Hi all.
Not been around for a while as had pc problems and been doing some 'wound licking' IYSWIM. So here I am first time online in weeks and coming with a sticky question for you.
Some of you may recall that we have had on going problems with DS (nearly 6) regarding his behaviour at school. We saw the Ed Psych last year who told us a lot of what we already knew (DS is among the top 1-2% of his peer group intellectually but emotionally is immature), but he didn't see him as he usually behaves at school (we had told him in advance that someone was coming to assess him so 'button holed' this guy and was engaging and friendly)so his behaviour as such wasn't commented on and recommendations to keep him engaged in class were made rather than behavioural things. Things improved for a while as he entered Y1 but have been deteriorating since just before Christmas.
We met with school a few weeks ago and agreed another visit was necessary and they arranged an appointment with the senior Ed Psych for the county, which came through in about 3 weeks so I took that as meaning the school had said it was quite urgent (as last time we waited for about 2 months)especially as this time we got the senior bloke coming to do the assessment as well. We decided not to tell DS about the assessment so that the man could get a more accurate picture of his everyday behaviour.
This meeting was on Tuesday, he saw DS from 9.30 and then met with us at 11. He has fed back to us verbally (but not school)and is putting his findings in writing to us and school. He has said that he is about 70% certain that DS has some form of ASD and also has PDA (pathological demand avoidance). I have briefly outlined our meeting to the Head, Deputy and class teachers. School are being very hostile about these findings and are catagorically refusing to belive that DS has PDA, the Head went as far as to say that he would tell the Ed Psych this to his face.
So.......who am I to trust in their judgement?? Is the Ed Psych in more of a position to judge if DS has this or not?? The Head seems to think that he is well qualified to judge if a child has PDA having allegedly taught 2 PDA children (I say allegedly as I belive that there are less than 200 daignosed cases in the UK??? which would suggest that the Head may not be quite telling the truth????). I know a little bit about PDA because I happen to work in a school where one of the children in the year band has PDA and having observed their behaviour in and out of class, and found myself calling this child by DS's name a couple of times (and not called any of the other 104 in the year by his name even once in error). I had kind of thought at the back of my mind that DS was showing similar behaviours to this child so was not totally shocked. School have not said anything about DS and ASD.
Am reeling at the moment and need wise words from people who know better than me who I should trust and maybe who I should contact to get help?? I know that these 'labels' are just descriptions of DS's behaviour and it really does not change one bit the wonderful boy that I have, but it feels like school are being unsupportive and just want to see DS as being a naughty boy. He is very intellectually bright - for example the Ed Psych said he thought his spelling age was 'about 12' and most of his IQ scores were over the 93rd percentile with Maths being 99.6+ - but emotionally he is well behind his peers. He has huge tantrums at school and is constantly in trouble for this and hitting out, refusing to do things, walking out of class, he shouts the answers out all the time, needs to be first, gets upset if the routine is altered (which is a bit of a problem as he has 2 teachers as a job share), is troubled by loud noises (another problem at lunchtime in particular as the dining room is actually one of the classrooms so very very small and REALLY noisy), gets easily frustrated especially when things are not perfect and will rip up work because of this. To top it all he is left handed and has poor fine motor skills. His writing is attrocious and the Ed Psych says that school haven't taught him to write properly this means his work looks terrible and if they are using whiteboards then it all gets rubbed out/smudged as he goes anyway. He hates all the colouring in that is part of Y1 and much of the craft-y kind of work unless it has an abstract outcome (because then it doesn't have to look like anything), and his self esteem is really really low because he just sees himself in trouble all the time. I think he is also bored at school a lot of the time as the other children in his class are not academically 'on his wave length' and the extension activities that he is given don't seem to be particularly extending for him. School treat him almost as some kind of criminal, there are plenty of punishments but no rewards and in particular the teacher at the first half of the week just seems to have given up in trying to reach him and can't sope with him so when he gets particulary difficult she gets the Head to send him home, then we have another long meeting about him where all they can do is say 'well what do YOU do at home??'.
Thank you for taking the trouble to read this far, I know it's long winded, but I haven't been on for a while and it's all kind of built up and I really needed to get it off my chest and turn to you lot for some help. Anything that you can say will help at the moment as I am just feeling so helpless.
WMXX