Everymum A moving letter (shared from the ABA-UK Yahoo group) from an anonymous mum, which we feel sums up everything which is wrong with autism education in this country! She says, I am genuinely frightened that because of lack of money my daughter will not be taught properly, that her barriers to learning will become lifelong habits and she will never develop the communication or social skills to live independently in society Hello everyone Thank you for your responses. I am applying for an ABA school. My daughter has been accepted pending funding. She currently attends a special autism unit attached to a mainstream school in Xxxxx. This schools approach is TEACCH and Intensive Interaction. The ed psychologist (independent) said that in her view my daughter needs to immediately transfer out of her current school into a school which specialises in ABA/VBA methods. This is after critiquing my daughters lack of engagement at school as well as the methods used to teach her. The ed psych mentions how my daughter uses language and responds with language at home but at school is virtually non verbal. While she is compliant at school, she regularly stims and uses very little language ... if she continues at her current school she will sink further into severe autism (this is paraphrasing a few paragraphs). The current school is not meeting my daughters needs because it is not recognising her full potential. They do not try to stop her stimming and allow her to regularly get up from her seat for unregulated movement breaks, and after three years they are still helping her to wash her hands! My big question is what are they teaching her and how can they prove it? Her IEPs show very little improvement. Yet on our home program she is now able to answer 20 plus questions about herself, complete 50 piece puzzles where she couldnt complete 3 piece puzzles when we started (I have video evidence), and is able to sit still and learn. I have graphs and data to prove it. The LA does not provide 1 on 1 teaching but one teacher and two teaching assistants in a class of 6. So you would think that she would be improving. I think they are going to argue limited abilities but I know that she can learn rapidly when motivated and using the right methods. I am still waiting on the LA to confirm costs, they have already told me they will tell me on the submission deadline date but I know the ABA school to be at least double, probably three times the cost of the current school. They are arguing on the grounds of ineffective use of resources. My argument would be that if they dont intervene now before she gets any older she will be a burden on society for the rest of her life. The reason I thought about appealing again is that I am worried they will say we dont have enough evidence that ABA has been successful because we have only been doing it for 10 months. If we keep going I know she will continue to improve even more in the next year so we will have even more evidence. If we lose are we expected to fund a home based program for the rest of her life? Unfortunately we cannot afford this. I know I shouldnt worry until we have been given a response but I am genuinely frightened that because of lack of money my daughter will not be taught properly, that her barriers to learning will become life long habits and she will never develop the communication or social skills to live independently in society. She continually jumps, screeches, pulls at her eye, verbally stims etcetera. I know ABA can help her but how do I convince a panel? Sorry I dont mean to sound panicky but surely that cant be the end of it if a panel says no? Best wishes Everymum
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 12:31:18 +0000
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