Special Needs - Making a Statement

Hi
I think this site is so informative and interesting and find it eye opening as to how difficult some parents have, trying to get the best for thier children.
I am after any information regarding Asperger,s Syndrome, this is something I have only recently come across and would like to know more about.
Many thanks.

I really enjoyed watching this video. I don't feel so alone anymore... It can take such a long time.

It's frustrating when you know your child will do really well with one-to-one support but the school can't afford it until the child gets the statement. And I don't mean it just for my child or me. I think it just passes on to the class and staff too.


My question is about the exercise we see Naftali doing with dots. I would like to find it but I don't even know where to look for it. Or what it's called... Some help??

Thanks in advance.

Hi Lia,
The dot activity is one exercise in DYNAMIC ASSESSMENT. It is a way of guaging what a child's thinking skills are, helping them use their thinking strategies to progress and developing new strategies to help them problem solve.

If you want to find out more, google 'dynamic assessment' or look at the Hope Centre's webpage- they are a fantastic, lfe changing institution!

Ben

When and if you already have tried, statementing your child. I do wish you the best of luck, it is very difficult and for children and parents it can be quite stressful. But if it doesnt work first time, dont give up and just try again!! Best of luck for you and your child :)

Dr Susanna Pinkus' film tells the often repeated story that most parents of children with sensory processing disorders or sensory deficits experience; it's a story of sheer frustration of a "system" that increasingly appears to act as a barrier rather than a held out hand of help.

I founded The Sensory Processing Foundation over two years ago, having understood the frustration parents have from a system that delivers a fractured array of therapy provision at best; in most cases confusion over which therapies might be appropriate prevail. The Foundation also understands the inadequacies of the system as parents find it today. Many parents are frustrated by having to trail across a city or between towns in order to access different therapists required for different therapies if they can even find a therapist at all. Information about therapies and therapists is also currently confusing. The Foundation aims to shortly become a definitive source of that information through a new and enhanced website.

The Sensory Processing Foundation is built on a holistic trans disciplinary approach that encourages individual therapists of varying disciplines to liaise as a team over each individual child.

The Foundation is engaged in working with schools in both the independent and state sectors providing the Fast ForWord family of educational software programmes that aim to enhance the cognitive skills of children, especially focused on developing "phonological awareness" by focusing on the ability to process phonemes; in human language, a phoneme is the smallest posited structural unit that distinguishes meaning.

At the Foundation, we use Fast ForWord as a therapy tool for strengthening the skills of memory, attention, processing rate, and sequencing for children, as well as addressing comprehension. We are the only UK organisation that supervises the programmes solely with Speech & Language therapists and support them, where appropriate, with other sensory integrative therapies and therapists.

Although the Fast ForWord programmes were originally demonstrated to show statistically significant improvements in phonological awareness for children with slower than normal temporal processing, the programmes are now applied to a broader range of children who are sub-par in their language skills.

The Foundations Speech and Language therapists carry out pre and post testing as well as daily scrutiny and supervision of each individual childs progress on the programmes. Where children display persistent struggling, the Foundation works closely with the schools to find an appropriate solution and move the child on. Detailed reporting and analysis provides clear, action-oriented information showing student progress over time, in specific reading and cognitive skills areas.

The methodology of the use of Fast ForWord by the Foundation makes it appropriate for children with learning difficulties from age 4 through to senior school and beyond, including children with sensory processing disorders and deficits such as dyslexia, Downs Syndrome, ASD and Aspergers. It is particularly useful with children that have Auditory Processing Disorder [APD] up to 75% of children displaying dyslexic tendencies are likely to have APD.

Children with APD can face as challenging a time in the classroom as some children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder [ASD]. They are often the children that seek a quiet place at the back of the classroom in the hope they will be overlooked, or they might be the class clown whose behaviour is self-created as a smoke screen to hide the inadequacies that their condition places them in within a group learning environment. These children therefore will often begin to present with an array of behavioural issues, such as being unruly, defiant or uncontrollable. However, the true problem is the underlying sensory processing deficits which need to be remediated. Unfortunately many parents and even some teachers often do not realise the relationship between these behaviour issues and the underlying speech and language difficulties. In fact, almost all sensory processing disorders have dramatic effects on cognition as well as communication skills. Many people with disorders of sensory modulation [the ability to regulate and organise reactions to sensations] cannot adapt their speech and language, let alone their reactive behaviours. The failure to recognise these cause and effect deficits will almost certainly lead to an inability to realise a very important potential benefit of effective Speech and Language Therapy; that is: Treating the speech or language deficit will have a positive effect on improving behavioural issues if the right treatment is administered and, most importantly, supported in the right way.

Parents are often desperate because they may realise that their child needs some sort of speech and language and/or occupational therapy and are then faced with a confusing choice of products that are readily available and, seemingly, all effective. Teachers are probably as confused as the parents! There are programmes that parents can purchase or access, but thats exactly where the problem lies. Choosing the right programme is not the issue choosing the right programme for their specific child with proper in-depth support and supervision by qualified therapists who will monitor and liaise with the child and parent as well as each other are some of the criteria to be looking at.

Parents desperation and, to some extent confusion, is exacerbated by the fact that although Speech and Language Therapy is available in most schools, it is often insufficient to address the childs true needs. For most communication disorders, the most effective treatments are frequent and intensive. The usual half hour slot once a week or once a month is ineffective, but it yet again ticks the sound bite boxes that say the problem is being addressed. This can lead to parents mistakenly believing that Speech and Language Therapy does not work. Speech and Language Therapy does work when it is the right programme for that child and is administered at the right frequency and intensity for the childs particular needs.

The Foundation's work with schools acknowledges the critical role of the Senco in implementing Fast ForWord.In a school implementation, the Foundation augments this further by working closely with the SENCo, acting as a constant support mechanism. Since the Foundation has multi disciplinary therapists, the support it can offer to children, parents and schools will be second to none. Therapists working and liaising together will more easily be able to more easily track a child who, for example, persistently finds their treatment programme difficult. This will alert them to the fact that this child probably has a more complex problem that needs to be addressed. In-depth screening and assessment and multi-disciplinary treatment of that child will have the potential to turn the childs life around. Augmentation by other therapists is a key issue in cases such as this. Simply purchasing a programme that at best offers an auto-responsive support that does not fully meet the needs of a particular child will not deliver an optimum solution.

Fast ForWord is appropriate for children as young as five years old as well as for adolescents and adults. The Foundation works with children and young adults with the following conditions:

Dyslexia
Communication Disorders
Auditory Processing Disorder [APD]
Sensory Processing Disorder
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder [ADHD]
Autistic Spectrum Disorder [ASD]
Aspergers Syndrome
Dyspraxia
Fragile X Syndrome
Pervasive Development Disorder
Cerebral Palsy
Spina Bifida
Non-verbal Learning Disorder [NLD]
Emotional & Behavioural Difficulties [EBD]





Adrien von Ferscht
Chief Executive: The Sensory Processing Foundation
E: avf@sensoryprocessingfoundation.org

the parents in this film mirror the information other parents have told me and it is so sad that they cannot get the help that they desparately need for their child when it is most needed, ie. in the first school years of the childs life. the parents feel as though they have to battle against schools and government to get any support for their child and surely this could be viewed as discrimination! it seems as though the cost of statementing is more important than providing the support that might be needed in a childs education.

Informative, interesting,thought-provoking & very touching programme.

In my view, a review into the working of SEN assessment policy and practice is long overdue.