Daughter's therapist wants her to be assessed

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My daughter has been restricted from school until her therapist will certify that she is not a threat to herself, after she had a very bad reaction to a terrible situation when she was switched into classes with bullying students who had previously punched, kicked and spat on her and a teacher whose class she had to leave last year after he verbally abused her on many occaisions and who made inappropriate physical contact with her.

I am very upset that the school has put her through this. They don't respect her and don't listen to her. Her therapist says they need to recognized that she has been traumatized by these experiences and make sure that they protect her in future.

But the therapist also says that she needs more support in her IEP and should be assessed for underlying issues. She asked if I had any thoughts about the possibility that she might be on the spectrum. My son and I both think that she is. My son said, "Dad, she is only interested in two things and those things obsessively. She doesn't understand the other kids and they don't understand her. She has three friends, one with tourettes, one with ASD and one who is an outcast because of her sever physical problems. She is either on the spectrum, or something like it. She is not one of them [NTs]."

It will be interesting to see what happens next. I strongly suspected this as soon as I started learning about ASDs.

That sounds really off that they would restrict HER from school given the situation you described. I don't know about New Jersey, but in NY if you report to the school administration that a child with an IEP has been bullied, the school has a legal obligation to have the team reconvene and adjust the IEP to include bullying protection. I would guess it is the same in NJ. I discovered this when I had to seek legal help for my own child's case and found that his school had failed to protect him under the requirements of the law.

So, your daughter has to miss valuable learning instruction time because of the school's failure to protect her?? Of course she had a bad reaction.

I would suggest looking into disability advocates/ hotlines/ legal help. This sounds like it's really not right.

So sorry for you and your daughter.

Edited to add: Try Advocates for Children of New Jersey. It looks to be the same as the one in NY. Google it. They have free legal help/ resources for educational law.

Was the bad reaction some kind of self-harm?
Is your daughter in any kind of counseling right now?
Perhaps some regular counseling would help to prevent bad reactions in future.
It is bad that the school switched your daughter into a class with these known bullies, sometimes school officials make poor decisions like this for bizarre reasons.
Moving forwards, counseling for issues from being bullied and for learning emotional regulation would probably be helpful.
Autism assessment could also be helpful, but maybe therapy for current issues from bullying is more important at this time?

Adamantium,

I don't understand why the school did what they did. I hope they take some responsibility for their actions.

(I know that this is bad enough and that the priority right now is your daughter's current mental state, and improvement; but I would also start thinking about changes for her IEP limiting their ability to change her classes willy-nilly without approval or at least notification so you can protest, and yank her if needed. Also, hopefully you will get advised changes from the therapist, too. You may need an advocate. I don't know.)

I don't know what to say other than that, and I hope your daughter is doing better despite their stupidity. I am sorry. I hope your daughter can recover well from this trauma, that they caused.)