Breaking Down Barriers to Education for Neurodivergent Children

In this week's episode of The Autism Mums Podcast we're talking about  some of the real challenges families face with the current education system, especially when it comes to supporting autistic children.

Key Takeaways

Outdated Education System: The current education system is often rigid and not designed to accommodate the diverse needs of neurodivergent children.

Importance of Flexibility: There's a need for more flexible learning environments that allow for play and creativity, especially for younger children.

Struggles with Inclusion: Being in school is different from being included in school; many children face challenges that are not adequately addressed.

Identifying Needs Early: Early identification of challenges, such as speech or coordination issues, is crucial, but support often falls short.

Training for Educators: There is a significant need for enhanced training for teachers on special educational needs to better support neurodivergent students.

Impact of Environment: The classroom environment, including displays and changes, can greatly affect a child’s ability to learn and cope.

Communication Gaps: There are often communication breakdowns between schools, parents, and local authorities, leading to misunderstandings and lack of support.

Mental Health Considerations: The mental health of both children and parents is deeply affected by the educational experience and the pressure to conform.

Advocacy and Trusting Instincts: Parents should trust their instincts regarding their child's needs and advocate strongly for appropriate support.

Systemic Challenges: Financial motivations can influence decisions made about educational support, complicating the advocacy process for parents.

Mentioned in This Episode

The quote Victoria mentioned seeing on social media is: When a child at school is anxious about going home, concerns would be raised. But when a child is anxious about going to school, we as parents are expected to encourage them to go no matter what. Think about that for a second. - seen on CureJoy Kids on Facebook.

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Transcript

Episode 10 - TAM Podcast - Breaking Down Barriers to Education for Neurodivergent Children

[00:00:00]

Hello and welcome to the Autism Mums podcast. I'm Victoria. And I'm

Natalie. We are two sisters raising autistic children who know the

joy, the challenges, and the everyday moments. This is a supportive

space for honest conversations, practical tips, shared strength and

expert advice. Whether you are celebrating a win, surviving a

meltdown, or just trying to make it through the day, we are right

here with you.

Join us as we share the ups, the downs, and everything in between parenting autistic children.

Victoria Bennion: In this episode, Natalie and I are diving into

some of the real challenges families face with the current education

system, especially when it comes to supporting autistic children.

We talk about how mainstream school isn't always inclusive and what happens when children are expected to fit into a rigid system, and the emotional toll it takes when the support just isn't there. This is a personal [00:01:00]conversation drawn from our own experiences, and sadly, we know some of you may relate.

Natalie Tealdi: It's getting everyone to fit into a box, and I don't think that is a model that works

Victoria Bennion: No, it's not.

Natalie Tealdi: in my personal view. The education system is really outdated. Very outdated. They're so young when they start and

it doesn't need to be so rigid. If they could be a bit more

flexible, a bit more play into the learning environment, expecting

four and five year olds to sit on a chair and listen to lessons I

don't think is realistic.

Victoria Bennion: There's a difference between being in school and

being included in school as well. And when your child is struggling.

When my son started school he was struggling from day one. He was

struggling before he arrived.

There were difficulties he was having with speech, with food. They were probably the most obvious things before he started school because I was having conversations with the teachers or I was trying [00:02:00]

to, because I was so worried about the lack of clarity of the speech.

How he would be understood and what support he would get. And we were on a long waiting list at that time for speech therapy and we were

trying to push to get some support before he started, because so many

sounds were missing from his vocabulary. And I remember getting this

letter from the NHS just saying good news, he'd been allocated, a

batch of speech therapy with some other children.

It was gonna be in a group setting and it was to work on one sound. And I remember thinking, oh my God, one sound isn't gonna cut it. We are missing most sounds, more sounds than we've got, and. You have those settling in sessions before school, so there were two reception teachers when my son started school, so I remember speaking to one of them I didn't really feel that she heard me and somebody else recommended that I emailed the other.

Reception teacher because she was also the school SENDCO and she was really good. She was very supportive [00:03:00] and reassured me

really that there would be support given to him when he was in school. So from that point of view, that was okay, but once my son started at school, further difficulties became apparent. I dunno if that was true for

you

Natalie Tealdi: Oh yeah, definitely. It was a bit like an

explosion.

Victoria Bennion: There were things that we weren't aware of that

he was struggling with, that were uncovered during reception. So

things like coordination not being able to get change for pe, holding

a pen. And the teachers were very good at picking that up, but there

was a little group of them in my son's class that were pulled out for

extra support from very early on with handwriting. Can't remember

what else, to be honest, but that it was this same group. Now all of

those children have a diagnosis of some sort. I feel like it's

perhaps obvious you. I was told [00:04:00]

he'll grow outta so many of these things, particularly food that was

obviously a focus, like picky eating.

It will change. It didn't change. It didn't change. And. I don't think it changed for any of the children that were in that group. So they can certainly identify that there are issues from that young, so what can you do that's better? Because I know. It's the setup.

There's always gonna be children in every class. There's always gonna be a group. It's which group is it? So then how do you support these children best? Do you just keep your fingers crossed that they're gonna grow out of it?

Because the chances are that they're not, and they're going to need

extra support.

Or you just gonna keep your fingers crossed, that they go on to the next school, and that's where they'll completely explode and won't be able to cope. It seems to me that the system is not fit for purpose.

You've got say, one teacher with 30 children, so obviously no fault for the teacher, but they can't in the way that [00:05:00] it's set up. How can they possibly cater for all these different children's needs?

Natalie Tealdi: I totally agree with you there. In teacher training they need to include. Special educational needs training. It should be standard. They should be looking for it because we live in a world where there's, a percentage of people who are Neurodivergent and we should be recognizing that and, everybody should be aware of it in the workplace.

It's something that needs talking about a lot more because we need to be able to adapt our behaviors so that it's more inclusive.

Victoria Bennion: Yeah, absolutely. And you don't know the

different, that having the right support being in the right

environment would have for these children. Both of ours . At

different ages. They both had explosions, but it was around the same

time really of not being able to cope anymore.

And you just hear so many stories of other children who hold it all in, hold it all in until they absolutely can't anymore. But what if they were [00:06:00] given the right support? What if they were around people who understood if they had the training? The staff around them have the training, they might be able to think is the classroom too much of a

busy environment for them?

Do they need more sensory breaks? Could they be struggling with understanding what's being said to them? My son, I realize now he wouldn't have understood a lot of what was being said to him at that time. So that's really confusing.

If you're trained, you would know that perhaps change is really hard. So is there a way to have a visual timetable for everybody so everybody knows where they are?

When it gets to the end of term and a lot of schools will go off

timetable to do fun stuff and. For me, when I was at school, I

would've, been so pleased, we're just gonna do fun stuff and we dunno

what fun stuff looks like. But I remember, coming up to school with

my son one day and I was trying to clarify what's happening so that he was gonna be able to cope with it. And the member of staff in the [00:07:00]door said, oh, we're just gonna have fun today. And the color's just gone from his face and he can't even think how to access the

classroom. That comes back to what you was saying about. All staff

were trained because they're going to have a percentage of children

that they're working with who are neurodivergent.

I'm sure it varies across schools, but generally, if teaching staff were aware of the things that are gonna cause autistic children problems, I'm sure that there's a lot that they could work in and do naturally anyway,

Natalie Tealdi: which will mean they can cope better.

Victoria Bennion: even if it's identified say the school says to

you or the parents are thinking, my child.

May need an assessment here at quite a young age, you are looking at such a long waiting list and while you are waiting, so much damage can be done. And at that time it can be very hard to access the support that you need. So if schools were set up a little bit differently it could make a lot of difference to some children's. Ability to [00:08:00]

access the classroom.

Natalie Tealdi: I agree completely one of the things that came up

when we did the national Autistic Society course was. The displays in

classrooms can be quite overwhelming. When you have all the stuff on

the walls and then that changes every now and again, and it's just

those little things that could have such a big impact.

I dunno what the answer is, but if it was just taken into consideration that maybe the majority of a classroom is kept the same on the walls, or there's a space in a main common area where they have displays, something like that, that could make a huge difference to a lot of children too.

Victoria Bennion: Yeah, absolutely. One of my son's early

complaints about the busyness of the walls. And the change of

displays. And I know that it comes from this, again, nice place we're

gonna to show off the children's work and we're gonna make it really

fun.

But for other children, that just adds to that sensory overload of what's already, a [00:09:00] challenging environment for them to be in.

Natalie Tealdi: It's just more things that they need to process,

isn't it?

Victoria Bennion: And another thing of that I think that we should

talk about is the way that it's dealt with often when your child

isn't coping. These children who get to the point where they

absolutely can't cope, they're often excluded.

I'm not sure how many times your son's excluded,

Natalie Tealdi: He was suspended from school twice when he was

five years old.

Victoria Bennion: That's quite a punishment for a child who's, not

coping with the environment they're in, but they're treated like

they're being really naughty and that their behavior is really

unacceptable.

Natalie Tealdi: The expectation is that they will modify their

behavior based on that punishment, when in fact, that's not going to

happen to someone who is Neurodivergent and is struggling in an environment. They're not gonna make that connection anyway. So to me, it seems completely pointless.

Victoria Bennion: Another thing that is often tried is shorter

[00:10:00] days.

Natalie Tealdi: That was from the beginning, pretty much we went

in later and collected earlier. Just to try and help him cope. But

again, that has such an impact on a family. We're trying to work,

we're trying to support our families and then suddenly the day's

shorter,

Victoria Bennion: and it changes that routine. Whilst it's meant to

help, I know very quickly for us that if something changes, that,

that's what we do. So if you are used to going to school nine to 3, 8

30 to three, whatever it is, and suddenly it's eight 30 to 12 very

quickly, but that's what we do.

So even if the intention is we're gonna shorten the day, but then we'll work to extend it, that's very hard.

Natalie Tealdi: And also what message is it giving? It's giving

the message that you are different. You are different from everyone

else. And then how does that feel to a five, six, 7-year-old? It's

not a great starting point. We also had where it wasn't planned that

well, who was going to be looking after our son at certain [00:11:00]

times, so we would arrive at school in the morning and

be told, oh, you are not in this classroom today. You are gonna be in

this classroom with somebody else. And the horror on his face,

because that's an unexpected change. And it could be like that every

day. So it's more to cope with. so consistency's really key.

Victoria Bennion: That comes back to, again, what you were saying

about training. Understanding the impact of something that can seem

such a small thing but that may mean that child can't access school

that day or even further than that.

That can start to break down their ability to access school at all. It's quite massive.

Natalie Tealdi: And having the phone calls in the middle of the

day, he's not coping. Can you pick him up early? Like you said, they

latch onto that as a new routine. So if I pick him up at lunchtime,

then the next day he's gonna expect to stay till lunchtime and that

makes it even harder to get them in. And it's more [00:12:00]

confusing.

it's just a bad cycle.

Victoria Bennion: Another thing that's a major problem is

communication breakdowns between schools, local authorities, and

parents. There can be a lack of transparency. Parents are often

looked at first. When a child's behavior is causing a problem,

is it you? I've been asked that, we did alter things to try to see if it was me. It was the effect of me with other people bringing my child into school. But he still responded exactly the same and didn't want to go in.

Natalie Tealdi: Exactly the same with us. It's what's going on at

home

Victoria Bennion: when you are a parent who's trying to support a

child who's really struggling, and then you are being looked at as

the potential cause of the problem, that's really hard. We Can really

underestimate the emotional and mental impact that.

Parents were already suffering with, and then they're being looked at. Because you're already looking at everything. If your [00:13:00]

child's struggling,

Natalie Tealdi: You are over analyzing everything, and I remember

sitting down with my husband every night okay, what did we do wrong?

How can we do this differently? It was like a daily thing. So you are

already there, but then if you've got professionals also, then it

makes you even more paranoid and, and it often isn't anything.

That the parents are doing

Victoria Bennion: What I didn't realize before we started all the

processes was that Money drives many of the decisions that are taken

around your child, they're financially based.

Natalie Tealdi: Yeah.

Victoria Bennion: Years ago, I may have naively thought that. If my

child needs specialist, obviously the school are gonna suggest

specialist, or the local authority is gonna suggest specialist. Of

course, without thinking of the cost of sending a child to specialist

and therefore, you need to be very aware that when you're fighting there's gonna be people who don't wanna give your child what they need from a [00:14:00]financial reason, not because your child doesn't need that, but you're gonna get a lot of pushback because of the budgets. And they'll be told like we were told when we had part of the EHCP, needs assessment and the educational psychologist, she saw how badly my child was struggling that he couldn't even get into the school. She heard from the teacher how anxious he was, we even had a letter from the clinical psychologist saying , despite the adjustments that have been made, he cannot access this environment. He needs a different environment. and she still made it clear she would be recommending mainstream when he couldn't even access first school. And that really brought it home to me that it's financially based you've

got a letter from a doctor, you've got the teacher's opinion, you've

got the parent's opinion, and yet your there being paid by the

council. Crack on in mainstream, good luck. And it's not having your child's best interests at heart.

Natalie Tealdi: I agree with that completely. [00:15:00]

And there's a lot of fighting that has to happen to get the support

that your children...