Guardian worth a look today

[sphil]

It has a pull out section on autism and education - interesting in terms of proposed increased training on inclusion. Am thinking of writing in though - it implied, by omission, that all children in m/s schools had HFA or Aspergers - which is certainly not true in our case.

Also a very good letter on Letters page by Clare Peck.

Oh blimey! I bought this today but had forgotten all about it! I really should go and read it shouldn't I?

I am not sure that I do think it's so very dreadful if prospective adoptive parents are specific about what they think they can cope with. It's not just about people without experience of SN being ignorant; people without experience of the adoption process also tend to be quite ignorant about that and how that is different from giving birth.
It's now just about adoptive parents being fussy: they are also scrutinised and assessed in a way that simply doesn't happen with birth parents. The bonding can be more difficult and an adoptive child comes with baggage in a way a newborn does not. An awful lot of adoptions do break down.

if someone had asked me if I could cope with a child with a disability I would have said no--until I got to know one!

Well my experience of autism before ds arrived was of children and adults profoundly and severely affected (because my mother worked in a residential school when I was a child). A child (I was fond of) died after eating some bulbs. The staff were brilliant but even they did not keep this child safe. I would not willingly have adopted a child with severe autism not because I did not think I could love that child but would not have felt up to the lifelong 24/7 task of careing and keeping safe.
But I agree - you never know what you can cope with until you are in that situation.

I think it is important to give adopters as much information as possible about their child/childrens needs as possible. They also need appropriate support and that is often lacking (criminally so in the recent past). Many placements that break down (especially in the past) are because this has not been done as well as perhaps it could have been.

Oh I agree Cory - it was just the implication was that 'we can cope with anything except autism', which made me think that people see it as the worst type of disability there is.

Yes, I see what you mean. Saying it like that does sound a bit