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Autistic daughter and school

by Wendy

Can you please help?
We have an autistic daughter who is 7.
She is in a mainstream school and they say she is fine, but when she comes home she is abusive towards me and her dad. She hits her brother and throws stuff around. She is very anxious and has melatonin to help her to sleep.
We are at the end of our tether with her. She is clearly losing it and has self harmed on a couple of occassions.
She is usually ok during school holidays.
I don't know what to do. Do you have any ideas that may help.

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Autistic daughter and school

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starstarstarstarstar 		Autistic Daughter and School answer Part 2
by: parenting-our-kids

11.Consistency is vital for our kids so make sure staff understand this. you will need to dripfeed
this into schools that have limited knowledge of ASD.

12.Dn't worry about making a nuisance of yourself, sadly because so many other things go on within mainstream schools our kids sometimes get forgotten. Remember you are doing what is necessary for your child.

13.Talk to Headteacher as well.

14.We asked for a child in need meeting to be called(think they are called something different now)
This is to get all professionals around table to discuss strategies.

15.Ask the difficult questions and don't let important things drop.

16.If the school won't call in educational psychologist you can at least talk to the psychologist yourself.
If you wish to ask the psychologist to meetings you can (the school have to ask psychologist in to see your child at school though)

!7.When meetings are held make sure someone is responible for taking minutes.

18.I always took someone to support me in meetings as some we have had have been very difficult.

19.Keep all lines of communication open even if things get tough.

20.keep your cool even if others loose their's.

21. If you have a real worry write a letter to school and request a meeting. Follow up with another letter outlining what was agreed,
or asking for another meeting if things have not been worked out.

22.At meetings have a clear picture in your mind about what the meeting needs to acieve. Try not to be sidetracked.

23 You can ask the Local education Authority for a statutory assessment to be done yourself. We did that this time.

24.Submit all your evidence for assessment to LEA.

Hopefully doing even some of these things will get your child the help she needs.

I hope this is helpful.
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starstarstarstarstar 		Autistic Daughter and School
by: parenting-our-kids

Ok that is really difficult. here is the process we went through.

Please note that depending on where you live the authorities may have different names and jobs.

1.Get a diagnosis if your child does not yet have one.

2.Keep a very clear diary of what is happening. Keep very clear notes about any changes in your child, including behaviour, sensory difficlties, sleeping and eating.

3.Write about the meltdowns in detail, crossreferance to home-school book if appropriate.

4. I also did a graph, it starts from January 2007, Days of week are along bottom and I chose to
do from 1-10 scale up side showing degree of anxiety and aggression. 1 being fine and 10 being extreme anxiety, upset and selfharming.
I then used red for school days, green for holidays and yellow for weekends.
This has been invaluable in showing graphically what a week or in this case year looks like.

5.Find out from other parents and proffessionals who in your area would go into the school to
support your child ie. communication and interaction team (I got them involved)

6.Make sure you have a homes-school link book and keep it up to date(this has been vital evidence in our case)

7.Check wether your child is on school action or school action plus and what that means for your child.

8.Make sure IEP's are accurate and have clearly set out goals (you are supposed to see and sign them)
An IEP should have a few clear measurable, achievable short term goals.
Ask for it to be changed or don't sign if you are not happy with it (again these are used as evidence).

9.Ask for help I kept ringing pead until we were referred to a clinical psychologist who has been great.

10.Keep talking to the teacher and letting her know what is happening.

More information to follow

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