Done it, Did it.

Well I completed my little tete a tete at the early intervention groups "Starting School" info night, there were three of us, one whose child has gone to Western Autistic School, another whose child goes to Sunbury and Macedon ranges Specialist school and me, whose Mr 6 who attends a Catholic school with funding for special needs. There were many questions and as in the years I have attended as a audience member and not as a speaker; the questions on their lips is always HOW DID YOU MAKE THAT DECISION? I was honest, had Mr 6 been diagnosed earlier and his sister not had started school at 4...I would have honestly looked to the State school system. Primary factor in the decision being I could not envisage Mr 6 without Miss 9 there to look out for him but nor could I pull Miss 9 out of school after 4 years there and ask that she cope in a new school. Secondary factor was size, it is one of the smaller schools in Sunbury. There was a lot of emphasis placed on the DET testing, an IQ score is not relevant to a child diagnosed with autism and if the child's "intellect" falls within the range for acceptance to a specialist school, the score is not reported to the parents. Too much emphasis is placed on such numbers, Mr 6 then only 5 scored IQ of 74 with deviation of 5 points which means he was possibly a 68/69 which is known as "dream line". His expressive and receptive language skills are below the WHO standard of 70 but not the Australian standard of 74...What makes Australia a world authority of language skills I will never understand.
So hopefully, the parents and grandparents present got something from the evening, I know that the counselor was trying to get one speaker to stop talking as she went on for over 45 minutes but people were listening and asking questions, there is so much you learn in that year before school and if you can help save someone some heartache, stress or just time I think it is worth being there for 2 hours talking. LOL