Hi
I am new to this site & community so hopefully here i wont feel so isolated in our struggles.
Our 5year old son has as recent as last week been formaly Diagnosed ASD, to the untrained eye he is a perfectly typical 5yr Old little boy.. Tantrums going from 0 to off the scale in seconds/Biteing/Scrating/Not Listening/Not Looking & much more its very much his agenda Most days.
When he was about 2/ 2 & a half years old my father had voiced his concerns that he thought our son may be Autistic my reaction wasnt the greatest i was incredibly upset that he was saying these things its wasnt easy to hear my Husband wasnt happy at all he ultimatley blames himself as do i ,reasonable or unreasonable reaction i dont know, he was our 1st born so we had nothing to compare his behaviours/reactions to.
When he was 3 years old his Nursery also started to raise concerns regarding his social interaction/Speach or lack of as he would only comunicate by making noises & Hearing/Listening they even asked that i take him again to have his ears checked by the doctor because most of the time you'd swear he had a hearing imparement & the situation is still the same & incredably frustrating for us as his parents...... from then on in we have had involvement from Speach & Language 1 on 1 home session cause he just wouldnt entertain the group session these session with SLT did make a differance, then came the educational phycologist /pre 5 support in Nursery & more SLT.. At this point the only person who had said clearly they though our son was Autistic was my father..
Every obstical we have overcome or made good improvements on have been with great difficulty emotionally & physically but with persiverance, so when it came time to enroll in school we chose to enroll him in Mainstream school as we beleived that with hard work & persiverance with him he would be writing before school etc.. However his 3 setteling in days came, 1Hr at a time and they where absoloutley horrific Our son was so distressed it was deeply upsetting it took me till the last session for the last 15 min to Calm down & join in a little at no point in these setteling in session did any teacher or teaching assistant come down to our sons level to introduce & familiarise themself with him to see if he would respond & calm down apart from their Janitor she was great with him ,
At this point i was heavily pregnant with our 2nd child we had a Transitional meeting at the nursery with everyone who had been involved in our sons case there my emotions where running very high as the school had been less than helpfull & basically had our son pegged as a Problem child falling just short of saying the words out loud in my opinion they DID NOT want our son at their school as they sat their calling him challanging etc... he is very very clever he can read at a level suitable for primary 2/3 he can count endlessly,spell with ease he can even tell me his Vowels & constanents, before school we had trouble getting him to write & it seems he still has this anxiety in the classroom but no longer at home i dont know of any other child who comes home & the 1st thing they want is their homework but he does & he does it 90% of it consists of writing its not always plain sailing but he completes it.
There has been a big difference in him since starting school in August we where sick to our stomachs every day running up to school starting with the antiipation of what was ahead of us, but he surprised us all 1st Day of school he went into the yard, lined up with everyone & went into class... he was only in untill lunch for the 1st 3 weeks to which i was in the school from 10.45am till 1pm incase he needed to come home he now does all day but he is still struggeling, he is learning but only what he wants , what interests him everything is on his own agenda & recently the control has shifted back to him rather than his ESN & teacher, In all our meetings so far we has few positives & it all seems to be about the negatives well thats how it feels to us...
They now acknowledge that he is very Clever & a lovely wee boy they do seem to have taken quite a shine to him, however thats just not good enough...
I am now questioning myself on everything is this the right school for him to tap into his potential & get the best out of him & for him to get the best out of an education??? Would things be different if id have just listened to my Dad 3years ago???
I wouldnt change my little boy for the world all these little things make him who he is i just want him to be happy & get the most out of life,x
Im Confussed really, desperatley trying/wanting to do the right thing by our son .
Thank you,x
