h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

'He gets annoyed if I sing because I'm 'ruining the song'.' Little does that too! And I know I'm a decent singer. Mine absolutely loves the music to Star Wars. I think that the music to films is a brilliant introduction to classical music.

Something else you might want to think about is getting free classical music podcasts, eg from www.magnatune.com.

Does J have balance problems? Little does. It took ages for him to learn to ride a bicycle.

J can't ride a bicycle at all. The last one I bought (a BMX) is still sitting in the shed, where it's been ridden about four times. By me. J was never interested even in tricycles when he was young. I suppose if he was interested enough he'd learn, but his lack of enthusiasm, added to his whining about being scared and not being able to push the pedals (even when he had stabilizers he was like that) I gave up. Even my dad didn't have any success, so we've given up completely now. It's a shame, as I was looking forward to getting a bike for myself and being able to get out and about locally without the car.

He used to do gymnastics, but as he got older and more of the few boys that went dropped out, he stopped wanting to go. Then I started work in London, and his dad (who had him after school) was too idle to take him to classes so they dwindled away. He didn't seem particularly bad at balancing on beams and stuff, but he'd stopped by the time he was 9 or so, so maybe he would have found it more difficult as the work got more demanding.

Did you find out about Little thoughts about busy corridors? J has finally had an appointment come though - Thursday of next week. I am assuming it is his assessment, but I assumed that in July and it turned out not to be. Keep your fingers crossed that they've got the message this time! I really need some info before J's tribunal in January.

Bicycles - I bought one for little when he was about 5-6 but although he liked the idea, he couldn't balance properly and got discouraged fairly easily. Earlier on I bought a trailer bike - one that goes on the back of an adult bike, but although I tried him on it, he couldn't sit on it without feeling he was going to fall off it. It took a professional cycle trainer to get him to be able to cycle - I didn't have enough patience to do it.

Corridors - I did ask him - he doesn't find these difficult - I'm relieved.

Is the tribunal to do with school or his dad? (It's OK not to answer if you don't want to).

I was interested in little doing gymnastics, but he wasn't that interested.

The meeting with his teacher today was very encouraging. She thought that he was very much his own person and that his stubborness should be fine in general - it may need to be reconsidered if it is negative.

"professional cycle trainer"? I didn't know these existed! Maybe there is hope for J after all, I feel he's really missing out not being able to ride a bike.

Glad little is ok with corridors, J just can't stand all the chaos, and how close the other kids are I think.

Sorry, the tribunal is for the appeal against J's new statement. I want the LEA to send him to the special school I mentioned earlier, but they've named his mainstream school - so I'm fighting that.

J sees his dad a lot, in fact he's off with him now for a few days as it's half term, but his dad wouldn't be doing all this for him I don't think.

I'm going to cross my fingers for you with the appeal. When it is likely to happen?

Little doesn't see his father at all - in fact, I don't know where his father lives. I'm assuming that J has a good relationship with his father - has he?

About cycle training - try contacting the county council - they will organise cycle training. There are also commercial organisations that carry out individual cycle training. I hired someone for a couple of hours to get little riding - it took quite a lot of effort to be able to get him to balance and to do the full start, ride, stop thing. He got later cycle training at a school cycling session.

The appeal is in January - just over a year from when I started the whole process off after his start at secondary school was so bad.

J and his dad have a good relationship, but I don't think his dad understands him, and is very idle. Still lives with his mum and dad and older brother, which is where he's lived all his life apart from the four years he lived with me (his brother has never moved out!). He's 42 now. What a life!

I'll try the cycling thing again next year, when it gets warmer, although he'll need another bike by then, and I swore I'd never buy him another bike just to sit in the shed and never get used. I'll have to borrow one!

Sounds as if your ex and his brother both have challenges and that it's a good thing you're out of it. Perhaps he's just never grown up.

We're still doing cycle training, although mostly at the moment with adults, as most of the schools have fallen by the wayside with arrangments for Christmas. If you buy him another bike, it might be worth getting him one that you could use if he doesn't like it, although if you get a reasonable secondhand bike, you might be able to sell it on for much the same price as you bought it.

Do you have to have medical evidence to support the appeal? Have you got the support of the primary school's headteacher (or his class teacher)? Is there a support group you could get help from? (I know you're not keen on support groups, but there are some on-line communities you might find helpful.)

There's no medical evidence as such - other than his ADHD, but even if he turns out to have AS (which I doubt) the LEA will still want him in mainstream. The evidence we have I don't know the correct way to describe it, but he is absolutely thriving at the unit he is at. Doing so well, because the teachers are all trained to deal with special needs, and not only have more teachers than children in the unit but they are allowing him to chose to change his behaviour, rather than trying to force him. So that's the evidence that we have - that he's in the correct environment, it's just not going to be long enough to teach him how to cope with everyday school.

I was watching the programme last night about kids not being able to read (I had no idea that it was so bad!). It seems so simple, teaching kids to read. Well, one thing struck a chord with me about J - one teacher said that if the children don't have a reading age of over 8, then they simply can't function at secondary school. Well, J's reading age is normally around three years older than he is, but he has a spelling and writing age of 7, so perhaps it's not surprising that he has had such a lot of trouble at secondary school - if there is a lot of writing to do in a lesson there's no way he can keep up. He's supposed to have a word processor - I don't think he's got one in the unit, but he doesn't need one so badly there.

I do agree with you that our environment is really central to who and how we are. I like the quote:

'Be careful the environment you choose, for it will shape you; be careful the friends you choose for you will become like them.'

I have the feeling that it would be good to get someone one your side. I don't know who the best person for that would be. Could be someone in the education system or maybe a health professional. I could ask someone within my local education department, although I'm not sure who. Might take a few days.

Little is a bit like J in both his reading and writing ages. I haven't had it quantified yet, mind. He is allowed to use a computer, although his present teacher has said that she would prefer him to do his homework using handwriting.

Little has a performance of 'Grease' tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it.

My daughter's friend is "dyspraxic" which seems to mean that he is so unco-ordinated that he can't write, although he has no problem reading. When he started in secondary school, the Department of Education got him a laptop, which he uses in school, even for exams. He's never looked back since and got an A in English!

The school is wary of giving him a laptop 'in case he breaks it'. So it's likely he'll get an Alphasmart (http://www.alphasmart.com/k12/). Apparently it's really difficult to get that sort of help in exams, so they don't want to encourage total reliance, so he's having handwriting help as well.

He's had his official diagnosis this morning - he asked me to put it into my journal, but I'll mention it here as well - he's high functioning autistic. So I'm not sure how I feel about that. To me, he's still J, but it could be that he'll need language therapy because they think he's 'missing bits' when people are talking to him.

He does have the ability to learn all the social skills he's missing, but they did say it's a shame no-one listened to me when he was 3 and I asked it he had autism.

'Dyspraxic' sounds so much better than 'clumsy' doesn't it, Gnomon! I used to be labelled as clumsy, although I suspect your friend's daughter is much more dyspraxic than I ever was. Oh dear, Mina, 'in case he breaks it' - is that likely, do you think?

Looking at the Alphasmart, it seems to suffer from the disadvantage of the user not being able to see the whole document that's being written. I used to have a proto word-processor which did this. I could only see a couple of lines at a time.

High functioning autistic - that's what little is suspected to be. He's not had a diagnosis yet. I can imagine how cross you must be about not being listened to all those years ago. You could have had support which might have lessened the problems J is having now. Hopefully, the diagnosis will help to bring in the support that he needs. And it might help him to know that it's not his fault and that there are things that he can do to improve matters. What are his feelings about it?

Aha, that's a good argument against the Alpha smart! Really he needs to see a whole page.

J has never broken anything as far as I know, but he has thrown chairs, a television (although that was more of a stagger and put down I think) and banged a computer mouse and keyboard when being told off for something. But if it's in his statement, then he should get it.

Yesterday I had the papers from the tribunal about why they are resisting my appeal. Apparently it's the extra 76,000 a year it will cost, plus they don't think he'll have the same academic success. This is a child who doesn't have any academic success at all so far. Apart from his reading age of course, which is nothing to do with school!

His feelings about it are 'Don't give a crap'. So I'm not sure what to make of that.

'Don't give a crap' - that could be bravado of course. He may care, but might not want to be seen to. And of course, if he cares, it means he ought to do something about it ... and if he fails, it might just confirm his worst fears. I might be wrong, of course.

Does J have any real idea of what he might want to do when he leaves school?

None at all. He did say 'building planner' a couple of years ago when he was really into Lego, but he has hardly touched last years xmas lego pressie. Really annoying as it's this one - http://shop.lego.com/Product/?p=10177 - so wasn't exactly cheap!

Now he says he has no idea, but I still don't really know what I want to do when I grow up! For a while I thought I did when I was 30, but that wore off after a few years. Now I'm thinking of doing something with dogs - which is where I was 25 years ago when I was working in a grooming parlour/boarding kennels, so perhaps I did know what I wanted...

I suspect that doing something that requires consistency and planning may not suit as well as something that requires doing things in short bursts, like some sort of problem-solving job.

This makes interesting reading. http://www.enotalone.com/article/3646.html

Little had his meeting with the speech and learning therapist a couple of days ago. That means I can get in touch with the hospital and bring his next appointment forward.

What was the 'result' of the therapy?

I liked that webpage, but J seemed to be inattentive and impulsive, without being hyperactive, and that combination doesn't seem to appear there!

I'm going to see my GP next week to ask to be referred to an ASD specialist, so we can find out where J's strengths and weaknesses lie. Since the diagnosis the LEA have asked for another meeting. Depending on what happens there I may be asking for a complete review of his statement, rather than just asking for a few changes and another school.

The unit he is at say his main problem is interupting all the time and is something they've had no improvement on. I've had to explain to them that it's possible that the reason why no-one has had any success (I've been actively working on that since 2005 F35977?thread=646808) is because we've not taught him the very, very basics. For instance, in that thread I complain that if one person is listening, and the other talking, he'll start talking to the listening person because he's not talking. It's likely (but not definite as we're still learning how J's autism affects him) that he just cannot understand someone quiet is listening to someone else, because no one has actively taught him that (I had no idea at the time I wrote that journal that I might need to) and it's highly likely that he's not picking up on any signals that may be sent his way to say 'wait'.

The unit did say they're telling him to watch for signals. I've told them they may have to go further and explain exactly what signals he should be looking out for.

He still natters on about his comics all the time - and pokemon games... I often get the machine stuffed under my nose while he's showing me something on it.

The 'result' of the therapy? Well, nothing at the moment. The therapist just saw him and did some tests with him. Then I got to see her and she asked me how he was from my perspective and found out a bit about family background. She's going to combine the two interviews in a report and then little gets seen for a third time by the hospital doctor.

She did ask me what I was expecting, and I told her that I wanted to make sure that if he needed support at school that he got it and that if there was anything else that I could do to support him (or get support myself), then I wanted that to happen. We'll see.

Little doesn't have the hyeractive bit either. Might mean ADD (as opposed to ADHD) and he may also have ASD.

Sounds like J and little share the common problem of interrupting and failing to listen. I also sympathise with his sticking the machine under your nose - that too is familiar to me.

His next appointment is 3 December and I should have the report in a few days time.

I hope you get what you want from the appointment, it took me a couple of goes and lots of nagging to get the assessment.

We have our GP on the case for a referral, and I've found a school in Essex that may be suitable for J - I'm going to see it in a couple of weeks. Before that I have a meeting with the LEA, the unit, and his school to discuss things. I am assuming he'll need a new statement, but don't really know what's on the agenda for that meeting.

He's also been suspended from the unit. In a way that's a good thing, because it was discussed before he started that if even the unit can't cope with his behaviour then mainstream certainly can't.