Ed Psych visit today

[lou031205]

"I need to go back and talk this through in supervision, because I've never met a child that presents like your DD".

DD is a complex soul. Sigh. Where have I heard that before? "Brain is all a bit squiffy" "Spiky profile".....

Ed Psych isn't sure yet whether MS or SS is best. Neither am I.

I got a stern lecture when I asked about high incidence vs low incidence statements though

Any opinions?

bet that must have inspired you with confidence! re:schooling - all I can suggest is visit all types - m/s, special school, unit within a mainstream - ask lots of questions and see what each can offer in supporting your DD's learning/social needs.

Yes, felt really special, excuse the pun. All everyone seems to say is how unusual DD is. Would be so much easier if people had even heard of what she's got.

The ed psych said it is unusual for a child with such limited attention span & concentration to have picked up background skills like colours, numbers & shapes. Also the fact that DD finds it hard to find nouns, but describes colour and function to indicate her choice (such as "it pink and " for straw) is very unusual, apparently.

hmmm I don't know, some of what you have described there rings bells - my DS (severely language delayed at 3) had dodgy concentration but picked up shapes/colours etc v. easily, at the normal age if not earlier iyswim, and I think that's not that unusual for ASD (my DS probably? possibly?doesn't have ADD, "just" language issues...

also what you describe about how she uses adjectives instead of nouns - DS sometimes does this - someone else on here has a child who does this - we wondered if it might be a visual learner thing - ie. the child gets a picture of the item in their mind, so starts thinking of the appearance rather than the noun iyswim.

btw not saying this as any sort of hint I think your DD is on the spectrum - more that I suppose some of the support they would give a child on the spectrum may be appropriate for your DD?

PS - if they keep saying how unusual your DD is, did they manage to wriggle out of saying she would be under low incidence???

Totalchaos, I think she probably is on the spectrum, to be honest, but because she gives eye contact & her rigidities come and go (or rather move from one obsessive routine to another quite rapidly) they are saying she isn't ASD.

She definitely has visual processing issues. She came out on the sensory profile as having a definite difference in all areas of the profile except sensory sensitivity and one other.

She always describes colour. If we say we are going to the hospital, she says "play with yellow and blue and green?", which are the colours of their slide.

WRT the low/high incidence, ed psych said "How did you know about that?" I said "I read and read. MN is a good source of info." She said she was 'held practically under knife-point not to say by county'. So I took a breath and said "So, off the record, is DD high or low?" She said she really didn't know, and that it shouldn't matter.

Apparently, the LA feel that parents shouldn't be worrying about where the money comes from, because a statement is a legally binding document detailing provision. How that is funded is the concern of the school/LA. I said that one school had commented that unless I got a good enough statement, DD might not be suitably cared for. Her response was that maybe they needed to talk to schools and remind them that they had to provide suitable care for any child they have, regardless of the statement limitations, and funding, and that they already have 80% of the budget at the start of the year. She was cross.

Incidently, she said that county are unlikely to give full 1:1 for any child. I asked where that leaves DD, and she said that they would work it carefully to make sure she is safe. I said that DD can't suddenly stop falling over because there isn't a 1:1 for her during that time or suddenly not run off and escape But apparently times like gluing will be ok. Did I mention that she eats everything?

lOU, ds2 has specific languae difficulties with word finding & structure.He often describes an object when searching for the name for it.

He is also described as acomplex little thing!
Could you consider a split placement?

at the same age as your DD, my DS would also talk about colour a lot - I think its to do with it being a concept they've got completely sorted in their mind amongst all those confusing words they don't know iyswim. sounds like wading through treacle, that convo about funding...

anon - possibly. Ed psych is going to get back to me with options. Good to hear there are other complex things out there!

Total - treacle indeed.

Lou, full-time 1:1 is a battle everywhere. J's nursery had spelled out at length how much he needed full-time 1:1 for health and safety (he is a runner and also pretty much constantly violent and destructive at that age - would attack with knives, scissors, books...whatever he could get his hands on and bit, hit, scratched and head-butted children and staff pretty mich every day even with 1:1 ). Even the ed. psych, within the constraints of what she could say, wrote that he needed an "extremely high level" of 1:1 at school. He was turned down twice for Statutory Assessment and then, after Tribunal application and letter to MP, was assessed and given 18 hours or something of 1:1. The school and governors of the place he was due to attend complained and were basically told to sod off, as was I, so they had to fund the extra for 3 years to cover him for full-time 1:1.

After 2 years, I re-applied for full-time, with the school's consent, and they still said no . I then came up with a list of number of violent/ dangerous incidents with the school and number of incidents needing restraint, and we sent that to the LEA and to my MP. It was quite shocking . He had also had his ADOS test which proved that he had quite severe difficulties and confirmed the dx of autism. The MP wrote a shitty letter to the LEA and I also applied to Tribunal. They tried then to offer 25 hours (here, the school pays for anything 25 hours or under out of their budget) but I said full-time or nothing. They agreed and he now gets 33 hours + 5 hours for preparation time for the TA. It's all paid for by the LEA as he is a low-incidence statement over 25 hours.

I wish, in retrospect, that I'd gone to Tribunal in the first place when the first Statement was shite.

My point (eventually!) is that you need written evidence from as many people as possible stating clearly the need for full-time 1:1 and what would happen without it. I suspect that they will try to get away with it because she isn't dangerous to others but your priority is obviously that she's not dangerous to herself! The EP is naughty saying that the school would just have to provide whatever she needed - you have the right for have full-time specified in the Statement so that dd has what she needs and school can't wriggle out of it by saying 'oh, well she's OK during assembly by herself' or whatever. They have budget constraints and might have to cut what they can offer her without full-time specified, but they can't do that if it's in her Statement. I hate it when crap statements from the LEA pit the parents against the school - LEAs need to suck it up and specify what is needed.

I also think that MP letters and Tribunal applications, ime, are unfortunately far more powerful than anything a parents says or writes to the LEA. My advice is to use the EP's words about dd's complexity and uniqueness against her to say 'well then, she's obviously low incidence as very few others will have needs like hers'.

You will get there. It may take a while, but if that's what you and others say she needs, the LA should give her that. They can't have a blanket policy not to give full-time and I had to remind my LA of that when they tried to tell me that they never gave full-time. They do now .

Good luck with it all!

Thank you for that really helpful post! I think DD is tricky, because in each of the areas of difficulty, you could say 'she will be alright at x time, on her own'. But when you combine them, I really can't see a time in the day when she wouldn't need 1:1 support, and at very least watching from a distance, ready to intervene.

I am getting my assertive boots on. 1:1 or nothing. Special school is more expensive than mainstream + 1:1, so that is in my favour.

Yes, definitely! I did start making sneaky noises (through social worker, who works in same building as SEN dept) that I'd found a suitable special school, an hour's drive away, which was £50k a year...I think that helped remind Head of SEN dept how much he was actually saving by having J in mainstream, and it probably did 'focus' his mind more when deciding to up J's funding

Dd also used to give the colours or the shape or the verb for anything she didn't know or couldn't find the noun for. It helped enormously because she didn't have a reliable point until 3 and a half or more.
My dd sounds incredibly like your dd too eye contact fine her obsessions come and go and her rigidity is variable and lots of sensory issues besides and is described as complex.
Dd has a diagnosis of autism given around her second birthday.

DS likes to go through the colours when he learns a new word - 'Red Computer, Green Computer, Blue Computer White Computer etc if Computer was the new word. He picked up colours and shapes etc with a mixture of direct and indirect learning - but quite agree it's miracle when he is concentrating so little !

Nice to know DD is similar to some other children. I am almost convinced DD has ASD, but that her other issues mask it & throw them off the scent. But who am I to say? Only her mother

That seems odd to me too - DS1 has obsessions that move on and I am sure this is not unusual - in fact he is very flexible with his obsessions and rigidities Also good eye contact though this was poor when younger

We had the ed phych come 2 weeks ago to see dd2, she has ASD, very poor language but knows colours, alphabet and numbers. We have been advised to put her in MS with full 1:1 support but if she struggles then they will try and get her in to a speech and language unit (20 miles away). They tried to tell me that dd2 did not need a statement but after talking to the school they would prefer her to have a statement. I'm still not sure if MS is the right choice for her.

Dd2 was diagnosed with ASD in the summer, her eye contact is not bad (on and off), she has no obsessions but loves routine.

Trouble is, DD's consultant specialises in ASD, so if he says no, that's kind of it. But having said that, last appointment a med student was pushing dd away by her feet in the buggy, over and over, and DD was enjoying it. Dr said 'stop & see what happens'. I think he was expecting her to say 'do it again', but all she did was try and stretch her legs to reach the med student.

He said at that appt that 'sometimes we go full circle and have to reconsider things we had previously ruled out'.

He wrote 'social communication difficulties' as a compromise.

Hmmm...the psychiatrist who dx'd J's ADHD was a national expert and specialist in autism and totally missed the autism when dxing the ADHD. It took a new, non-specialist psychiatrist one appointment to spot the autism, which actually turned out to be quite severe in terms of ADOS score. So I wouldn't be afraid to ask for a second opinion...Start with the DSM-IV autism criteria and highlight the ones you think dd meets. If you think there is a possibility, take the document to the consultant and ask why he thinks she doesn't.