mothers permission?

[Kitiara]

My Partner has joint residency and joint parental responsibility for his 11 year old son. We have reason to believe he may have undiagnosed Asperges Syndrome (reputable online test says borderline score 21- 32, he scored 39) He shows all the characteristics of Aspergers and we would like to get him professionally tested, however, we don't think his Mum would agree to having him tested (head in sand = nothing wrong). Do we have to have her permission to take him to the Doctors / Specialist etc?

Thanks,
Kit

[Wombats]

Re: mothers permission?

To the best of my understanding this is something the mother would need to agree to. Possibly the easiest way to go about it (hard without knowing full details) would be through the school. Day to day issues of schooling under joint parental responsibility would be for the mother, but which school and more strategic decisions should rightly involve both parents. This could be seen as a strategic decision and may be something which could be raised with the school?

Any ASD is impossible to give a definitive diagnosis of, but a specialist psychologist can give as close as possible to one. Schools are usually pretty well geared up to tackle Aspergers and HFA.

[Kitiara]

Re: mothers permission?

Thanks Wombats.

He only has a few weeks left at his Primary school before he then goes to Secondary school, so I'm not sure how much assistance we will get from them, the school is not the best in the area (not our choice to send him there - Mum disregards the joint PR regularly) and as we live in London and they are in Essex, all contact with the school from our side tends to be either via telephone or letter - both of which tend to get ignored. My Parthner will certainly try the school route before investigating any other avenues, we would really like to get this diagnosed before he starts Secondary school as if he does not have Asperges (or something like) there is obviously another underlying problem, his behaviour. lack of social skills etc are not where they should be.

[Wombats]

Re: mothers permission?

Which year of primary is he in? If Yr 6 there is pretty much no chance of getting him assessed before the transition to secondary school. You could certainly take the opportunity of joint parental responsibility at the start of secondary school of speaking to the Head of Yr7, introducing yourself and expressing your concerns. A follow up call would be only normal after this.

The medical route is available, but I am unsure about the need for the mother's permission if you wanted to go down that route.

[MissFM]

Re: mothers permission?

In addition to Wombats good advice above:

In my experience, your best ally could well be your GP, if sympathetic. It's well worth talking all the issues through as most will be both sensitive to the issues of divorced parenting and the process of referral. It's not unlikely that the he/she will be familiar with such a scenario - many parents do go into denial.

A caveat, again from experience, is that services are so overstretched that it's difficult to get the "multi-disciplinary" assessment needed within an acceptable timescale, even with parents fighting all-out to that end. I understand this varies greatly from region to region, so you may be lucky.

Here's a link with which you're probably familiar http://www.autism.org.uk/about-autis...our-child.aspx although we have personally found the NAS to be well meaning but not so effective in terms of practical help.

Wishing you the very best of luck with this - in our case the eventual diagnosis did provide a key to support for our son, albeit too little and too late.

[Wombats]

Re: mothers permission?

Yes, I don't want to take this too far away from the OP's original question, but experience here has proven a diagnosis to be hugely useful as traits which are odd or possibly unacceptable can be addressed. There is no reason why someone with HFA cannot lead a perfectly normal, fulfilling life, but accessing support as early as possible is undeniably very useful.

[Kitiara]

Re: mothers permission?

He is in the last few weeks of Y6 and even if the school COULD help, I doubt they would, that school is the most useless school I have had the misfortune to come across ... but that is another story!

As we live in London and son is in Essex, we obviously don't have a Dr over here that he is registered to, I assume we would have to go through his own GP? This raises another question (sorry) ... As we have joint residency, he lives with his Mum in the week, but he "lives" with us (as opposed to "visiting") 3 weekends Friday evening - Sunday evening out of every 4, and half of every holiday if he was to require a Doctor during his time with us, would we need to take him back to Essex or could we ask our Dr to have a look at him?

[Wombats]

Re: mothers permission?

All doctors can accept patients as either visiting or temporary patients. Whether they would deal with something like this is a different matter altogether. I guess you could take the attitude of when he is with you for a longer period of time, pop down to your GP and make an appointment and just explain the situation and ask for advice.

The link given by Miss FM and a range of other autism charities may also be well placed to advise. You cannot be alone in this sort of situation.

[MissFM]

Re: mothers permission?

He is in the last few weeks of Y6 and even if the school COULD help, I doubt they would, that school is the most useless school I have had the misfortune to come across ... but that is another story!

As we live in London and son is in Essex, we obviously don't have a Dr over here that he is registered to, I assume we would have to go through his own GP? This raises another question (sorry) ... As we have joint residency, he lives with his Mum in the week, but he "lives" with us (as opposed to "visiting") 3 weekends Friday evening - Sunday evening out of every 4, and half of every holiday if he was to require a Doctor during his time with us, would we need to take him back to Essex or could we ask our Dr to have a look at him?

I was thinking you should talk it through with your own GP who could well give some useful pointers. If your stepson needs medical attention when with you then you would take him to your own doctor (I think there would be the usual forms to fill in).

If you can get your GP interested and on side over this it's quite amazing what the Twilight Bark of the medical profession can achieve... x

[jami Mullen]

Re: mothers permission?

Well I think mother should agree.