Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello
Our school was originally treating our son as being possible Autistic, He has been referred for a ASD assessment but this will not be until July as
our area has a two year back log and rightfully needs to be attended to before they look at new referrals.
Our son has been seeing a psychologist to help him understand and manage his behaviour and
the psychologist says he has strong autistic traits.
I noticed school were treating our 7 year old differently in the last few weeks so asked them weather they were treating him as a child with
behavioural problems or a child who is possible autistic?
This is the reply I received
As we are all still awaiting any official diagnosis then we are dealing with the behavioural problems as experienced in school.I hope this helps.Have a good weekend
I am going to email the NSA education support but I wondered weather anybody knows if whilst waiting for an assessment the Autism act applies to our son and weather the fact that
he has now been segregated from all of the other children for all breaks/lunch is this discrimination?
If they believe he has autism then they should be using strategies that would be used with an autistic child. I wouldn't know how the autism act applies though. I personally would call a meeting with the school about the strategies they are using with your son.
As for your question about him being segregated at lunch, it depends on the reasons why. If he wasn't coping with the other children then it is probably more to help him than discrimination. Some autistic children get overwhelmed by a busy playground. If his behaviour was violent or anything like that then the school would be well within their rights to keep him away from other children at least for a while. Have they explained their reasons for this decision? What has been put in place for him instead?