ASD - Statementing - how can I judge how many hours are appropriate?

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My ds aged nearly 4 is due to start school in September and we are going through the statementing process. The LEA are currently assessing and we have had appointments with a variety of professionals. My question is how do we, as parents, judge whether the offer of x hours 1:1 support we are given will be sufficient for our son?

Ds has a speech and language disorder on top of the ASD so communication is a really big issue. The Ed Psych agreed that he will need support at break time as well as during school hours - so when won't he need support?

Any advice would be very welcome !

am very interested to see any answers, as i expect i will be in the same position sometime soon.

ok just my experience

but whateve5r they offer refuse

the second offer likely to be more realistic!

ds3 also asd / language disorder was offered 10 at first which went up to 16 and access to someone elses 'non child specific 1-1 (meaning her statement said small group support) for the rest

wish i'd known with ds1

J has full time 1:1 support and always has. But that's because of the violence and running. It depends how much of the curriculum you think he'll be able to access without support. e.g. you might think PE will be fine, so will assembly, but needs it for maths and art and breaktime. Then add 10 hours to that and bargain with that...then you may actually get given close to the figure that you think he'll need! Good luck.

we been given 14 hrs after appeal ds is due start schol in september he has Gd of about 18months to 2 years, non verbal , hypermoblity nd hypertonia he only started walking at 3 its affected his gross nd fine motor control , , and hes queary asd

so i informed lea he only be going to school 16 hrs a week but were currenty appealing again

My guess is they'll offer you the bare minimum they can get away with (10 hours or less).

The LEA may not actually offer you any lunchtime support at all initially; you may only receive that after much argument with them.

Make sure that his speech and language disorder is also included in parts 2 and 3 of the Statement document along with support therapies to assist him. Again if not there, reject.

IPSEA are very good at the whole minefield that is the statementing process; would read parts 2 and 3 to them verbatim before accepting anything. They can advise you what it should say.

www.ipsea.org.uk

lunchtime support is hard to get- ds1 still has none despite injurung kids on a weekly basis. I've asked school to call an emergency review but they won't; am scared to myself as I jut fought a battle for ds3's placement and having won that suspect me looking like demandinf mom will get them less help overall iyswim- esp. as ds2 has been referred for the dyslexia scheme

IEP on thursday though and if the rumours are true that ds1's reading age has gone from 5 to 12 with the dyslexia ladt in school, I will ask for 1-1 to transfer to playtimes; head has already indicated a no thanks thing due yo staffing issues (via another parent- lots of rumour to wade through) and teacher has suggested ds1 needs a behavioural unit at 11; there are swear words for that idea!

Thanks for all your responses - I really didn't know where to start. I'm torn between not wanting to make him dependent on adult support yet knowing that he simply will not be able to cope without a fairly significant level.

I have taken on board all your advice and will make sure I read the statement with a fine tooth comb.

I'd be really interested to chat to other people who have been through this / are going through this process. I was determined not to get stressed about this but.....

Also interested in the advice given, Have just applied for Statement for DD (8.10). SenCos feeling is she can't cope in mainstream so is pushing for specialist provision. I've read other threads regarding statemented hours and it seems the general feeling is to reject the first offer! So am preparing myself for that .

For what it's worth I structured my thoughts as follows:

I thoought about how my ds is on his worst days in relation to his difficutlies i.e.

Communication - what are his difficulties eg his is non verbal and has X makaton signs which he can use to express his needs to a known adult. Therefore, he makes no communication with his peers.

Therefore in terms of provision I required a 1:1 support who was experienced in working with ASD children and could help develop his communication skills e.g. social referencing, listening, joint attention.

I thought about how much time during his time at nursery he would need to do this - (all the time) and stated that need.

Also wanted 4 hours per month SALT 1:1 and training for LSA.

Then did the same for these other categories :

Interaction - with adults
Interaction with Peers

Play
Receptive understanding
Self help
Motor skills - gross & fine

Excellent advice Bricks and gives me a good starting point. Thank you

thanks bricks

think were going end up in tribunl here

You say that the Ed Psych, agrees he needs support at break times, have they put this in their report? If they have then that is good ammunition for you. Our LEA Ed Psych was great and wrote that our child really couldn't be left unsupervised and we have max 1-1 support including breaktime. The LEA will offer you less than your child needs as their first offer it's just what they do, so then you say no we want more and at that stage we had a meeting. I invited his teacher, TA, and parent partnership. We had other reports eg from an OT and SALT, and went through the statement proposed saying OT says help needed with dressing after PE, needs time out sensory space and regular walks around etc, then went through the other reports pointing out additional needs and why extra hours were needed.Play is an important part of development and we also included things like his TA helping him play appropriately and helping him with food etc.Similar to bricks really. The clincher was having the Ed Psych report stating in black and white that without constant adult support he would not continue at a task and possibly wouldn't even stay in the classroom.Ed Psych didn't say that he needed full time 1-1 but the end result of a child needing constant individual support is that full time 1-1is needed.I hope that's helpful, it was stressful and I found it difficult that the whole system functions like some giant game, where they make an offer and you're supposed to respond with a higher bid or something.The statementing officer was not in the least surprised we refused the initial statement and said she'd been expecting my call! Anyway, I found parent partnership useful, for full on support IPSEA are also great.

We got 20 hours week 1-1 when my DS was in reception, i only sent him to school for those 20 hours, but his birthday was June, so legally he didn't have to be in full time education till the following year. We were offered 15 at first and refused took 20 and accepted it.

He started in year1 this year and hours have been increased to 25 hours week.

Would agree with the offer posts and refuse 1st offer and hold out for more.

Should have said my DS has GDD approx 2 yrs behind and speech and lang disorder.

Hope this helps

In an ideal world children with SEN would have full support that is eather 25 hours or 32.5. 25 hours gives support 5 day a week but with no support at lunch. 32.5 hours support gives support all the time. Hope taht helps so I would say 25 hours is adiquate to start.

Just did a search about Statement hours and came across this thread. Hope no one minds me resurrecting it.

School have said that DD needs full time 1:1 support, and that is what they will be telling the LEA, but then I wondered what was full-time? If it is just teaching hours, I made it 21 hours 15 mins per week, excluding registration, assembly, break times and lunch.

Would be helpful to hear of other people's experiences.

BTW, DD would never hurt anyone, but she has come home from school hurt by another child, scratched and bruised, it must've happened at break time, and due to communication problems, she has been unable to tell me who hurt her, so she is very vulnerable in the playground

here its 32 hrs and 10 mins .Ds was awarde that but 5 hrs was meant for preparation time , me and school are asking for more as ds needs help at Dinner time

33 hours is full time here - registrations, lunches, breaks, everything (though is not currently being used correctly ...another story for another time).

The school are also given 5 more hours on top of that for preparation and liaison etc. So that's 38 hours in J's Statement.

Good luck!

Can you aska round and see what other children get?

I have yet to find a child in our LEA who gets more than 16- after that they prefer SNU.

Under no circumstancres ask for anything other than full time with guaranteed cover; have a minmum figure in your head and expect to be ofered under it initially

Wish I had known that with ds1 as I was so shocked to get owt, that I accepted their first offer- by ds3 I refused and knew better (even then the 16 hours was not enpugh but two terms got us the snu place we wanted all along)

Thanks, I will ask at next support group meeting; there are no other children statemented with ASD and MLD at DD's school,so no other parents there that I could ask.

There is an excellent article about the sen statement procedure on our website:

www.parentsofdisabledchildren.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=8&pid=12#pid12

Hope it helps and if not ask a question in the help section and i promise you will have an answer very soon.