Actually I think if you kept him at home for a year you could possibly still enrol himin prep, after all they keep kids back for a secind year of prep (or atleast they did back in the days where everyone didn't have to be perfect :budgiedance: ) no different really.

Deb,

 

I have been reading the posts that have been made here, and I don't mean to be rude or to insult people as they are simply wishing the very best for you and Jadon, but you have to realise that some of the autistic spectrum orders don't go away with the maturing in age. School's are set up to deal with these issues. I have students in my classes who have Aspergers and fall at different places on the ASD (austistic spectrum disorder) scale.

 

You of course need to get him assessed to see the level he is at, but it may well be something that he has to deal with for many years. I was recently at a conference on ASD's and the presenter (one of the world's experts in this field) explained it like this - expecting someone with Aspergers to understand and consider another person's feelings is like expecting a blind person to read a normal newspaper - it is not going to happen.

 

I understand the need to want to protect your child, every parent wants that, but rather than looking at withdrawing him, look at what provisions and assistance he can receive in the primary school he will go into. My sister is a primary school deputy Principal, and yet she started her teaching life some 13 years ago as a Special Education teacher in a high intensity special school. Teachers are well trained in coping with students with learning difficulties. Diagnosed students can get funding and have a carer in a class to assist them with everyday task. Different skills and expectations can be taught. Do not sell the education system short.

 

I understand that fears and worry, but I am not sure that withdrawal is the answer here. Rather, look what the school offers, what more can be offered, and what you can do to assist, rather than completely withdrawing him. There are many parents in your situation. Seek them out. Get parental advice, as well as specialist and teacher advice.

Edited October 17, 200816 yr by Dave_McMinn
typos

Thanks Dave for your advice, he is getting his assesments done next month which will hopefully let me know what his needs are and then i will be able to talk to the school and see if they can help me. My problem is that the school i want him to attend does have special need support teachers but they do not have the resources to have a career in the classes all the time. The school is a Independant school so they seem to do things different to the public system.

Funding is a state initiative. If he is funded by the state government, then he can attend there and they can get extra help in to assist him. I work in a catholic school and that is the way it works. I have taught in a private independent school and my sister is a deputy in a state primary school, so I have seen it all in that regard

Funding is a state initiative. If he is funded by the state government, then he can attend there and they can get extra help in to assist him. I work in a catholic school and that is the way it works. I have taught in a private independent school and my sister is a deputy in a state primary school, so I have seen it all in that regard

 

 

It matters if the school decides to spend the funding on the child, my hubby was talking to a mother at the school who has a child with aspergers and she told him to money the school got for her son was spent on sporting equipment.

That's **** Deb, is there another school locally that you could try?

That's **** Deb, is there another school locally that you could try?

 

 

M older 2 kids are at that school and Jadon only talks about going to big school with them. My older 2 would not want to change schools and Jadon would not want to go to any other school so when he does start there i am going to try to make sure he gets the support that he is supposed to have.

Deb can you get help from the state or anything, I know here you have to fight my cousin did but you can get the state to help in different ways and they do IP testing for them which goes with them their whole life.

I would make it very clear Deb that X amount of fundinghas been provided to the school to ensure that Jadon gets an integration aide, etc and that if it is not provided to the prescribed level you will be taking it to today tonight

For the last couple of day i have been on the phone to the dept of education and training, the school principal and Jadons preschool and feel like i am getting no answers or help. It seems like i have no option but to send him to school, personally i do not feel i have the patient to homeschool and the dept of education and training says that because of government funding for kids with special needs there is no reason why he should not to be able to attend school. Now i am really stressing out and trying to work out my next step.

What a tough spot to be in. I worked as an integraiton aide at a state school here in sydney for a while, and amongst my charges was a little boy with Asperger's. He coped really well, but this had a lot to do with the fact that his family (mum especially) did a lot of work at home to provide scaffolds etc for social situations, the school made a good effort to match him each year with a teacher more suited to managing his special needs, and the fact that the school actually had a bit of left-over money which they were willing to spend on their special needs kids, so not only did this boy get his allocated number of support hours, but also received an extra hour or two each week of extra one-on-one support. All in all though, the funding allocated specifically to him, plus the extra that the school allocated still amounted to less than two hours of support each day. But like I said, he coped well, and in some ways, being in the class WITHOUT support probably helped him a lot in terms of observing and learning how others operate. We always made sure the first couple of minutes of our time in his class room were dedicated to answering "people questions" - eg explaining why Mrs X got cranky when he did this, or why doing that made so-and-so cry etc.

I think that everybody has made a lot of good points. Schools are set up to cater for different needs, but they really don't have the resources to do it perfectly. It's just not possible unfortunately. But that doesn't mean that school life will be miserable for him or that he won't have a good education. If he has teachers that really understand and want to help, and if that teacher fosters a supportive classroom, then it should be a lot easier. But he is going to need your help and advocacy every step of the way, and you will need to be very involved in planning what adjustments will need to be made, possibly educating the teacher sometimes, implementing things at home to keep things consistent between home and school, and fighting for his needs if the school is not taking something seriously. It's important to keep up to date with how he is finding school and nip problems in the bud before he becomes unhappy - it may be hard to unlearn negative feelings towards certain other kids or situations if he gets too upset by them. It's a tough job for you but nobody can do it better than you can.

 

I think that it's hard to predict how much he will struggle in school, but it's important to find something that he is good at and can experience success in so that even if he does feel a bit out of place at school, he still has something that he enjoys and that builds his self esteem. That may or may not be within the school context.

 

Also it's good to remember that all kids have good teachers and bad teachers, and have good periods and bad periods in school, and that all kinds of kids have times when school fails them and their parents need to step in and kick a fuss. With Jadon it may or may not happen to a greater extent than other kids.

 

All the best with the planning and assessments ahead. I know it's pretty scary but try not to be too nervous about the school thing and all that you can't control- school can only do so much for any child but their parents and home life play the biggest role and you are obviously doing all you can in that way

For the last couple of day i have been on the phone to the dept of education and training, the school principal and Jadons preschool and feel like i am getting no answers or help. It seems like i have no option but to send him to school, personally i do not feel i have the patient to homeschool and the dept of education and training says that because of government funding for kids with special needs there is no reason why he should not to be able to attend school. Now i am really stressing out and trying to work out my next step.

 

I thought they gave you the okay to have him stay home? :party0011:

For the last couple of day i have been on the phone to the dept of education and training, the school principal and Jadons preschool and feel like i am getting no answers or help. It seems like i have no option but to send him to school, personally i do not feel i have the patient to homeschool and the dept of education and training says that because of government funding for kids with special needs there is no reason why he should not to be able to attend school. Now i am really stressing out and trying to work out my next step.

 

I thought they gave you the okay to have him stay home?

 

 

The school principal of the school got in touch with me again and told me he had made a mistake, that it is a very hard to get a child held back from school so it looks like Jadon is going to have to start kindy next year. The school principal is going to get the special needs support teacher to get in touch with me to talk about Jadon and how we can make the transition from preschool to school easier for him and what areas he will need support in. The preschool director would lke her to go to the preschool and watch Jadon and talk to the them about what they do in different situations so i really hope she will do that for us.

I am going to be busy the next few months making sure that they will have in place at school the support he does need and because he hates change i am going to try to organise extra orientation days. i also going to spend the next few months worrying that we are making the right decisions but i feel i have no other choice. Hubby was speaking to one of the teachers at the school and his son has autism and has been getting all the support he needs and he has had him at another schools before the private school and found they have all had the same in their level of support so that has make me feel a little bit of hope.

Deb, have you looked into contacting different organization for an Autism Support group in your area? These really help my cousin did this, met new people that where having the same issues so they could support and bounce ideas off of them.

I have not yet because i have been waiting till all his assessments have been done so i can decided which would be the best group. There are a few support groups around but they are set up for different areas of autism , i hope that makes sense.

My hubby's boss's wife works with special needs children especially autistic children and she has been to alot of seminars so they are coming for a bbq tea on Saturday night so i can talk to her.she has also given me a voucher for getting a full neurological test valued at $375 done for half price which is awesome.