One of our members found this research project on the Great Ormond St website and as we have a high number of members with ASD he thought it might be of interest…….
“Many of the parents that we meet through the Social Communication Disorders Clinic at Great Ormond Street Hospital raise concerns that they have about how well their child is going to cope with moving from primary to secondary school.
The research team here at Great Ormond Street Hospital are aware that this can be a difficult time for young people, especially when they have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
Up until now there has been little research carried out on this subject. Consequently, there are few formal support structures in place. Many schools have to work on a ‘trial and error’ basis if they decide to put transition packages into place
We have received a grant from the Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity©, to enable us to research the difficulties and stresses that occur when a child with an Autism Spectrum Disorder moves to secondary school. Through examining these difficulties and learning more about current school practices we wish to create a new system of evaluation and intervention that primary and secondary schools can use to help them to put in appropriate support for the transition.”
Participate!
We need to learn more about the ways in which schools and parents are currently planning for transition to secondary school. There are various ways in which you can participate in the research.
Count me in…
If you live in London area or in the south east of England and have a child who is due to move to mainstream secondary school in September 2010 then we would like to invite you to be part of this study. This would involve researchers collecting information from you and your child both before and after the school transition.
Share my views…
We would like to hear from everyone interested in this topic (across the UK!), we would like to gather people’s opinions and experiences of transition whether you have ASD yourself, or know someone with ASD or are a professional in education or mental health who works with children with ASD. The information you give us in this online questionnaire is anonymous and will be fed into a transition pack we are hoping to design to help children with ASD in the transition from primary to secondary school.
http://www.ich.ucl.ac.uk/gosh/clinicalservices/autism_services/Autism%20and%20Education
