Supporting Parents

[Guest]

Hi. Any ideas on how to gently persuade parents to have their child fully assessed for Autism. It has been recomended by other professionals and I too have my concerns. Unfortuantly the parents do not wish to have the assessment done. I know as practitioners we can not push parents and have to respect their decision and I dont want to spoil the trust that has been built with the parents. At the same time I feel the assessment should be done. Any ideas or suggestions on how I can approach this problem?

[Guest]

That's a real tricky one. Some parents can find it really hard to accept that their child has different needs. But, like you say, you can't force them. Have you talked to them about the progress their child is making and how it compares to others?

 

I've sometimes talked to parents about the support that can be put in place once a child has a diagnosis and had to explain that school resources cannot accomodate the extra adult support that their child needs. I've pointed out that a statement can be really important in meeting the needs of their child, especially when the child moves into Year 1 and a more formal curriculum.

 

Good luck - hope they take your advice on board. I suppose if they don't, you just keep on making records of issues and your observations and pass it all on to the child's next setting.

[Inge]

not easy if parents unwilling to accept that the child needs assessing ,

 

we had this once and never did get the parent to accept it..eventually the school did but it took them 18 months!

 

But ensure you document everything, and this should include any conversations with parents as in our case 2 years later the parents claimed we had not told them and had not assessed the child properly and complained to Ofsted about it.

 

It was actually investigated and as we had all documented evidence not upheld but could have been a problem.

 

Any other professionals who could help with this .. Area Senco for advice perhaps....( i know now inclusion officer but our area still has a Senco - lots of reasons )

 

Inge

[Guest]

Thanks for the advice. My area Senco is visiting tomorrow so it will be interesting to hear what advice she gives.

[Guest lesboyle]

Hi Didge

It's a really difficult task to talk to parents about their children. I have to say that as a parent with a recently diagnosed child it was the most heartbreaking news we could hear, so I can completely understand why parents are resistent to the idea. But it is not in the child's interest to leave it either - I would make his/her difficulties very clear to the parents and ask if they experience these problems at home. You could go down the route of wanting to 'eliminate' specific causes such as autism or language disorder but you feel that you would like some specialist advice in order to support the child. What are the difficulties the child is having?

Lesley

[Guest]

my heart goes out to both parents and practitioners that have to face the dreaded is there something worng with my child..... as a parent myself with a son who has learning difficulities and has been on an iep for most of his school life i can sympathise with any body going thorugh this. i have also had to deal with 2 different cases in the last 18 months at my setting where both sets of parents have found it hard to accept but deep down knew that there was something. one of the children went to school last september and as i only took over in the april tried to fast track all of the help obs etc. and referals to educational professionals there were but alas it was too late to get help put in place for when she started school, she is still waiting to be assessed beacuse the reception staff and senco have been trying to get help for her all year and are very worried about year 1, as this all happened i was determined to not have it happen again and have managed to get 1:1 help for the boy i have at the moment starting now and going with him to school, i had a great deal of carefull handling to do with mum but eventually she came round to the idea and is helping in every way she can, i have used my own experience to share with her that help for a child is not a bad thing but will benifit now and in the future.

could you invite the parents to come in on a session with the child to see how he is when he is with you and that his behaviour is different than the other children or to do tracking obs etc as evidence or video evidence if that is possible without upsetting them, if only they realised you were trying to do the best for their child.