In relation to 2. Current support available for autistic students in WA schools my input as a parents of an autistic boy, aged 7 years in the mainstream school system (diagnosed well before commencement at school) is summarised below.
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Supports seem to vary a lot depending on the individual school, and in particular the belief system, values and personal experiences of the Principal and/or Vice-Principal. This leaves parents in a position of trying to network to find what schools are likely to be supportive or which ones to avoid – to the point where people try to buy houses in ‘good catchment areas’. This should not be the case. Every school needs to provide a consistently high level of support to autistic children- and by this I don’t just mean the same funding allocation, I also mean true commitment to providing autistic children with respect and full inclusion.
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Schools can be inflexible/uncollaborative in their approach and seem to have no onus to provide evidence to parents about the evidence base for their strategies, however if parents wish to challenge it, we are required to use precious NDIS funding or own money in some cases to bring in experts to report back as to why the suggested measures may not be effective. We recently left a Catholic school due to their lack of flexibility in relation to a suggested behaviour management approach for our son. They did not welcome our input and could not point to any evidence that the plan that they had proposed would work or was in any way evidence-based. We were very bluntly told that the plan would not be changed, and we could ‘take it or leave it’. Parents need to be feel confident that their input and feedback will be respected by all schools.
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Children are still in a position of facing exclusions due to the way their autism manifests. Exclusion is not to my understanding an evidence-based practice, I am yet to be made aware of any evidence that it aids a similar situation recuring in future.
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In our experience, schools are not well-equipped to meet the needs of autistic children who are less ‘typical’ in presentation and where traditional strategies do not work for them – e.g. my son has a PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidant) profile. School is an environment full of demands in which PDA children can struggle and become anxious, often failing to reach their potential. Individuals with PDA respond better to less direct and more negotiative approaches, which schools are not used to implementing.
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Schools seem to address teacher development on an ‘as needed’ basis often only tackling it for the teacher in question, which means every year another teacher needs to be upskilled. Whole of school education needs to be implemented regularly as children interact with all of the school community and need to be as well understood by the sports teacher as the librarian.
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Education Assistant understanding/qualifications in relation to autism vary widely and we have personally had to ask a prior school to reallocate EAs as our class had been given a very inexperienced one aged about 18. All EAs need to have a high level of understanding of autism presentations and strategies if they are to be allocated to an autistic child. There is also in our experience an over-reliance on EAs by schools, no matter how poorly experienced in the area.
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Schools seem to vary in their receptiveness to taking on board the recommendations of therapists working with children. Indeed, I have even met with schools who claimed that therapy on site is not possible – surely this should not vary between schools.