Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello, I have never posted on a forum before, but I am unsure about what to do next. My son is 15 and in year 11, he was diagnosed with Aspergers and anxiety in year 7, he has always been in mainstream education. He has mostly coped, his strategy is to be the invisible boy at school and would rather die than break a school rule. He has reserved his meltdowns for home. He goes to the large comprehensive school closest to our home, so he has been around the same group of kids since nursery as we found change difficult for him.
Unfortunately the 6th form of our school is selective, all along I've been told don't worry he'll get in, including by the senco. He doesn't have a statement, but the school have provided a lunch club for sen kids and he has a small group of goodfriends from this.
The problems began in February after his mock exams, his anxiety escalated and he stopped being able to go to school. He was referred to camhs and he is getting therapy and help from them. He did not return to school and so missed all the revision lessons. He has managed to go in for a few of his exams. The pressure of taking Gcse's and needing to get the right score just to stay in his school pushed him over the edge. I said he could go into the school's 5th form to retake if needed, but this leads to a complete meltdown.
He needs help with study techniques, life skills and communication.
He has a place at this 6th form and the other localcomprehensive school, but he didn't even take hisEnglish exam. Will he cope with 6th form if he gets in? Are there any special needs 6th forms, even private ones? Are there any summer schools to help with the transition process? I am looking into a learning difficulty assessment, but the senco has never heard of it!
Advice please!
It is not unlikely he is taking up too much mental energy going through various permutations of the consequences of not passing that it is taking a toll on his ability to study.
Also wonder if being the invisible boy means that there is a high level of ragging because he is different, and the easiest way to deal with things is to try not to get noticed. As tensions build up over GCSEs amongst his peers there may be more inclination for them to take it out on him.
It might be useful to get him to keep a diary of all the things worrying him and share them with you. There may be some anxieties you can defuse and explain away, or things you can do to reduce the number of issues.
You can also reassure him about the balance between his abilities and his irrational fears about these abilities.
Sounds a bit late in the day to be talking about study techniques, life skills and communication, when his difficulties with these are right up front blocking his life prospect right now, large as mountains. Communication difficulties are part of the autism so why do they need to be addressed now? Life Skills are a consequence of the autism - what are they doing on the current agenda?
Study skills issues do seem to land on everyone pretty fast, I don't think the schools do enough to prepare young people for these events. But study techniques are going to be different from an autism perspective. Memory might be better, but organising information and prioritising may be much harder.
Repeating a year is no simple matter. The unfamiliar peer group and the fact he is an older boy doing a year again will not make it easy to get good outcomes, and I can understand if he is anxious about how a new peer group will treat him. That could well be playing on his mind at the moment, one of the distractions from his studies.
There are colleges where you can do an intensive resit if he is up to that kind of supported studying.
It seems a shame few schools are up to speed enough on autistic spectrum support needs. These crises must happen hundreds of times in many schools across the country every year, but nothing changes.
However, although it is difficult, many people have had to go through it, and it is resolvable if painful. If anything, in the circumstances, it ought to be made much easier for children on the spectrum to stagger these assessments.
Also although diagnosed late in life, and although at the milder, manageable end, I had a dreadful time at school, with a lot of bullying and ragging, and with no obvious excuse no support. I sat too many of my day equivalent of GCSEs and failed most of them, and resat over two subsequent years and just got into a deeper mire. I still went on to get a PhD in my late twenties.