message. Is the EHCNA the same as EHCP? We are going down that route once we have seen the paediatrician.

Nursery have spoken to their SEND team and they are the ones who have recommended him to be changed to half days. They’ve tried visual timetables but due to his lack of understanding, they struggle with that. He goes in a quiet room with small groups and that helps him too.

I’ll request another referral. Thank you! I was pretty gutted because he was only in there for an hour when they decided to discharge him.

no, he hasn’t had an OT assessment. I’ll look into that. He might have to have an operation on his toe as he has a hammer toe.

this is all great advice and definitely something I need to look further into. Thank you again.

The EHCNA is the first request you make. It is the needs assessment. You don’t request an EHCP directly, you request the EHCNA. You don’t have to wait until you have seen the paed.

The nursery may have spoken to their in-house SEND team, but have they asked the Area SENCO for advice?

Oh I see! I haven’t ever heard of the EHCNA. I’ll look into that.

oh right, from what I’m aware of they haven’t.

If the nursery needs more advice on how to support DS, and it sounds like they do, they need to ask the Area SENCO for advice.

IPSEA and SOSSEN are charities that support parents of DC with additional needs. They have lots of helpful information on their websites, including model letters you can use to request an EHCNA. It is worth reading the SENCOP too.

Here they just say “a needs assessment” rather than ehcpna. I find the acronyms really hard but everyone uses them so I just ask endlessly. Basically it’s just asking the LA to see if dc needs an ehcp. If they think he does (which funnily enough they rarely do even if it’s blindingly obvious) then you progress to that if not you either accept their decision not to consider their might be the slightest problem or you push back. They are extremely vexing so don’t take it personally.

When requesting an EHCNA, the LA should not be asking if a child needs an EHCP, only if it may be necessary for special educational provision to be made in accordance with an EHCP. Small but important difference. Lots of LAs like to say parents need to prove an EHCP is required, which is a higher bar than the legal test. You only have to show it may be. It isn’t until you get to the decision whether to issue or not the legal test becomes whether it is necessary (rather than just may be necessary) for special educational provision to be made via an EHCP.