How we coped with our autistic children
Steve Elton tells Karen Glaser what happens whenmainstream schools fail your children
BOTH MY SONS are autistic, but they are also very different from each other. Our elder child, David, has always been very verbal and when he was four we sent him off to our local primary with nothing beyond the usual nerves parents feel when their child passes through classroom doors for the first time.
But almost immediately, Jane, his mother, started getting daily calls from the school saying David was being unco-operative and refusing to take part in group activities. At pickup, she was often upset to learn he’d spent much of the day on the naughty step and several times a week the head would call Jane to ask her to come to get him as soon as possible.
I never suspected our son might have autism. I knew he didn’t like school and he was very clingy at drop-off. I was certainly shocked to be told by the head that when he was given the choice between rejoining his classmates in a group activity, or staying on the naughty step, David would always choose the latter. But I assumed these were teething problems which, over time, would dissipate.
Jane saw things differently and felt we needed expert advice, so a few months into his first year, we hired an educational psychologist. She failed to diagnose his autism, but did conclude David had complex needs that weren’t being met by his school.
Our GP referred us to a so-called social communication group which arranged a series of assessments with a multi-disciplinary team including speech therapists and paediatricians. We decided to also get our younger son, Adam, assessed. His problems were much more obvious. At three, he didn’t speak at all, and he spent a lot of time crying.
“When the team diagnosed both our sons as autistic, I was in deep shock. Until then, all I knew about autism was what I had gleaned from the film
The school assigned David his own personal teaching assistant. One of her own children was autistic, so I’m sure the lady had the best of intentions, but this didn’t mean she knew how to handle our child. One day, David was playing with a plastic baseball bat which she wanted to take away. He clung on fiercely, they both tugged hard, but David had to let go because she was stronger. The bat sprung back and smashed into her face. She ended up in hospital with a broken nose and he was given an immediate exclusion. The head said he was the youngest child he’d ever excluded.
After that, David went to a school where pupils have mixed special needs; a third are autistic, a third have a physical disability and a third have social and communication issues.
At three he didn’t speak at all, he spent a lot of time crying’