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Concessions - school attendance

Hotel california

Hi 

Does anyone know if there are concessions regarding school attendance for children with ASC?

I know that each child is expected to attend a certain percentage in each academic year and when this percentage drops, alarm bells go off and the EWO gets involved.

My understanding is that schools are trying to clamp down on truancy, but I don't know any ASC children who are off school so that they can hang around shops or skate parks.

Welcome your feedback on this.

thanks.

Parents

  • As with so many things it's lack of autism awareness.  If they don't understand the reasons ASC children are off, they will have trouble recognising it as genuine and coding it.

    The biggest one could be anxiety, one morning I had to take the decision to keep my 12yo off because she had such a massive meltdown she was in no state to go and I had to decide whether to cancel her transport or not.  The school claimed to have had trouble knowing what to log it as.  (And I checked the codes myself and there were 2 or 3 that would have applied).  It's pathetic.

    Some autistic children get physically ill more often than normal, which can of course also be triggered by anxiety as this impacts the immune system.  My youngest was at only seventy something % attendance at one point at age 5 and the receptionist at the school told me that the EWO was about to come and see us until she assured her that we had reported everything and where applicable provided evidence (my daughter kept getting chest infections and going onto antibiotics - no surprise that this correlated with her high levels of anxiety and distress over school).

    It's another one of those things where you are battling a system that doesn't understand, and as far as I know there are no concessions for autism or any other condition, because "computer says no".

Reply

  • As with so many things it's lack of autism awareness.  If they don't understand the reasons ASC children are off, they will have trouble recognising it as genuine and coding it.

    The biggest one could be anxiety, one morning I had to take the decision to keep my 12yo off because she had such a massive meltdown she was in no state to go and I had to decide whether to cancel her transport or not.  The school claimed to have had trouble knowing what to log it as.  (And I checked the codes myself and there were 2 or 3 that would have applied).  It's pathetic.

    Some autistic children get physically ill more often than normal, which can of course also be triggered by anxiety as this impacts the immune system.  My youngest was at only seventy something % attendance at one point at age 5 and the receptionist at the school told me that the EWO was about to come and see us until she assured her that we had reported everything and where applicable provided evidence (my daughter kept getting chest infections and going onto antibiotics - no surprise that this correlated with her high levels of anxiety and distress over school).

    It's another one of those things where you are battling a system that doesn't understand, and as far as I know there are no concessions for autism or any other condition, because "computer says no".

Children
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