Canadian High School

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I'm not sure how services differ between Canada and US/UK/etc. My son will be entering high school next year and we are in the process of finding the best placement for him. What has your experiences been like - preferably those with children who are high functioning. I'm a little discouraged because I was told that my son will not be getting the same level of support as he has been.

What type of program is/was your teenager in, and with what percentage of support?

Anyone?

Not very helpful, but I was very mild AS, nearly normal. I had an IEP for a while but hated getting special treatment (the ability to take longer to write tests, and having an "aide" follow me around all day). I sucked it up and acted normal, and other than my social ineptness/apathy you'd never tell I've got Aspergers. Again, I doubt that's the answer you're looking for, but that was my experience.

I'm a sociologist in grad school. I study the sociology of autism, specifically the formation of identity in autistic individuals and how autistic people "pass" as neurotypical. I've been doing a lot of research about the experiences of young adults amongst peers (usually in school) and how this impacts their identity.

In the US, one can provide documentation or notification to a disability office at the school so that he can get accommodations in case he needs to leave class and be in a quiet place or something. You should probably spell out what he needs. And then make sure your son is aware of what accommodations he's entitled to. I think Canada is very similar to the US and possibly better as far as accommodations/rights for individuals with autism. I don't know about aides. If he needs an aide for writing/support, then yes, I would think that would be permitted. You need to talk to the school. They should have a designated person for handling all that and possibly even a whole department.

Is this what you were looking for or were you looking for advice about his social experience? I've been researching this and can speak about this a great deal, but I didn't want to talk about this too much if you weren't asking about it.

Thanks for your feedbacks. I went to a "Transition to High school" info session tonight. I think I have a better understanding. Basically, I've been given contradictory information from various people from the board:

1) My son's designation brings forth funding. He should not get less support then what he is already getting (which is about 50+%)

2) In HS, there are only 2 support workers supporting 120 special needs kids

3) My son's funding is given to the school. They will determine who gets it and it usually goes to the behaviour kids (typically undesignated)

4) I have to FIGHT in order to get him the support he needs, despite his ASD designation.

5) Support is based on need. It's up to the school to determine if my son's need is more important than the need of a behaviour child.

Ok, I'm using layman's terms.

I have worked so hard to get my son a proper diagnoses (gr5, second time around) and the school board has the right to allow individual school members to decide that your son isn't going to get the funding he brings into the school. How is that ok?

If my son generates $ through his designation/diagnoses, he should get that support. If he's a nice & quiet kid, then he is deemed to be "fine" and loses part of that funding.

Really, it's more about cutbacks here. The school has X amount of dollars allocating X amount of support staff, and I am told he may not even get 25%?

Anyone?

I went to a rural school, a very small one. There was only about 5-10 special needs kids at my school so funding wasn't an issue, and we only had/needed two support workers.

I went to suburban high school had a one on one aide but they did not help much. One of them bugged me when was having a meltdown and made it worse. I did really well in high school academically after that and finally seemed to gain control of myself.

Well I told my son tonight that he'll likely be going to his regular high school (in neighbourhood) and be mainstreamed. He panicked.

What kind of accommodations would you like for your son?

AND, a separate question:

What accommodations has your son asked for?

I'm asking this because obviously kids don't raise themselves and you're going to make decisions for him, but also if he's asking for something or specifically talking about being okay doing WITHOUT something it might be worth noting.

Well my son applied for a mini school that focusses on technology. We went through the whole application process and 4 hr testing and are waiting to hear back. I doubt he'll get accepted because the teacher is hesitant in allowing another ASD child into the program. My son REALLY wants to get in though so we'll see. As far as accomodations, I think he's happy not to have anyone but he needs the it.. ie) Executive functioning supports. Extra time for tests. He is LD in math so I worry about that. Written output is difficult in terms of generating ideas onto paper. His stories are quite primary and usually gets a (*) in language arts in report cards. Note taking will be hard. Processing lengthy pieces of info, will be hard. Socially, it'll be hard... just to name a few.

Those are all typical aspie issues. As he gets older he should be able to find his own systems for how he works around NT expectations. This should be the time in his life where he learns how to do that.

Maybe the school can offer a "training wheels" sort of approach, where he starts out with more help and then drops it off as he feels more comfortable. They might be open to this as it's less of a commitment for them and their resources, which it sounds like are few.

Good luck!