Aspergers/ASD support thread

Savvy_Sue

TBH, with primary school homework I'd concentrate on the 'concrete' things like tables, spellings etc, and let the rest go if you're having to do it for them.

I think it's important for teachers to know what is and isn't possible. If they can't 'do' creative, they can't 'do' creative!

seven-day-weekend

My son (now 30) used to cry when he had to do Creative Writing, this was at Secondary School. He could not get the hang of what he had to do.

One day he was verbally telling me a story he had made up about some Warhammer models. I wrote it down as best I could and gave it to him and said 'there's your Creative Writing'.

I saw his face change, it was like a light bulb had gone on, and he said 'You mean it just has to come out of my head?. After that he was very good at English, including Creative Writing, and got Bs for his GCSEs.

There is hope, although some will never 'get it'.

My son also had trouble with foreign languages, he could never get them either, it didn't seem to sink in that a word he'd never heard of could 'mean' am English word. Come time for GCSE, he was crying again about having to try to speak French in front of the class. For this we went to the school and told the French Teacher that as he was going to fail French anyway, that we did not want him to be humiliated by having to do this. He ended up doing his Oral just to the Teacher privately, which he was happier about. (He still failed! )

I would tell the teachers the difficulty he is having and why.

Hope all goes OK.

starnight_2

Thank You everyone for the advise. I'm going to speak to the teacher today to see if we can have a meeting and discuss some of the things he finds difficult. I'll have to make myself a list o.O Though it's not that bad there are one or two things I wish to have a talk about.

edgex

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

My son (now 30) used to cry when he had to do Creative Writing, this was at Secondary School. He could not get the hang of what he had to do.

One day he was verbally telling me a story he had made up about some Warhammer models. I wrote it down as best I could and gave it to him and said 'there's your Creative Writing'.

I saw his face change, it was like a light bulb had gone on, and he said 'You mean it just has to come out of my head?. After that he was very good at English, including Creative Writing, and got Bs for his GCSEs.

There is hope, although some will never 'get it'.

My son also had trouble with foreign languages, he could never get them either, it didn't seem to sink in that a word he'd never heard of could 'mean' am English word. Come time for GCSE, he was crying again about having to try to speak French in front of the class. For this we went to the school and told the French Teacher that as he was going to fail French anyway, that we did not want him to be humiliated by having to do this. He ended up doing his Oral just to the Teacher privately, which he was happier about. (He still failed! )

I would tell the teachers the difficulty he is having and why.

Hope all goes OK.

Foreign languages :eek:

I had to do french & german at school, what a waste of time.
Spent all that time 'learning' rules which youd never use, instead of useful phrases, or even just being able to read enough to get the meaning.
Interesting that your location is Spain, ive coped fine in spain twice now, even though id never done spanish.


Creative writing
ah yes, they want a story 1000 words long
only mine is either 500 or 5000
i can have 'ideas', but getting them down on paper & making sense is still a problem

end_of_my_tether_2

Hi All,


I have on under a different username as what I am describing will easily identify me.

My eldest ds is 7 (8 next month) and was suspended from school for 3 days last week. This is the 2nd time that this has happened within a year.

We only moved to this area in Nov 09 and he started his new school in year 2 in the December.

Whilst he wasn't diagnosed with anything he has always been 'difficult' at both home and school, has speech problems and has always been behind in his school work.
We told his new school all of this and they said they were already aware and that is why it took them a month to grant him a place and only then because the LEA made them.

2 weeks in at his new school and we got an abrupt call asking us to collect our son because he was suspended as he had threatened a teacher/pupil - almost a year later we still don't have an accurate version of events from the school. We had a meeting with school were we addressed our concerns, as did they. I also took my son to the GP and got him referred to our local CAHMS team.
DS was accepted (certainly not welcomed!) back into school and we had a few minor incidents throughout the year which meant we had to get him at luchtimes etc. The school arranged for ds to have a classroom assistant to work solely with him and this seemed to help.
Whilst these outbursts weren't weekly they were often enough for us not to be able travel outside of a 5 mile radius during school hours because when we got the calls we were always barked at down the phone to get there ASAP. What we did note was that these outbursts always happened when the teaching assistant was off unexpectantly (that seemed to happen quite a bit)

Anyway I am rambling!

The CAHMS team said that it was almost certain that ds has Aspergers. I researched the condition and DS seems to tick almost every box. Since then we have been treating him as if he has been diagnosed (he's been on a waiting list for 5 months or so now and won't be seen until around November).
Since we have altered our behaviours at home, like giving him a clear indication of what will be happening and not just assuming he knows we have noticed a significant change in his day to day behaviour.
We told school of this and took an Aspergers factsheet in to show his class teacher yet nothing changed.

Towards the end of term DS had another incident and we went to collect him with the intention of not taking him back until something was in place to help him.

We had an informal meeting with the deputy head (the head was on long term sick, as was the SENCO without any substitutes!) who seemed to agree with every concern we raised and promised a change. She also said that she would attend a meeting that had been arranged prior to the incident with all the agencies involved with ds.

At the meeting we seemed to be moving forward and school agreed a number of measures that were suggested to them by the other agencies present. We walked away happy and hopeful for the new term.

The new term starts with ds moving from the infants to the juniors and with that came a new building within the school grounds. His class teacher however was the new SENCO so all seemed good.
On Tuesday (the 2nd wk of term) I sat waiting for ds to finish for the day (on my own as nobody wants to talk to the parents of the bad child - it must be our fault after all) and a girl from his class came out saying very loudly that XXXX has been throwing pens across the classroom. All the parents tutted.

When DS came out I asked him about this and he denied it (he lies often). As the class teacher was no where to be seen I went into school to find out what had happened. When I got to his classroom there were 3 senior members of staff stood outside the door. i explained what I was there for and was told that DS had had a really good day and had received a headteachers award for his work. They couldn't go into any more detail because a child in ds's class had barracaded himself in and was throwing chairs.

I went out of school full of praise for ds and thinking that the littel girl who had come out of school saying what she said must have got ds and the other child confused.

The next day around luchtime we once again got an abrupt call from school (we had asked previously that the tone of these calls changed but no such luck) asking us to collect ds asap.

My dh went to the school and was told that ds had thrown a chair at a teacher and may have broken her arm. When we asked of the circumstances school said there was no trigger that they could see. My dh asked about the pen incident the day before and school said that it was actually ds who had done that.


I think I should also mention that DS's classroom assistant was made redundant at the end of last term because there was no funding for him as the funding school were using came from a year 6 pupils special needs funding and he left the school. I was not aware of this at the time and doubt his parents were aware of the fact our DS was using some of the money!

School say they can't get him funding because he isn't diagnosed although the CAHMS team say that they can because it's all about criteria not condition.

I'm sorry this post is sooooooo long but I think it's the bigger picture that matters in this.
We just don't know what to do next. The LEA require written concerns and will reply within 4 weeks but from our point of view we can't send him back into a situation where he is a danger to himself and others.
What the LEA did say is that the school has broke many rules by suspending him twice without work sent home.......and that if everytime they had sent him home at luch they had recorded that as suspension those instances alone would have meant he'd got funding.

I know a lot of people will be reading this thinking my ds is a naughty troublemaker but he really isn't IF he's managed properly.

end_of_my_tether_2

I forgot to mention the fact that last year because ds is really far behind with reading and writing school put him in reception class in the mornings as he is really good with younger children and he felt like he was helping rather than him actually learning. This worked really well until a few of the parents got wind of this and demanded that the school stop it straight away and without hesitation school caved in and ds was back in his normal class learning joined up writing and spanish ween he can't even write dog or read words of more than 3 letters.

Indie_Kid

end_of_my_tether wrote: »

What we did note was that these outbursts always happened when the teaching assistant was off unexpectantly (that seemed to happen quite a bit)

Why does he not have someone else to help him when the TA is off? I remember at secondary school, there were pupils with various special needs and if one of the TAs was off and the child was really in need of help, another TA would cover.

have you or school worked out any triggers for him? Can he tell you what his triggers are?

motherhen2234

If your not having any luck with the school staff check the LEA website for their complaints / appeals procedure. I am not totally familar with it but apparently schools do start seeing things differently once the school governors and LEA is involved. Sorry I can't be of any more specific help.

Mankysteve

You need to push for the assessment ASAP.Until he's been proberly assesed you going to keep in this circle as the school wont be able to getting the extra funding for him until then. Might be worth getting in touch with teh PTA and maybe the school governess in the mean time.

Its just going to get worse for everyone though. School are/going to find it harder and harder to get the money they need especial with these stupid academy and budget cuts.

end_of_my_tether_2

hi all,

thanks for your replies.

His triggers are change and disruption so in the latest suspension it will be the fact that he was in a new building with a new teacher and without his TA. He was disrupted by the incident with another child the day before as the class was evacuated to the hall whilst it was taking place. He had measures in place last year that were set by his current teacher yet these haven't followed through to this year with the same teacher.

I have had a meeting with the chair of governers previously and it was pointless.
As for the PTA, well they are the very people who tutted when the little girl came out and said that my ds had thrown pens and I know at least one of them was behind the plan to get ds out of reception class so I don't think they will be as supportive as they should!

We have been pushing for an assessment - believe me this matter has not been let rest but we are getting nowhere with one dept blaming another and every dept giving a different story.

We have contacted the local LEA to complain but that will take 4 weeks to be looked at.

We feel that we are banging our heads against a brick wall and at the end of the day there is a little boys education, confidence and future in the middle of all this beurocracy and pen pushing with nobody willing to account for anything.

Our gut feeling is to pull him out of school until something stable is arranged and if we get in trouble for truancy then I will go to the local papers etc. When he is at school the rest of the class are so far ahead that he isn't actually learning!