Our son, nearly 4, was diagnosed with ASD, learning difficulties and sensory issues last September. At the time, these were presenting as significant-severe. He has been given an EHCP, with a recommendation of sending him to a school with complex needs, we disagree, it should be either a High COIN or LAN school.
Since August we have seen a significant change in our son (new nursery, and I have been working full-time with him when he's not at nursery). I would describe him as:
The good:
He has gone from a working expressive vocabulary of 5 words (September) to perhaps 200 words. We're not entirely sure how many words he knows, as he surprises us daily with words we didn't know he knew. He uses simple (2-3 word sentences) most of the time, sometimes going up to 7.
He is intelligent and inquisitive, and loves to solve problems with mechanical solutions ("how does this toy work? Ok, I open it up here, slide my dang in, push the little disc down, take hand out, close it up and then pull on the yellow lever").
He learns quickly. He learned to count from 1-10 in two half-hour sessions, and understand the meaning of the numbers (How many cars? four!")
He is happy and obedient- when he understands what is expected of him. Before he started understanding language, he was very uncooperative/tantrums because (we now know) of his frustration.
He is very aware of others around him, and if he sees someone in need or unhappy, he will try to bring them what he thinks they want, or comfort them.
The bad:
He does have sensory issues, and if something happens that he doesn't like he quickly becomes deregulated.
His behaviour can be challenging if he doesn't understand what is expected of him.
His language and non-verbal communication remains behind those of a non-autistic nearly-four-year-old.
His EHCP is based on the "old" behaviour where much of the "good" section didn't apply, but his progress since we started working with him full-time, and sending him to the new nursery has been remarkable. However, his EHCP and school recommendation is based on how he was.
I have visited five of the schools on the recommended list, and spoken to four of the deputy head teachers at these schools. It is immediately clear that the needs of the children in these school are vastly, vastly different from those of my son and the deputy heads I have spoken to agree (based on the description that I have given to them about him). We will not send him to one of these schools, as we feel that these are entirely inappropriate for him. However, our case worker has been entirely unsupportive in resolving the issues, and has driven relentlessly for our son to go to one specific school.
We will, of course, take the decision to appeal but are conscious that time is short to find him a place before September at a suitable school, and is far from certain to succeed. Having now realised (belatedly!) that the "choice" we have been given by our case worker is entirely illusionary, we are now trying to understand whether a specialist, self-funded school for our son may be an option (we could perhaps go to a budget of £4,000 per month)- the only schools we have been able to find so far seem to still need a recommendation from the LA, so we're not entirely sure of what we should be looking for. We'd be happy to relocate if needed.