Review and Transitioning

We had our annual statement of special ed needs review last week and the school and local authority are making plans for my son's transition to high school in 2011. Yes 2011!! It certainly seems early to me, but his current teacher and the school senco who knows him very well, both agree that he will need plenty of time to make the transition. For a child with Asperger's which includes some sensory issues, high school is going to be one clamorous and murky storm cloud that will take some serious adjusting to. My son's opinion on it; he doesn't want to go. Home education is not ruled out as we started on that path when he was younger, but that is not an easy option either.

The review was very positive with a continuation and possible addition of his statement hours per week, that's how many hours he has an assistant working with him in the classroom. The best news was (which we haven't yet told him as the anxious waiting might kill us all!) that the authority would like him to have his own notepad computer which would go with him to high school. Because he is so technically oriented and handwriting is such a laborious process, its hoped that being able to type most assignments will encourage him to do more. It seems that just last year we were hearing the arguement that he 'needed' to work on his handwriting despite the inconvenience to him. But the fact is he knows how to write, and his handwriting has improved, so that is a skill that he has learned and is unlikely to improve very much more, but more likely to put him off writing completely if he was to be forced to do hours of it. So the notebook is very good news indeed, but because its coming from the LEA it will most likely take months before he sees it. 

*photo Sony vaio mini notebook computer, something along the lines of what he may be getting for use at school.

Back to the grind

Well I'm slacking off I see, but we seemed to have either loaded a virus, or these latest windows updates have completely screwed our computer up, as it didn't quite return to the factory settings, but instead wiped out all our personal files, that's all our documents, photos, music, etc. Norton's is not functioning properly either, and of course when we need it, we can't find the receipt and code that says we updated our subscription only months ago!! Its enough to make me not want to have a computer at all.. or to fruitlessly wish that I was a computer genius.

Anyway, its been back to school this week for my son, and I've managed to send in the Sendist Appeal. We are also one week away from our meeting with the multi-disciplinary team that have been assessing my son for an Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). I was pleased to hear that the educational psychologist was in to see him this week at school, although I feel she didn't pick the best time as he is still 'fresh' from the holidays. It would have been much better had she come in the last month of school (in July) as she was originally intended to. I can only hope that she will have consulted with my son's teacher from last year who knows him very well, as this year's teacher doesn't of course.

Once the assessment is done, hopefully a diagnosis will result, and evidence that we can then present to the LEA for our appeal for a statuatory assessment.

No More Meds, but more Paperwork

I'm starting on the appeal to the SENDIST tribunal regarding the LEA's failure to provide a statuatory assessment for my son. Phew, that was a mouthful! In fact that is how I am feeling about this entire thing, its so much paperwork- and energy that I'm convinced it really must be to discourage people from going up against them. If they can wear you out without giving you any help, then so much the better I guess.

Mid-September is when we have our meeting the multi-displinary team that have been assessing my son for ASD (an autistic spectrum disorder, possibly Asperger's) and once they make (or not, as the case may be) a diagnosis, that 'evidence' will be presented for the appeal. The fact is though, it could still be up to 6 months before any actual help is forthcoming for him in school, which means he'll be well into year 4. Considering that we are not located in a big metropolitan area, you'd think that they could sort this stuff out a lot quicker. In the meantime, my son has come off the medication. We stopped the Equasym (methalphenidate) as it seemed to be making him worse, high-strung, sleepless, aggressive, no appetite, etc. And it now feels like we have our son back.. he just wasn't himself on that med and it wasn't for him and I feel better about it.

But it doesn't end there, oh no.. my daughter has had a referral to a speech therapist and apparently she is delayed by 6 months. While I am now accepting of this fact, as I was aware that if one sibling has ASD, the other is more likely to as well, I never ever imagined that I'd have two children with some sort of learning/neurological impairment, but then as Joseph Campbell has said, "We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

Disappointed but not surprised

We had a meeting yesterday with a different (not the same one from last November) consultant educational psychologist, just for the parents, and it went very well. She seems to be a very experienced and attuned specialist and next week she will be meeting with my son. The behavioural support worker for the school also gave us her report which she also had to present to the moderating committee for the statuatory statement process. I was very pleased with what she observed and recommended. She seemed to have a good measure of my son and his needs.

However, we've heard back from the council/moderating committee today saying that they have decided not to go ahead with an assessment for a statement of special needs for our son. This is disappointing as it means we will have to appeal, which is just alot more *bollocks* as my husband likes to say. I'm not surprised that one of their reasons was not enough 'evidence' as I said, we are still in the process of having a multi-disciplinary team meet with us and our son. It seems that either the special needs committee moves too slow (as in nothing happening with ed-pysch since November) or at the wrong time, as in push it forward like they did, without considering the processes currently ongoing. Something like the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. Something like that..