Our son was diagnosed with Aspergers a few years ago. He is also dyslexic. It was a nightmare of a bureaucratic process. Three years of road blocks and dead ends. We were lucky, many families don’t get there. I assumed that the support and help my son needs to develop to his full potential would then follow. Sadly that was wrong.
In a world of cuts and austerity many key services have been cut. Our Local Authority has cut back Autism Support Services. It provides no specialist educational Dyslexia support. As a result many children like my son are provided minimal additional support.
With a new School rapidly approaching I tried again to gain support. Luckily our wonderful NHS has now started trying to help my son better understand what ‘living with Aspergers’ means. However no educational support is available. They won’t even do an educational assessment of his dyslexia to see what are the best strategies his new school can adopt. It’s left to the parents to take this forward. Unfortunately my son has a rather limited parent in this field.
We met up with his new school and they suggested a novel approach to the issue. Some other parts of England still provide Dyslexia and Aspergers support to children. The school asked if we had considered moving out of the area. My son immediately responded by saying he was really happy living here but if he had to move would it be ok if we moved to Canada.
A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent. 
I love that response…think big not small 😄 I work within the Deaf community and support for children who face barriers to education vary from place to place. Sadly, it also depends how ‘vocal’ the parents are too and if they understand their rights in the first place. I’m sure Canada is not an option for you (but how nice would that be?) so I hope you find the key to getting your son the support he needs.
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Your so right about a key factor being how vocal parents are. It’s also a shame that often parents are not made aware of their rights. It is often down to them to discover them. Thank you for the comments.
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He has you. That counts for a lot.
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Thanks that means a lot
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That is really sad that you have to consider moving to get support services like that, but unfortunately not surprising the way the world is going 😦
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Thank you for the comment. The sad thing is that I don’t think the world knows where it is going recently
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it’s so sad – all the cutbacks and we in Canada suffer that too. But on the other hand Canada is a great adventure.
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I’m not sure our school bus goes to Canada, it struggles to go 10 miles most days.
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😀
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My granddaughter has severe learning disabilities, on the high end of the autism spectrum, and my daughter has been fighting for years to get the help that she needs.
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It’s not easy, I hope she keeps pushing and it works out.
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Me too.
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My friend up in Perth, Scotland has 2 autistic children. She gets support for them.
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Provision is dependent on which local regions have protected the special needs budget and which ones have cut it. We are unlucky.
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oh man………..
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Absolutely love it!
When l was diagnosed with Asperger’s l was 44, best thing that ever happened to me. But l asked [l was in Lincolnshire at the time] what support there was for the elder Aspie? Because there just isn’t a lot of qualitable information about Aspergers/Autism for the elderly amongst us. My Doctor said “Why worry about it, you have got this far!” That was my support.
This country is sadly bloody backward when it comes to providing quality support.
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Sadly it is so. I suspect it will be like that for the foreseeable future. Too many kids and adults are getting failed. The attitude of well you are doing ok (but we aren’t expecting much from you) is too common in our country. It stinks. Come the revolution………
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I know, l totally agree. It’s not so bad on adults who have seen quite a bit of life previous Dx, we can get through it, but it still pisses me off that this country has no respect for kids on the spectrum. What’s worse is actually trying to receive a qualitable DX for dyslexia. You have to pay for this one don’t you?
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It’s about £500 just for the report. Schools then often don’t do anything with them, so it’s left with the parents to go private again. I heard of someone paying for a weekly hour session and it was costing them £200 per month.
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it’s actually outrageous, it should be a free dx. Parents shouldn’t have to pay at all.
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It’s unlikely to change soon unfortunately
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Sadly you are right.
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