Educational and vocational engagement
Choosing a school for a child on the Autism…
Having a child who is starting school is a big transition for every family. But imagine if that child has an Autism Spectrum Disorder (Autism) diagnosis- what a very big challenge that can be! What school will the parents choose?
Broadly speaking there are two choices:
- a mainstream school where the child will be amongst a large number of non-autistic children and perhaps a small number of children with a variety of disabilities
- a “special school” which can be one set up specifically for children on the spectrum, or one set up for children with developmental delays or learning difficulties. These schools usually have a smaller number of children and a lower teacher to pupil ratio.
Most parents ideally want their children to attend mainstream school if possible, but some prefer the perceived greater shelter and individualized attention their child can get in a special school. There are pluses and minuses for each choice.
It feels more normalizing to choose a mainstream school but the risks are that your child can “get lost in a big crowd” and not have his/her needs met unless that school is very well resourced and has special expertise in educating and caring for children on the spectrum. There are relatively few of these and placements can break down if the child has behavioural issues and is very isolated.
A special school is more likely to have teachers with Autism training and expertise, and aim to provide more individualized care and teaching. But in choosing a special school some parents fear that their child might pick up more autistic or non-adaptive behaviours or regress in development. However, we don’t have evidence that this is a consequence of special schooling – some typical kids have problem behaviours too.
In both settings teacher burden is high and family stress can be constant as they and the child struggle to cope with a complex environment.
Common concerns are:
- insufficient school funding to provide for the needs of all children, and especially for children who require lots of 1 to 1 help
- bullying, which can be a problem especially for vulnerable children
- having to be bussed or driven to a school which may not be close to home. This can involve early starts, long journeys, and unruly pupils en route
- how to provide a balanced curriculum – how much weight to give to teaching social and communication skills, and how much time is left for the three RRRs
- how to obtain the special services needed, such as speech, psychological and occupational therapies, which are in short supply and shared across many needy children
- how to find time for teachers and parents to communicate and collaborate about what the child is learning and doing, so that new skills are practiced at home as well as at school.
The most important thing to remember is that there is no “best” way of schooling for children on the spectrum. As each child with on the spectrum has different needs and strengths, the best way is to try to match the strengths and resources of the school with the particular needs and capacities of the child. Rest assured, schools and teachers do want the best for the child and will put in their best efforts to realize their potential.
It is also important to continue to campaign vigorously for a better educational deal for children on the spectrum and other disabilities, as Australian parents have done for 50 years now.
By Professor Margot Prior, OTARC Adjunct
Published September 2013
6 COMMENTS
Your visual tilaeebmts are great, thanks for sharing! I am now going to have a look at your other resources, thanks!As I work with children who use symbols as a means of communication, for consistency within the school we all use the same widget symbols for visual tilaeebmts and resources which are used on the most common (paid for) symbol programmes. I have worked in mainstream schools who do not yet have access to these symbol programmes and therefore use free symbol resources such as yours and it is great to see high quality editable resources like yours.
This article perpetuates the myth that parents can choose which type of school their child attends. This is absolutely NOT true. The Education Department decides what school your child will attend. They have meetings called panels about the placement of special needs children. The criteria by which they make these decisions is secret.Their negotiations with your family are secret, you are warned not to discuss them with anyone else. You may not visit schools unless you have already received the offer of a place in that particular school. One only needs to visit an autism parents support page to read stories of non verbal children who are not toilet trained and who have a history of running away being placed in mainstream classes. And the bullying that these children and their parents suffer is unbelievable. It would be interesting to know the number of parents Australia wide who are on anti depressant medication and who are living in separate homes (Dad keeps the NT kids Mum lives in a flat miles away during the week so that the kid on the spectrum can go to a decent school) as a result of the education department decisions. We have an autistic family member. We had to go to the press and local ABC radio to get her placed in her local community.She was non verbal and they wanted to put her in a taxi and send her on 90 km round trip daily to school. Despite the fact that we knew from the state budget that a new special unit was being built in our area this was denied by the Department during negotiation over my granddaughter’s place. Please do not tell parents they have a choice, they do not. There is so much trauma associated with placing your child in school and there is a great army of invisible children on the spectrum being homeschooled because the education departments will not meet their needs.
There seems to be no forward planning in this area. The department knows about your ASD child from kindy, yet they have no smooth plan for their transition to school. I once joked that I thought they were hoping that the mother ship would land and take them back to their home planet before they turned 5 so the departments did not have to deal with them.
Do you have any idea how angry ASD families get when there is all this talk about Naplan results? We would just like a place for our kid in a school where they are safe from bullying by other kids and teachers and are taught in a suitable way, not just babysat for 6 hours a day.
Yes agree. My grand daughter has just been diagnose as autistic. She is verbal but not fully toilet trained yet. My daughter has to drop her son off at a different school to my grand daughter which is 20 minutes away. Thankfully I live in that suburb and can help if wanted. It is so heartbreaking going to the kindy to pick up your grandchild because you are hit in the face with the reality that they are in a mainstream school which advertises that they include austistic children, but the special classes are let out half an hour earlier than the mainstream classes. Also they aren’t allowed to play in the mainstream playground which is funny as both the mainstream and special school playground is one
big playground with an invisible line that the kids arnt allowed to go over. I stated what I thought of that the first day I went to the school when I was helping my daughter as she was trying to talk to the teacher about her daughter.
“The special eds arnt allowed over in that area” I was told. I looked at this woman and was told something while she was shuffling her feet. I told her that “why isn’t there a fence then” because austistic kids just run off and want to play in the cubby like other kids. What made it worse is that some bloody grade 1 kid told me, “She isn’t allowed in there”.
I was told by the teacher that H will most probably be mainstreamed later on but I bet my daughter gets a bit of angst
with the parents of the typical kids in her class. I used to listen to these bitches moan about the autistic kid in my
daughters class. I know we are in a lucky position with my grand daughter as there is a child in my grand daughter class that is there soley for the respite aspect of it. On one hand I think that some autistic children should be intergrated with typical kids so they pick up normal behaviour but on the other hand the children and the parents should be saved from the “hurt” they are going to be subjected to when you child is in a mainstream school.
I agree completely agree Lee. Although thankfully there are an increasing number of mainstream schools that have developed ‘base rooms’ for high-functioning ASD students. There are also a number of alternative public schools such as community schools.
What about the increasing number of. ASD kids who don’t fit into either and cannot attend either.
Increasing home schooling numbers of kids under ASD diagnosis prove that current educational standards and systems are not working.
Children are being suspended, expelled and even tied down to control behavioural issues. This is across Australia and schools everywhere of all types are breaking Human Rights Laws and need to be held accountable.
Just the very fact that schools are not required to be accountable for funding received for kids with a disability is wrong!
It’s not all the schools faults, the State and Federal Governments need to support schools better – better training, more accountability and ASD specialists attached to every single school who can liaise with carers and schools to find the best course of action for each child with ASD.
Bring back compulsory ILP’s and IBP’s enforce a universal language that specialist write into reports that schools are required to follow, instead of just poo-hooing reports and schools ignoring specialist reports.
There certainly IS a best way to school children with ASD. there is only one established evidence based intervention for ASD according to Australian and international research, it is Applied Behaviour Analysis. Important Things to Remember.-Special schools do not provide one-to-one assistance, money is pooled and they use class ratios. It is more likely your child will get one-to-one assistance in a mainstream school. special schools often have occupational therapist and speech pathologists, however it is rare that your child will get individual therapy assistance, and group therapy is more common When choosing a school, ask if they use restrictive practices-many special schools do-that is restraint and seclusion. Children have died from such practices so it is important you know. If a staff member uses the phrase “timeout”find out exactly where that “time out”will occur. Ask to see a standard Positive Behaviour Plan, ask if they used behaviour analysis to inform their plans. Educate yourself on what these terms mean, as most teachers will not know. If your school introduces you to an “Autism Expert”, ask exactly what their qualifications are. Usually they have none of any significance and can do more harm than good. While some professionals may claim “ABA does not work for everyone”,it is the only established evidence-based intervention there is. Due to Australian professionals not pressing our State governments to adopt evidence-based interventions, Australia is a backwater when it comes to the education of children with Autism, with restraint and seclusion commonly used to address challenging behaviours. Until this changes, if you have enough money,leave the country and enroll your child in a professionally run ABA school. USA has plenty.Australians are doing so more and more and the lives of their children are completely turned around. For those of you who cannot do such a thing try and find a Board Certified Behaviour Analyst in your state there are 26 fully certified and associates in Australia. Good luck.
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