Archives for "Learning Support"
Another Year
It’s unbelievable, my youngest daughter is about to leave primary school. It just can’t be seven years ago that I took her to nursery, a child that had only just learned how to speak and would only talk to her family and one other child. We were still using Makaton sign language with speech when she started nursery and if my memory is correct by the time she left nursery she was still only speaking to the same child but now she also spoke to the teachers. Is it the same child who had a speaking part in her year six play? And she has done very well in the government SATs tests including getting a level 5 in speaking and listening!
To this day I have no idea why she did not speak. It was extraordinary. She had one word which was “mummy”, by which she meant “help”. She got by with one word and her fists. She was lucky enough to get speech therapy and we went back through the animal sounds teaching her to listen – which she was very good at. Asked to point at an object she could, asked to fetch something she could. She was able follow instructions and had a good understanding of language, but she just would not/could not use it.
After weeks of trying to get her to make animal sounds we realised that she still was not making the animal sounds but that she had made up signs for each of the animals. A dog, she would stick out her tongue. A duck, she would make a beak with her hand, and for a snake she would wiggle her arm. When I told the speech therapist this she suggested that we had a go at Makaton. Again I was lucky and very quickly went on a course run at my local hospital. Makaton was fantastic, suddenly she started to talk, single words at first and then she said her first sentence when she was 3 1/2 which was “no shoes now “. That sentence has such a symbolic emotion for me, I love saying it. Whenever I take my shoes off I whisper quietly to myself “no shoes now”. My daughter will still use fists over words if she’s tired or angry and we have to work hard endlessly saying “words not fists” however luckily she does seem to save her fists for her family.
I know that the move to secondary school will be huge for her, at primary school she has been protected by children who have known her since she was three. However my experience of secondary school is extremely positive and I’m excited for her.
My elder daughter, who is very dyslexic, will also have a large change next year. For the first two years of secondary school she has been privileged to be taught in a very small English group of just 10 children. At her school this is called learning support. This small group has been taught by the same teacher for two years and it has increased my daughter’s confidence and ability enormously. I am not sure what will happen next year and whether or not we will need to find her extra support. I believe that my daughter’s improvement in all subjects this year is partly due to the fact that the school was brave enough to let her drop French, her second language. This meant that she had three extra lessons during the week to catch up any work she had not got in her lessons and was able to do much of her homework during the school day. I do think it is extremely brave of the school to go against the government requirements and I am extremely grateful to her school for allowing her to have a different timetable from all the other children in year eight.
I know that both my girls and I are looking forward to the summer holidays, roll on Friday.
Wendy Lawson’s Laws
Just before Easter I went to Harrogate’s National Autistic Society’s annual conference. The highlight of which was Dr Wendy Lawson’s training session for 300 attendees.
I think that the experience will remain with me for the rest of my life. As with all presentations it is very difficult to explain what it is that grips an audience, perhaps better to say “you had to be there” and leave it at that.
But I came away exhilarated that someone who had such a difficult start through lack of understanding at home, school, in the workplace and society could develop into such an amazing woman who can explain what it is like to grow up with Asperger’s syndrome so clearly to those sitting in the audience.
Dr Wendy Lawson MAPS: BPS, describes herself as an adult with high functioning autism. “I didn’t talk until I was four and I didn’t read until I was nine. But I now have two degrees and I am studying for a PHD in psychology,”
Wendy’s training sessions focus on building bridges between the neurologically typical (NT) and autism spectrum (AS) worlds. She recognises that all relationships between these worlds; formal, informal, familiar or otherwise, need to be negotiated. However it is in the field of learning that she rightly concentrates, believing that this is the key to allowing AS individuals to be truly involved in an inclusive society.
Wendy made available a number of strategies that the (typically NT) attendee can take away and implement in their own daily encounters with AS. She uses her own experiences to add a poignant personal perspective to her presentations.
Wendy told us a story from her childhood when her mother answered one of her questions with “I don’t know”. This was the wrong AS answer and Wendy went on to repeatedly ask her mother the same question. Wendy explained that when faced by an autistic person looking for an answer to a difficult (or impossible) question a good solution may be to ask “what should I answer?”
Similarly a parent asked, “How can I tell if my non-verbal autistic child was happy?” Wendy replied, “Do you know when your child is unhappy?” The parent replied “Yes”, Wendy answered, “Then you know when your child is happy”.
NT’s tend to get hung up on oral communication, said Wendy and it is crucial that time is spent finding the best way to communicate with each individual autistic person. There are many other methods of communication and modern technology is transforming the way we communicate. It is not true that all AS’s are visual learners, Texting can often be a useful communication tool, even when in the same room.
I bought two of her books, Life behind Glass which I have read which explains her life and Concepts of Normality of which I’ve only read the forward.
If you are a parent of or work with someone with Asperger’s syndrome I strongly recommend you visit Wendy’s website www. mugsy.org/wendy I cannot stress how much it explained to me. It is almost like a Dr Wendy Lawson is the Rosetta Stone of Asperger’s. I can’t wait to read more of her books.
Irlen Syndrome
My daughter has been using her rose pink coloured overlay in school for a week now. I thought that I ought to inform her teachers that she has Irlen syndrome. I emailed the head of learning support at school explaining. She knew all about coloured overlays and obviously passed this information on to my daughters’ teachers. Two of her teachers have already printed worksheets and tests on pink paper! Aren’t they wonderful, I cannot believe that a school can act so quickly and can be so supportive.
I have now found a very good website that explains Irlen syndrome. It is a specific type of perceptual problem that affects the way the brain processes visual information. It is not an optical problem. For those with Irlen Syndrome, the brain is unable to process full spectral light. This can result in distortions in the environment, printed page and lead to physical and behavioural symptoms.
It can be exacerbated by environmental factors such as lighting, brightness, glare, high contrast, patterns and colours. Irlen Syndrome affects people of all ages.
Studies have shown that 12-15% of the population are affected by Irlen Syndrome. However, it is largely undiagnosed because it is not an obvious problem and it is not identified by standard eye tests, my daughter has regular check-up’s at the opticians and it was undiagnosed. Also sufferers think that the perceptual distortions that they experience are “normal”. They assume that everyone else perceives the page and the environment as they do.
There are many symptoms of Irlen Syndrome which include problems with; attention and concentration, effects on reading and writing, headaches, underachievement and behaviour problems to list a few.
It is difficult to say how many of these my daughter suffers from, however what is clear is that since she has had the overlay she has spent far longer reading. The wonderful thing about the overlays is that it is a simple fix to helping her get closer to achieving her full potential. The coloured overlay will not help her spell, that she will still have to work very hard at that.
Most of this information I have got from the very clear website www.irlenuk.com
This website has a great page on Myths & Facts and some lovely Testimonials. My advice to any parent of a dyslexic child or in fact any child who is struggling to read it is worth contacting your GP to get a referral to see an Orthoptist. I don’t know if we’re just lucky where we live that the Orthoptist automatically tests for Irlen Syndrome or whether that’s something you have to ask for.
I now need to research binocular vision and reduced convergence and make sure my daughter is doing her eye exercises!
Challenging Behaviour
Last week we had so much snow that my children schools were closed for two days. Also one day they were sent home early. However the SENCE group was able to meet. This is a group of parents whose children have special needs and attend my daughter’s primary school. We meet a couple of times a term, sometimes just the coffee and chat and sometimes a speaker is invited. Last week we were lucky enough to have schools educational psychologist. He explained very clearly his role within the authority and how his time was divided between schools. Many parents had personal questions which they were able to ask.
He also gave some very clear advice on children’s behaviour.
He advised us to pick one behavioural trait that we wished to change and concentrate very hard on changing this behaviour. This may take months and it may be a while before you discover how to change it or what triggers this behaviour. Once the child has mastered the change do not immediately introduce another change.
It reminded me of an experience I had as an Au pair… The child I was looking after was tremendously difficult to dress in the morning. She was at a school that did not have uniform so every morning she could choose what she was going to wear. This resulted in a daily fight with me pulling different items of clothing out of her cupboard and her shrieking that she was not going to wear them. I found this embarrassing and needed to find a way of starting the morning without this conflict and time pressure to get up, dressed, breakfast, teeth cleaned and out of the house in time for school. So one day we chose the clothes at bedtime for the next day. We discussed combinations in a calm unpressurised environment. It worked, it really worked.
I recognise that as a mother I find it hard to concentrate on one behavioural trait at a time or to give my daughter’s enough practice at the new behaviour before I move on to introduce yet another change.
Unfortunately the meeting ended early as this was the day the school closed early because of snow!
A New First Day.
Well the summer is over and my children have gone back to school, where did the summer go?
My eldest is so happy not to be the youngest in the school. I am hoping that year 8 will be easier than last year. She is still in learning support for English and is finding out which groups she is in for other subjects this week.
I was nervous about going back to work. I was concerned that the boy I do an ABA program with would no longer be happy to work with me. However when I walked in the door and he said hello (prompted) and went straight for my bag of toys. So I need not have worried. He is such a pleasure to work with and I can see lots of progress since I began. I am back at the special school later this week and will still be working with the children on the autistic spectrum but no longer helping with swimming but with the trampoline session.