Paed says it may be time to start thinking about special school for DS3

[SixSpotBurnet]

Hi all,

Just had review meeting with paed this morning for DS3 (nearly 4, settled well at mainstream nursery, but still no communicative speech).

Rather to my surprise, she gently suggested that it might be time to start looking at special schools for him.

Obviously DH and I would always do whatever we think is best for him BUT I somehow hadn't envisaged having to get my head around this just yet.

I know that lots of you e.g. Jimjams have children who have thrived in special schools compared to mainstream.

no advice, but must have been a shock for you. Do you have any feelings about mainstream versus special school?

Not really - if I thought he would get more from special school than from mainstream, I would go for it.

However, it means facing up to a lot of things about DS3 [wry smile].

yes, must make it more real.

Hope someone comes along with some good advice

I know it's horrid when the time comes to make the decision but it's quite a relief when it's done whatever you decide. My ds started at ms and did alright for a while but moved to a special school during year 1. A lot of the children at his school have been there since nursery age and they do seem to come along very well - with hindsight I think I would have gone straight for the special school but it also depends alot on the attitudes of ms schools in the area? Are there any with units? Ds' school is quite keen on children moving back to mainstream if they think they can handle it and has links with the local primary to integrate children.

I know how you feel - our nursery hinted at special school too. It's a long saga but in our case we feel he does have communicative speech at home and with his nanny. However at nursery, they say he does not speak. If special school was right for him ( and at this stage we really don't know) but for now our preference is the ASD unit at the local (ish) primary school.

There is an autism unit attached to the mainstream school he currently attends.

I think if we were going for special school though, my preference would be for somewhere a bit more special! e.g. like Treehouse - although I don't think the local authority has ever funded anyone to go to there!

I know what you mean - special school is fine if you know the school will provide what is required. I might be getting paranoid because we have had so many 'issues' with the nursery. I don't like the way the nursery want to take over the decision about where he goes. Anyway we are visiting the autism unit in July. We have to get approval from educational psychologist to place him there but can she say an ASD unit is not suitable for an ASD child ?

I don't know, cyberseraphim, tbh.

What age is your DS - he sounds from your posts as if he is similar to my DS3?

He is 4 years and 3 months but won't start school til August 2009 so we have time on our side - we hope !

DS3 should in theory start Reception in January 2009.

We've been to look round the special school suggested by DD1's SEN co-ordinator and we'd been dreading it all week. In our hearts we will do anything to make sure she gets the best education she can but emotionally it's been tough realising she won't cope at mainstream schools.

Anyway, the visit today went really well and we both enjoyed it, the school and staff was lovely and I can really see DD1 settling well there.

So I suggest, when you are ready to go and have a look at the schools for yourself. You may (like us) be pleasently suprised.

It's not up to a paed to decide whether your DS should go to special school or not. I would be VERY surprised if they had more than a passing clue what happens with regards to special needs in your local primary school and I would also doubt whether they know much about what happens in your local special school. Some special schools are great and some are not. Some mainstream schools are hugely supportive of children with SEN, and others are not. I would strongly urge you not to be swayed by what your paed has said. Go and have a look at all the options. Talk to as many people (parents, teachers, special needs co-ordinators, SALTs) as you can. Once you have all the info, make you can make an informed choice. Doctors are undoubtably the experts on medical issues, but they do not necessarily know what is the best way to educate your child.

My son's friend had no speech until well into his fourth year. He was placed for his Reception and year 1 in a special school for pupils with severe learning difficulties. He came on leaps and bounds and was moved in year 2 to mainstream primary. He is now thriving in mainstream secondary. He is a high functioning Aspie.

I'm not saying that this is always the case but I do think that if a child is not verbal then Reception is going to be a very very difficult place for them. However gentle the school environment they do expect a lot from very young kids at infant level (how to line up, sit still for at least 20 mins, sit at a table, follow instructions) Its a hell of a lot for a bog standard kid let alone one with difficulties so perhaps starting off in a special school then gives you the option of therapy, etc which your son might need. Then, if you wish you can integrate him gradually into mainstream.

Give yourself time to come to terms with it all. You sound very grounded - far more than I ever was. I wish now that my son had gone to special earlier than at secondary level (he is doing brilliantly now with a full mainstream curriculum but in a therapeutic environment).

All the best.

You know your child best, SSB. If your innermost self tells you to try the ms school first, then do so.

DD1 is being held back a year - retained at age, it's called here in Scotland - and will have an extra year at a private nursery with an SEN unit attached.

But after that she will go to ms school because that is where she best belongs.

Have a look at the schools -SSB. We have 2 SLD schools locally, one entirely unsuitable for ds1, one perfect for him.

Have a look at the thread on intention running in SN at the moment as well for the types of problems that may underlie severe autism. We were joking at ds1's annual review that if ds1 gets to grip with the typing he could go to the mainstream outreach unit that his school has (this was following on from his teacher saying she thinks she's bright), then we all looked at each other and said 'er maybe not- can you imagine how the ms teachers would react?'. Honestly even if he typed out an original novel and became a genius at maths don't think I'd ever send him back to mainstream school.

SSB - our DS4 is younger and still has a yaer at preschool. I always assumed he'd go to local primary with my other three but SALT has recently started 'hinting' at him maybe being better off at a MS school with a special speech unit. It's hard.

sixspot I think you have lots of good advice here, it is so different from one place to the next how children are treated...

I have a ds similar age to yours(no dx yet), he was 4 in May, he has progressed so much since April, who could have predicted that? My ds's Paed asked what we had done to him for him to have progressed so much since he last saw him in September.

The SALT comes for home visits(an hour and a half weekly) and sees my ds briefly at school maybe for 15 mins(he is at ms nursery in Scotland), she comments on how much more talkative and different ds is at home than at nursery.

my ds gets one to one support at nursery (he is there 3 x a week for 2.5hrs a day), there is an autism base at the school which his nursery is attached to, it is no longer described as an autism unit, just the base, because children are included in class and go to the base as and when they need it, from what I can gather.

My long winded way of getting round to making a point? I think you know your ds best, but like others have said here, go and see what is on offer... speak to ed psych?, does your ds have an early years support teacher? (not sure if they are available in every area?), parent partnership?

Ds's early years support teacher is fab, he only sees her weekly but she knows her stuff, I trust her completely, getting other opinions is vital.

the paed and nursery have suggested we keep my ds back a year, so he won't start primary until he is 6 (usually 5 in Scotland), but I am going to wait and see, I have another full year of my ds at ms nursery to see how he is coping, but I am also going to ask everyone who has advice to give what their opinion is too.

there are no special needs schools in my area, so it isn't really an option for my ds, we have ms. or home ed to choose from.

I hope you don't mind me giving my pov, I always like to hear about how others are coping, I hope your ds gets the right school for him, ms or not!

Best thing to do is go and have a look and see how you feel. my experience was that we were going to send DS to mainstream, had a look at the special school and just knew that he would fit in. 2 years on I can't begin to imagine how we would have struggled if he had gone to mainstream. for us it was a positive decision with the view that he was getting specialist help and more holistic learning. Whilst we were +ve it was interesting to watch the reactions of others! and i was surprised by how negatively special schools were viewed. ALso my DS disabilities weren't that obvious then to people who didn't know him so it was a bit like going public with the fact that we have a child with special needs.

I've been thinking about your comment that your LEA has never funded Treehouse. There may be 2 reasons for this. Either the LEA may have good provision themselves so no-one's wanted Treehouse or it may be that no-one has ever tried. Until 2 years ago my LEA had never funded ABA - the 2 families went for ABA funding and both got it. They were the first to try.

If you think you might like Treehouse go and look at it. Just look at everything that's available. And don't wait for the LEA to tell you what's available - speak to the school's - especially non-LEA schools- directly. I remember one good bit of advice was to look for a child who appeared similar to your own in each setting and see how they were dealing with the school. It can help rule out headteachers as well.On being told which boy was similar to ds1 one head said 'oh VERY low functioning then', and THAT school was instantly crossed of our list.

I agree with everyone that the best way to come to terms with the inevitable or decide clearly against it is to visit possible schools. DON'T be put off by "we don't fund TreeHouse" crap, they all say that and there's 50+ kids there. You MUST get in touch with Fiona at Elfrida Rathbone either way. It is another kick in the gut in the long series of kicks in the gut so I feel for you . It is interesting how many parents I have seen fight to get their DC into special school & the right special school, only to feel like shit for a while once they've achieved it.

Thanks everyone great to get all this feedback and advice.

DS3 and I plus the other two DSs had a great weekend away with our church so I am still on a bit of a high from that - it really cheered me up after the meeting with the paed last week!

We have a review meeting this week and DS3's very lovely specialist autism teacher will be there so I will be asking for her views first and foremost as she is the professional who knows DS3 best.

But I am going to book on a Treehouse open day in the autumn .

It will be a very big watershed for me though - I know - bigger than the actual DX. Those of you with children already at SLD schools, please don't take this the wrong way.

I've been going through all this over the last year too. My DS is 4.5 and starting school in September, and in our case we've been very aware for a while that would never fit in at a mainstream school. We have a few special schools in the area but they only have a very few places available each year so I was terrified that DS might not get an appropriate place.

Following advice from his SN preschool we looked at the three special schools available to us at the beginning of the year, and immediately knew where DS belonged. In one of the schools all of the children were more high functioning than DS - most of them were verbal and most of them were out of nappies. At one of them he would have been the most high functioning child in the class, which just didn't seem right to me - he'd have nothing to learn from them. At the one we chose DS would fit right into the middle somewhere, and the teachers were fantastic and very welcoming - it felt perfect.

We were lucky to have his place there confirmed and written into his statement in March - apparently that doesn't usually happen until June! He's visited once already and will have another couple of visits before the end of term and I have really high hopes that he'll be happy there. His happiness is the most important part of the ms/ss equation IMO!

Sorry to have gone on and on, but I just thought you might like to hear from someone who's just a bit further down the road you're on...good luck!

The 'fitting into the middle' is a great idea and that's roughly what I want to but I have no idea what the middle is ! but hopefully as we visit schools we will start to get an idea.

Thank you CaptainPlump . That's encouraging!

DS3 is very sweet and engaging and has no behavioural problems, and he loves mainstream nursery - but his contemporaries can do things like play i-spy and he is just getting so far behind .

I wish I could wave a magic wand and make him talk. I dream all the time that he can talk.

SSB, the fact that DS3 loves mainstream nursery is really encouraging. My DS copes at his, but this morning when I showed him his nursery picture he HOWLED for ten minutes. It really broke my heart! He's much happier on the days when he goes to SN preschool, which says it all to me!

CS, I know what you mean about having no idea where the "middle" is. Until we had a look around the schools I had no real idea of how "severe" DS's autism was or where would best suit him, but a quick chat with the teachers about what the other children are like and a chance to observe them in the school setting was enough to give me a good idea of where DS would fit. I'm sure it will be the same for you!