Many of our Autistic youngsters are doomed to fail.
Christina England
April 09, 2009
At the age of 16 in Britain many youngsters with Autism and learning difficulties are leaving school and entering mainstream colleges. If they have been supported in school with a statement of special educational needs this will be terminated. In the UK an Educational Statement is a legal document identifying a child's special educational needs in order for them to access the correct help and support they need throughout school.
Very often the statementing procedure is traumatic in itself, as it is the duty of the Local Education Authority and the Health Authority to work alongside to agree on the child's disability and work out an individual package of special educational needs. Sadly as the two never seem to see eye to eye, more often than not, the child has inadequate provision, missed or incorrect diagnoses which often leads to very little support particularly if the child is Autistic. An Autistic child requires a larger package of help and support so it is convenient for the professionals to ignore the needs or use their latest 'ace card' which is the 'double speak' where one side says one thing and the other says something else to avoid extra expenditure. With an estimated 1- 38 Autistic Boys coming through the system according to the Cambridge study this is just not good enough! Families often invest large amounts of time fighting systems in a seemingly losing battle just to try to get a child's needs met and just when they think they are winning the child reaches 16 and the battle starts all over again because the LEA at 16 wipes their hands of all special needs children unless they are staying in a special needs setting.
For a youngster to stay in a special needs setting new rules begin to emerge. Some go into a day provision which carries on until they reach the age of 19 but these placements only exist if the youngster has severe problems and could not function in a mainstream setting. If a boarding placement is what is identified then the funding come from the 'Learning and Skills Council' and has to be agreed by Social Services. Unless the young person has a social worker then the placement is refused. This is yet another a 'get out' clause.
On the Learning and Skills website it states
Special Educational Needs: further education
"The Learning and Skills Council and LEAs are responsible for meeting the cost of full-time education for people up to the age of 19. If the Learning Skills Council decide that your needs can only be met by going to a specialist residential college, they have a duty to fund your place there.
If you have a statement of SEN, your LEA must work with social services as part of your 'Transition Plan' when you approach leaving school."
What the site conveniently misses out however, is, if the young person tries a mainstream college and this fails, you are not then eligible to try for a a special needs residential placement because their statement of special educational needs no longer exists.
Sadly very few are told that once the young person goes into mainstream college that the LEA is no longer responsible for that person on any level.
Mark Lever chief executive of The National Autistic Society is very worried and feels that parents of Autistic children in particular have to fight every inch of the way to get what is their child's basic human right.
"It strikes me as wholly unfair that parents of children with autism have to fight so hard to get the education that should be their child“s right.
The National Autistic Society has been lobbying hard to ensure that the changes to SEN tribunals do not increase the difficulties that families face. Overall, we believe the lack of information from the Government about the new process has been unacceptable and has resulted in misinformation, anxiety and stress for families, which could have been avoided."
The National Autistic Society say
"The Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal (SENDIST) exists to hear parents appeals against decisions of Local Education Authorities (LEAs) about children's special educational needs, where parents cannot reach an agreement with their LEA. Autism is the single highest individual disability registered at SENDIST. From 2001 to 2003 there has been a 43.6% increase in the number of appeals concerning children with autism."
It is abundantly clear that parents are not happy and with Autism rising as quickly as it is, something clearly has to be done and fast. The system is failing and no one is listening. The Governments are clearly on side with the drug companies and will not listen to parents, professionals or anyone who dares to mention vaccines may be causing this national disaster, instead they are very happy to watch professionals and parents be destroyed as they fight a battle that they cannot win.This problem does not only exist in Britain it is worldwide. Whilst clearly suffering from 'Ostrich Syndrome' the Governments bury their heads whilst our children are suffering.
Currently, Governments are very keen to push for inclusion but inclusion can only work if everybody is working together in the best interest of the child. The problem is that many Governments see inclusion as a 'get out' clause used to dump the child in mainstream school with as little help and support as they can possibly get away with and claim that inclusion is in the child's best interest. Is it in the child's best interest? The way the system is set up this may save the Governments a few pounds/dollars whilst the real losers are the children who get inadequate education in a system which uses inclusion as the Governments own personal money box. Many Autistic children in mainstream schools fail to get the help and support they need. Some schools are not even aware that these children have special needs and some children who have had their needs missed or ignored, by the time they are identified as having a problem and get a statement of special educational needs they are already failing badly, misunderstood and even being severely bullied.
The statutory inclusion statement states however that schools must provide effective learning opportunities for all pupils based on their cultural, physical and learning needs. Every pupil, whatever their ability, should have the opportunity to experience success in learning at the highest possible standard. Teachers must identify and minimise barriers to learning and take account of gender, ability, disability, social, cultural and linguistic background when planning lessons. Provision must be made to enable all pupils to participate effectively in curriculum and assessment activities.
However, the parents on the National Autistic Society Website Feel the above is clearly not working. This is what they say about what is going on.
"They don't understand autism and how to reach or teach autistic children. They miss the point about social skills and communication and don't help at all with social skills,
therefore my son hates school. They overestimate his skills and push him too hard. His memory is poor and they don't listen to anything we have to say about this which is putting him at risk. He now suffers psychologically."
Parent of a very high functioning child in mainstream primary with some support
"Our son's educational needs are not being met. Our son is in crisis, on occasions we are being asked to withdraw him from school. He is being exposed to physical abuse within
the school environment. He is not gaining education, social benefits from his placement. Our views as parents are not being properly listened to"
Parent of a high functioning child in mainstream secondary school with considerable support.
"My son is 13 years old and suffers from Asperger syndrome.The large secondary school he attends are well meaning but overwhelmed with other problems. He suffers badly from
bullying which is largely ignored by the school in the hope that it will go away. When he objected to being bullied it was easier to exclude him than exclude 5-6 bullies."
Parent of a high functioning child in a mainstream secondary school with some support
"His statement of special needs was issued far too late.Some teachers are still unaware of how to meet his needs in lessons."
Parent of a medium functioning child in a mainstream secondary school with some support
A sad reflection of the truth.
At 16 Local Educational Authorities drop neatly out of the picture and any help these youngsters will receive is extremely limited. This means any therapies or specialist services the youngster received at school will also cease and will be taken on by the Local Health Authority if it is deemed necessary. Parents unfortunately are not always informed of this change. It can be a shock when it is down to the parent [and not the education department] to fight in order to obtain help and support in college.
The problem with mainstream colleges is every time a student with a learning difficulty reaches a certain stage they come to a grinding halt. The Governments guidelines state that all students have to progress and improve each year and the aim is to get all students to University. This is therefore the college's remit. This applies to all students, even those with learning disabilities. The more a student progresses the less help they need, so this means that these youngsters lose help the more they progress. Eventually by using this system, help eventually is no longer available.
Of course, this is totally unrealistic if the student has moderate or severe Autism or a learning disability because in the majority of cases assistance is not going to be forthcoming. These students can only progress as far as their disability permits. So what this means is, students in this criteria fail?
They cannot move on in their chosen field because they cannot improve sufficiently as there is no help or advice available and no courses suitable. The college I interviewed informed me that they have a number of students who fall into this category, these students often have excellent skills and have masses of ideas but they just cannot cope with organization, presentation or written work. Very often these students have poor attention and cannot cope in large classes. The college went on to explain to me that because of the lack of courses and the lack of finance and resources the students who have not progressed are subsequently asked to leave.
I pointed out that this means that the system is set up to "install" failure into these youngsters, making them feel as if disabled people are not wanted or included. This would in turn make them feel worthless. Often throughout their school life these youngsters have been seen to fail at every level, many have been bullied and made to feel that because of their disability they cannot succeed and WILL FAIL. With the Government's emphasis on inclusion this seems somewhat contradictory. The Government lays down guidelines which these students simply cannot attain and then have nothing in place to support them when they fail.
This is giving the message 'you will fail and what's more we don“t care'
The current policy at colleges is to move these students sideways, to accommodate them. This of course only works for so long as there are only so many sideways moves a student can go. The other alternative is for the student to find employment but many professionals are unaware that these youngsters often have no awareness of their disabilities and have unrealistic expectations. Many students with severe learning disabilities think that they will go to University because this is what they are told by well meaning professionals who are taught to treat all pupils the same. The collage I spoke to said that these students should move on and get an apprenticeship, like from where exactly? Many companies are unwilling to employ people with special needs if there are youngsters coming along without them available to employ. Many youngsters with Autism and learning disabilities cannot cope with the expectations, structure and realism of a 40 hour week at work. Supported work placements are another answer but these are few and far between and the placements that are available are not always in areas of work that these youngsters are interested in.
We have a massive problem in this country because of the increase of Autism and related disorders. These are rising daily at an alarming rate. More and more families are now having to face these battles, they need help, advice and guidance, there is none.
Wake up Government what are you going to do to help these youngsters have a future?
So what happens to these youngsters who have failed at college and have no where to go? Well, Connextions is an organisation who can help but they have limted finance. Many Autistic young adults spend their day walking the streets. I asked a few in my local area what they did. They just said they walked around town all day.
The present British Government put £500,000 for research into adults with Autism research Care services Minister Ivan Lewis announced £500,000 for Government research into the numbers of adults with autism and their specific transitions needs. This prevalence study will inform the first ever Government strategy on adults with autism and Asperger's syndrome, due to be published next year That was written a year ago.
With a possible 1 in 38 youngsters now being diagnosed as Autistic this is like Monopoly Money and a total insult. The Government was warned very early on that this was happening and repeatedly failed to heed these warnings. If they are only at the level of putting money into researching the numbers of adults with autism and their specific transition needs now then it is too late.
A single placement for an Autistic student in a residential school that I looked at costs per year for days are £42,000 - £62,000 and for Boarding it is £111,000- £150,000. Now if we multiply that figure by the number of students with Autism as the placement I looked at is for Autism we can really realise what we are up against.
It is very clear that the Governments around the world have not listened, they have not wanted to acknowledge what the professionals were saying. Instead they were quite happy to sit back and watch them be destroyed one by one for their views and let the our children suffer whilst allowing the drug companies to prosper peddling vaccines that many believe could be causing the problem.
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