Accentuate the positive?

Next week, we get the results of a new set of assessments on Billy.

I hate these things. Hate them. It's nothing to do with Billy, or the professionals doing the assessments. I hate the assessments. I know he's delayed/disordered whatever you want to call it. I know we've got a long road ahead. I have known this for a long time, and I will know it for a long time to come.

Cheers, Universe.

The receipt of pieces of paper, carefully read through and interpreted by compassionate professionals, photocopied in advance for distribution to a selection of other professionals is seriously about as much fun as the flu. Without the resting and watching TV bit.

We're doing these assessments so that, should we make the decision to put Billy back into the mainstream school system, we have an 'accurate' picture of his capabilities.

Can you hear me throwing up in my mouth a little? Seriously... in what strange corner of the universe is standardised, normative testing that accentuates what's not possible, an accurate picture of a child's capabilities?

I see it's necessary. I really do. I get the square peg part. It's important to now 'how' square. What I don't like much is the round hole. I don't like working off a deficit framework from the starting line.

Here's how it seems from where we're standing (or sitting... or bouncing, if you are Billy).

Let's make a list of all the things that a special needs kid cannot do, and focus on how to get them to do those things. Let's use expected milestones as 'normal' (nice, comfortable, expected) and the list as the departure from that nice safe place. We'll drag the special needs kid from the scary deficit place to the expected, normal place. Get it, SN kid? You are not right. We need to fix you. Feel good now? OK, let's get started on your education.

I'm being defensive, for sure. I'm annoyed about being backed into corners as a parent. It just doesn't work for me that I am constantly encouraged to 'fix' my kid. That he's a set of goals and aims and things to change. His life has a sub-text that doesn't feel healthy. And I'm not talking about his health... It's easy to get yourself in a bit of a whiny funk, here in autism world. I don't like to hang around in this place for too long, but while I'm here, I'd like to have a good look around.

Here's a thought.

Instead of giving children with special needs, standardised testing to see where they fit along the spectrum of normal, why not flip the testing on its head? Why not come up with a test that assesses the child's strengths and uses those as guidelines for educators?

Why not say to the system, here's a kid who knows everything about gazelles. He's seven and he knows about 30 species of gazelles... How can we use the skills, processes and abilities that built that list of gazelles and apply it to number facts or literacy? He's also really good at remembering things - spookily good. So how can we use that phenomenal memory to his best advantage? He's also brilliant at spelling. What is it about spelling that comes easily? There must be some way we can unpack that and use it to help him with science, or PE? Let's not try to transfer skills from one topic to another, let's really look at the thinking and learning processes that make this kid succeed cognitively.

While we're at it, let's think about using these processes to get some context on his inability to focus in a busy classroom. There must be a way we can compare hyper-focus and hypo-focus and come up with some tips. And, that whole sound sensitivity thing... that must mean something positive too? Maybe it helps him hear more detail as well.

Why don't we do this?

Is it too hard? Is it too whacky? Do the relatively small (though steadily increasing) numbers of children with learning difficulties make it not worth the research/time investment?

The cynic in me says, we can't do this because no-one knows enough about autism to do it effectively. The dreamer in me says, surely we should give it a go.

Wouldn't it be awesome if your kid could walk into school with a set of positive statements about who they are and what they can do? Wouldn't it be great if autistic kids were considered (and actually treated as) an asset to a mainstream class? Wouldn't it be brilliant if they felt empowered to use their uniqueness, rather than morph it into a version of 'normal' for six hours a day (and then pay the price for the other 18 hours)?

Let's face it. One in fifty-eight boys, one in a hundred kids with autism... lots of classes are going to have lots of ASD kids in them. It would make a lot of sense to see those kids as something other than a drain on resources and a challenge to staff equity.

For every one good story of mainstreaming, there are a hundred horror stories. That (as unreliable a statistic as it is - shoot me, I'm blogging not writing government policy) is an ugly scenario. Go strike up a random conversation about education with any autism parent with a mainstreamed kid. Actually, strike up a conversation about education with any parent. Then find your legal drug of choice and take it. You'll need it.

I know we are lucky to have a kid that has the potential to be mainstreamed. I also know, as we approach a half a school year of homeschooling, that he is a challenge and a half. He is funny and charming and clever, and he needs constant redirection and reinterpretation - even at home. He's not going to magically learn the skills he needs to learn in a classroom setting. He has a neurological disability that makes these skills nigh on impossible. He needs support to learn. he needs learning support. I have very little confidence that the mainstream system can support his learning needs.

The system is not giving me anything resembling confidence by making me stack up my kid's deficits against a list of 'normal' outcomes just so he can be placed in the appropriate box. Or hole, as the case may be.

While we were on holidays, I watched Waiting for Superman, cos that's the kind of education nerd I am. I'm not American, and I don't feel like I should weigh in on how the American education system is or isn't working. What I will say is, that film scared the be-jiggers out of me. It's one thing to contemplate a system that is not addressing the needs of the many, but another entirely to think of how the few are handled. If we base continuous improvement in our education system on scores, on test outcomes, on measurable data, how do we cater for those whose cognition, expression and learning being is not fairly measurable?

For now, I will slather myself in sunscreen and pretend I'm still at the beach (even though it's grey and 10 degrees Celsius outside). I will force my senses into denial, and perhaps my brain will follow. If it works for the systems we are forced to abide by, then perhaps it should work for me.

But before I sink into a place where only chocolate will do, Billy would like to make a(nother) film about gazelles. He has storyboards to create, voiceover to write, sound effects to create, supers to consider. Yes, he's seven... but he's clever like that.