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Eye gaze in mainstream
Gsmum
Member Posts: 11 Listener
(just in case my other post gets missed!)
Do you know any children using eye gaze in mainstream? My ten-year old (CP, non-verbal) is in a mainstream primary and I'd like him to go to mainstream secondary. He has eye gaze and I suspect it would be so much easier if he had a friend (or friends) at school with similar needs. I'm trying to find out what other families have done.
PS I did see the story about Maria in 100 days/100 stories but comments are closed. Does anyone know her family?
Do you know any children using eye gaze in mainstream? My ten-year old (CP, non-verbal) is in a mainstream primary and I'd like him to go to mainstream secondary. He has eye gaze and I suspect it would be so much easier if he had a friend (or friends) at school with similar needs. I'm trying to find out what other families have done.
PS I did see the story about Maria in 100 days/100 stories but comments are closed. Does anyone know her family?
Replies
It's a great blog isn't it! (https://blog.scope.org.uk/2015/04/24/i-use-a-communication-aid-called-a-mobii-to-help-me-speak-100days100stories/)
Maria's mum @NikiM is on the community, hopefully she can share her experiences.
Maria works with a Specialist Slt at school. She is written into her Education, Health and Care Plan 2.5 hours per week. She works on Maria's expressive language development and programmes the aid. Maria also has full time LSA for personal care(she also programmes her aid and prepares work), a full time High Level TA who differentiates her curriculum and a Specialist teacher with experience of working with a child using a communication aid. The teacher is bought in from a specialist agency for 20 hrs per week and is funded through her plan also. Phew!! The teacher works with the school and HLTA to help them differentiate. I believe this should always be directed by a qualified teacher.
Maria is doing a reduced curriculum and she is at a school that offers alternatives to GCSE's, ie entry levels and ASDAN qualifications which means she can stay until 16 which matters as she has made friends.
Ask the school what they currently offer in terms of small group work that your child can join and what type of differentiation they currently offer that they can easily adapt ie some work for dyslexic children can be used for Maria. What do they do about friendship groups although I would say that it helps if they are able to actively engage in mainstream ie not a passive communicator but confident in speaking out as mainstream schools promote independence and expect all kids to be resilient. Maria is in a school with 1500 kids so she can't be a wilting flower!! What I particularly liked was that they expected her to be benchmarked with all the students at the beginning of the year and asked her teacher what level she would have progressed to at the end and held her to that. All children are expected to make progress however small and it is monitored in a way I hadn't seen in the special schools I visited.
Hope that helps. Xx
More questions (and if you go quiet I'll understand that I've pushed my luck):
- did you have a particular professional or professionals who advised the extra TA hours? And also the Specialist SLT, is she borough/NHS suppled or again also from an agency? And can you share the teacher's agency name?
Is the SLT's speciality AAC or kids with CP?
We've not got a Specialist SLT (she's a very nice lady with minimal AAC experience) and the only differentiation we get is whatever an overworked class teacher can squeeze into her normal prep time. We've got a job-share LSA position for 32 hours. That's it. I think it explains why AAC targets are overlooked, he isn't using his device for anything beyond basic communication and the homework isn't more appropriate to his level or abilities.
It's a challenge to do all this fighting and planning, but I think mainstream has been worth it. It's so stimulating and exciting. And I think it's useful to be in a more academically challenging setting.
Fabulous. You've already given me inspiration to keep at it for the EHCP. Such a help.
x
We privately recruited the SLT. She has over 25 years experience of working with children using communication aids. The LA then acknowledged they had no one with that level of expertise in borough and so agreed to fund her themselves. There are only 2 or 3 SLT in the whole of England with this level of expertise so huge gap in the market!!
We used an SEN advisor to help us get the plan right and she advised on teacher hours but school actually asked for more which we got. Only word of caution is don't allow all hours to be delivered 1:1 as they will then never be in class which defeats purpose of being mainstreamed. So some of the hours should be sitting in lessons and that also helps the Specialist teacher to work with class teacher to differentiate. Don't get me wrong all of this is a monumental feat of collaboration and some good will/attitude. If the school have that to begin with you are on to a winner! The SEN adviser is called Ann Rhodes. We paid privately for her.
Xx
He did 4 GCSEs in the end: English (Foundation) Maths, Physics, Chemistry and an additional Arts Award in his own time which counts as a GCSE. In 6th form he did A level maths (A*!) and an Extended Project Qualification and this year he is doing AS physics.
I found it very hard to get any useful info about physically disabled AAC users doing GCSEs in mainstream and was shocked to find out that very few actually do more than one or two. I did approach Scope and a Scope school and at that time (about 5 years ago?) the Scope school said that they had not actually entered anyone for GCSEs... I think/hope things may have improved a bit now. There are definitely pockets of good practice but it can be very hard for a mainstream school, with no experience of AAC but who want to do the best they can, to get the resources and support they need which is why a good detailed EHCP is essential and MUST have speech and language needs in the educational needs section, not just as a health need. All the best
Obviously I've got a bit of a battle ahead of me but it really helps to know what I should be pushing for. I don't think having extra TA hours, additional AAC support and specialist teacher involvement will clear away the barriers but it will certainly be an improvement! GCSEs are definitely a goal for us (and why not university?).
There isn't much information for kids like ours, is there? I'm glad I found this online community. Thanks again.
So for his new chair (Dec 2016) we had to go the rounds of different funding charities and Justgiving! I did get an OT to look at the seating but in terms of assessment, delivery, ongoing support etc that is all down to who you buy the chair from. His communication aid mounting is provided by our regional AAC hub (ACE)
A website you all may find helpful is communicationmatters.org.uk - they have a few bits on AAC users and exams:
- What the Exam Board Said: AAC users accessing GCSEs
- Sitting GCSEs: A personal perspective
It's a really useful website and they're a really helpful bunch so if you have any questions then don't hesitate to email them.I've not had much luck on twitter unfortunately. It might be worth getting in touch with Daisy at Smartbox. She's an Assistive Technologist and Speech and Language Therapist who is based in London, so even if she wasn't able to help you personally she may know someone who could?
Smartbox have also got a great community facebook page, so there may be others who could help via that way.