We needed an Educational Psychologist in order to apply for a pre-school place and to defer school, which was still our objective at this point.
Nursery arranged for one to be allocated to our son, and a meeting was scheduled.
We found out the name of the EP we were allocated and it wasn’t good. I told the pediatrician and speech and language therapist the EP we were allocated, and both raised their eyebrows and said ‘oh right’ – not a good sign! I was given advice to stick to what I wanted and don’t let him talk you out of it, which is what he will do.
We met with the EP. It was quite a big meeting. I brought my dad along as he has my son alot and is good with words, and I knew he would fight our corner if I got upset. I also told our speech and language therapist about the meeting and she came along too, so we had:
- Manager, assistant manager and key worker from nursery
- Me and my husband
- My dad
- Speech and language therapist
7 of us plus educational psychologist.
The EP got a shock when he arrived as he didn’t realise there would be so many people there. I was showing him we mean business lol.
True to what I had been told, I told him what I wanted – preschool place and defer school – and he went against both of them. His answer was that these cost the council money.
The first meeting ended with him arranging to spend time with our son, and another meeting was scheduled with us to make plans for the future.
** Embarrassing story alert **
Now, we thought he had left the nursery straight after the meeting while we were all getting our jackets and papers together. We were standing in the corridor and I was telling everyone that I had been told by several people that he would go against what I wanted and true to form he did. We chatted about a couple of other things he had said, and he walked out the toilet which we were standing right outside of. He must have heard every word!!!
So, EP met with our son and we met with him the following week. He said it was very clear he was well parented which was nice to hear. He also has alot of support. No denying that! He then said “he is quite autistic”. This really upset me. We were just at the beginning of this journey and it was very hard to hear this. I wasn’t ready to hear this, I was perhaps still in denial. I was certainly not coping well with the diagnosis.
At this meeting he agreed with everything we wanted. He must have heard what we said about him!! I have since heard about someone else else he was allocated to and he was brilliant for them – maybe hearing us was the feedback he needed to take a look at himself. Let’s hope so!
He agreed to help us apply for a preschool place, but told us of 2 schools in Glasgow with language units that we should apply for rather than defer school. I agreed on the understanding that if we didn’t get a place, I would apply to defer school. At this point nursery said he would be bored another year at nursery and that he wouldn’t gain anything. They said not to focus too much on the lack of speech as there is so much more to him than that.
EP wasn’t much help with nursery after this with regards to completing applications for preschool or language unit. I can’t thank nursery enough for the hard work they put in to these applications. If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t have been fortunate to get both places.
We only seen the EP one more time, at the preschool final meeting.
Super Autism Mum 