A mum says she was devastated to be told her severely autistic son would be sent to a mainstream school, not a special school.Well, how severely autistic is he?
Lucy McClure, of Maudlyn Road, Colchester, fears four-year-old Frankie will be unable to cope at Kendall Primary School.Hmmm, that doesn’t bode well, not least for the other children. I mean, even with one-to-one supp…
Frankie’s condition means he struggles with his speech, he is not toilet-trained and is prone to violent outbursts.
Oh:
Mrs McClure, 26, said: “In the statement application process, it asks for the preferred school you feel would meet your child’s needs.Well, that’s nice. How about ‘the panel’ reconsider, in light of the facts? Or maybe spend some time in the classroom with him?
“I asked for Market Field Special School, in Elmstead Market.
“Then I had a call from the head of special needs at Essex County Council to say the panel would like Frankie to attend Kendall Primary, without one-to one support.”
Mrs McClure said she felt Frankie needed specialist care.No doubt some cretin believes it’ll be ‘character forming’ for them, learning to cope with another child’s disability…
She explained: “He has behaviour issues because of his frustration at not being able to communicate, and he will hit out.
“It takes him a very long time to settle into a new place and he is not toilet-trained. He needs specialist people, which is why we want him to go to Market Field.
“They could cater for his needs and he would be around other people with special needs so he wouldn’t feel different. He is going to get bullied, because five-year-olds are not going to be aware of autism.”
An Essex County Council spokesman said it would meet Mrs McLure’s family next week to discuss the Frankie’s education.Would love to be a fly on the wall at that meeting….
The fly on the wall is the dry fly
ReplyDeleteWhat's behind this?
ReplyDeleteI could tell you, but then you'd ban me for life from this blog.
Why is he going to school at all? Is there anything he could actually learn?
ReplyDeleteWhy is he going to school at all? Is there anything he could actually learn?
ReplyDeleteI learnt much more once I was home-educated than I ever learnt inside the school system. And I have an autism spectrum disorder.
She needs to tell them she's from a traveler family; they'll be all over her like a rash.
ReplyDeleteHe's going to school for the same reasons as all other kids Cingram - to be child-minded so his parents don't have to. We have extended this privilege to 21 now, with our universities churning out graduates of about this calibre.
ReplyDeleteA 2,1 more or less guarantees toilet-training ...
What a load of of old shite.
ReplyDeleteFor autistic, read useless parent who wants the State to raise her child because she can't be arsed to, and because the more 'help' and hand-stroking she can get, the more the cash rolls in.
My son was told he was dyslexic. I told he him he most certainly was not and refused to countenance such an idea, nor to allow him to either. 15yrs later, his speech, writing and reading are perfectly normal, but they wouldn't have been if I had allowed some do-gooder to fill his head with rot.
If the child has a genuine disability, as opposed to behavioural problems caused by lack of discipline, there would be no question of sending him to a mainstream school.
I'll get me coat.
@English Viking
ReplyDeleteIn this case he is said to be unable to speak and not toilet trained, so it's a bit more than a cop-out by his mother. Which is the point I was making. There is nothing that a normal school can (or should) do for him.
@allcoppedout
Don't get me started.
CIngram,
ReplyDeleteFor a child not to be toilet trained at the age of 4 IS a cop-out be the mother.
It's nonsense. 1 in a million were 'autistic' before Rain man and Government subsidies.
I could be wrong, I'll accept that. But I'm willing to bet good money that mother is 'intellectually challenged' and the kid is just a brat that has learned that the big people do what he says when he cacks himself.
I grew up in Elmstead Market, it seemed quite a sensible area back then.....
ReplyDeleteFor a child not to be toilet trained at the age of 4 IS a cop-out be the mother.
ReplyDeleteSo you know the mother do you? You know what she has to go through? That the child is so low-functioning that toilet training just can't happen because the child's development is so out of whack?
Most of these kids would probably have ended up in mental homes all their lives, seen as basket cases. The system is now no longer like this and those of us with ASDs can in many cases live a relatively normal life, though we still face difficulties.
My mum got abusive insults off the likes of you too. It never helped her bring me up - it just hurt, as though she wasn't fit to be a mother. Funny thing was, when you looked at the accuser they looked like horrible people.
Oh, and I should probably tell you that you have no idea how humiliating it can often be to bring up a child who, of no fault of his own, is autistic. The brain is wired differently from the very start.
ReplyDeletePaul,
ReplyDeleteI was going to show you why you were wrong.
Forget it it. You are desperately grabbing for the high ground, claiming to be a mong, when in actual fact you are merely a tit.
Autism/ Dyslexia. Excuses made by thick people to skim over their ignorance.
When we moved back to this country, one of the few things that impressed me about the english education system was the fact that Crippled Son was automatically sent to a 'normal' school.
ReplyDeleteIn Germany the attitude is still very much as it was in 1918 when the Prussian government declared 'the cripple as such belongs in an asylum' and any 'defective' child is almost automatically sent to a 'Special School' which is a social and career death sentence.
However Crippled Son was toilet trained (took for fucking ever) and non-violent...or at least no more violent than any of my offspring.
There is NO way any child who is not toilet trained or physically violent should be in a normal school.
End of discussion.
"Autism/ Dyslexia. Excuses made by thick people to skim over their ignorance"
ReplyDeleteNot quite. ASD's are infact the 'in' excuse for every twat on the internet who cannot debate or discuss in a civilised manner.
'How dare you say I'm trolling. It's NOT MY FAULT I HAVE ASD! Show some compassion you NAZI'
...and yes they do sound like as Vegans, cyclists and Fat gits.
SBC,
ReplyDeleteI feel for you, I really, really do.
Stroke me!
"Stroke me"
ReplyDeleteShow some compassion you nazi bastard, I AM ALLERGIC TO VIKINGS!!11
:P
sorry for the rant, but the whole british habit of
using as medical conditions, or inventing conditions, to excuse oneself really pisses me off....probably because i have IED.
Can we tone down the hideous overreactions, please?
ReplyDeleteThere is an element of this in Asperger's forums, to be sure, but a lot of it can't be helped.
Can you try getting someone who finds it painful to look another person in the eye to do so? Usually they can, after a period of time, but it takes a lot of effort. Mostly, they concentrate on the nose, or the mouth, or the bridge between the nose. So it's not a debilitating disorder and often times people can improve their social skills. But it's not a panacea.
Some people who claim to have it really don't have it but this shouldn't destroy the diagnosis as a whole.
Very damaging to us is when criminals use Asperger's Syndrome as an excuse when they've never been diagnosed with the syndrome before, for instance, and have never given any inclination. A lot of people who self-diagnose, for instance, often don't have it.
At the end of the day, these disorders are more to do with processing the world differently than a "normal" person might. They very often will be unable to integrate very overwhelming experiences, like supermarkets, or nightclubs, or social situations.
Unless we're going along the path of saying that all people with neurological conditions are fakers and making it up, of course.
You're more than entitled to your opinion and I'd never want to take that away from you. I love my free speech. I also love using my freedom to ignore people like you, just as you have the ability to deride people like me who are just getting on with their lives. :-)
"What's behind this?
ReplyDeleteI could tell you, but then you'd ban me for life from this blog."
Well, now I'm even more intrigued!
"Why is he going to school at all? Is there anything he could actually learn?"
That's another bugbear with the policy of inclusion - making the included kids follow the national curriculum. Utterly pointless.
"It's nonsense. 1 in a million were 'autistic' before Rain man and Government subsidies."
Rather like ADHD and its amazing growth, I suspect the number of genuine cases to be rather small...
"There is NO way any child who is not toilet trained or physically violent should be in a normal school.
End of discussion."
Agreed.
"Some people who claim to have it really don't have it but this shouldn't destroy the diagnosis as a whole."
ReplyDeleteNo, it shouldn't.
But people are people. If you've been treated badly by the first few police officers you meet, you'll have formed an opinion that's hard to shake, and though you may understand the concept of the nice policeman, you'll be understandably sceptical.
It's the same with the spread of 'an ism for every ill'; it's not done the genuinely-disabled any favours, by diluting the pool...
"Very damaging to us is when criminals use Asperger's Syndrome as an excuse when they've never been diagnosed with the syndrome before, for instance, and have never given any inclination. "
Case in point being a certain infamous 'UFO enthusiast', perhaps?
Funny how diagnosis follows immediately on the heels of a spying charge, eh?
No mention of how the 25+ other parents feel about having a child "prone to violent outbursts" in a confined space with their little ones for 6 hours a day. Odd that.
ReplyDelete...
Whose rights are being ignored ?
Ohhhh I'm late to the party....bloody hell Julia you're up early today ...and I got up early to watch the Emmerdale omnibus hah ! :)
ReplyDeleteThat's Tatty ^^...bog eyed and didn't click name..dur
ReplyDeleteI totally agree about AS diagnoses being applicable (and of great help) to a tiny few, but wildly overused.
ReplyDeleteI went to a special school for 'Aspies' (run by the Priory and costing the taxpayer 60k pa); a large fraction of the cohort were either lazy (me), hyperactive, diffident or previously somewhat out of place (but hardly to a pathological extent) in mainstream education.
The irony is that I'd have done much better in a traditional boarding school, or even a grammar school -with high standards that one is expected to adhere to, rather than the "cotton wool land" (as one staff member put it), which only served to perpetuate the low-expectation/underachievement loop.
I do happen to think, however, that Gary McKinnon *is* a bona fide aspie; just because of his manner, the fact that he's 44 going on 24 and that he has never been able to use the Tube. And just because ASDs have become a common motif in public discourse, doesn't mean everyone has heard of them. (In fact it was because Gary had such a high profile that he caught the attention of neuroscientist and
ADSs expert Simon Baron-Cohen.)
"the "cotton wool land" (as one staff member put it), which only served to perpetuate the low-expectation/underachievement loop."
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly my Crippled Son's experience of German 'Special Schools'.
I think the most sad part of this story is that no party is trusted to be truthful:
ReplyDeleteOptions:
The mother: attention getting/subsidy farming
The school: budget trimming/failing the kid
I don't know if we ever generally trusted people to be honest, but if we did, that time is passed.
"The irony is that I'd have done much better in a traditional boarding school, or even a grammar school -with high standards that one is expected to adhere to, rather than the "cotton wool land" (as one staff member put it), which only served to perpetuate the low-expectation/underachievement loop."
ReplyDeleteNow, that's even sadder...
"I don't know if we ever generally trusted people to be honest, but if we did, that time is passed."
I'm afraid so.