Special needs toolkit?

[alfiemama]

Hi everyone

I was talking to a chappy today whos grand daughter has Aspergers and he has told me to ask the school for a special needs tool kit, can anyone shed anymore light on this?

Also he told me his grand daughter also had tourettes and adhd and sight issues (I work for the blind and this how I met him) anyway it turns out the tourettes only developed when she was 9 and she was dx with As at 3

I suppose my question is can things develop with this condition later on in life

thanks

I vaguely remember reading a document called a sn toolkit (some years back) or am I getting mixed up?

Thanks Magso

He said Ive to ask the school for it and its our right as parents, but I have a meeting tommorow morning with the school and dont want to look silly if its not correct

thanks

Sometimes this sort of info gets out of date but that diosn't mean they don't have a copy or t isn't useful.

Just say 'I ws chatting to a chap who mentioned a SN toolkit, I hadn't heard of it, any ideas?'- doesn;'t make you look 'silly' (ikwym but I dont think silly is the right word)

No idea about tourettes?

Thanks Peaches will do

Thats another thing that rings a bell. Fuzzy brain tonight! I was worried ds was developing a throat clearing tick at one point. I think that some stimulants used to control adhd can either allow ticks to surface or unmask latent tourettes. Sorry cant remember more tonight.

Hi Magso

Thats very helpful and reassuring, as he did say she had adhd, fingers crossed.

The Toolkit I have heard of is to do with campaigning for SN education (can download at NAS website) but I doubt if its what he means. There are lots of co-morbid conditions with AS/ASD, some that are there and emerge iyswim and some that develop as new, e.g. there is a high percentage of people with ASD who develop epilepsy around pre-teens (can't remember the stat but much higher than typical population). Also dyspraxia, tourettes, OCD etc.

Hi Davros, thanks for the info.

Just come back from the meeting with school, it went very well and the school are very supportive and do believe he has clasic signs (according to senco) they are referring him to speach therapist as they say his speach is good but echoes and to the educational board.

It was hard to hear them saying the things they have picked up and have said that ds can be aggressive and the smallest things seem like the end of the world, these are things I have always made excuses for, I suppose I dont need to now lol

Going to a support group tonight as I feel I need to know everything about this condition.

I asked about the toolkit they said they do have one but tells you mainly about the education process, so god knows what that chaps was talking about

I suppose now that the first step has been taking it can only improve

The SN toolkit is a booklet used by the LEA when writing statements.

I'm with Attila. The LEA is governed by 3 things when dealing with SEN:

1. the law. Though they intend to ignore it when it clashes with:

2. govt guidance: there is a govt doc called "SEN guidelines" &

3. govt how-to: a more user-friendly pack called "SEN toolkit".

4. and 3) can be ordered by you for free from one of the govt websites. Possibly DFES, try googling it. But all it tells you is what the govt reckons the LEA process should be. Where this conflicts with the law, the law should win. Rarely does though unless you take the feckers to court.

Where the SEN toolkit can be helpful is in convincing the school that you know what you are talking about/entitled to and you will not have the wool pulled over your eyes. "But surely you are using the toolkit, so this document should contain..." etc.

Can't comment on the AS/Tourette's link though I'm dimly aware that Tourettes symptoms tend to develop as you get older whereas AS is always there but can take a while to diagnose iyswim.

Thanks Attilla and r3dh3d, he did say he had to go to court, his grand daughter was a very severe case though, AS, ADHD, tourettes and partially sighted so this must be why he needed this.

thanks will have a look into this though, to be honest like you said helped to make it look like I had researched and knew what I was talking about,they looked really shocked