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Acceptance of PDD/NOS kids at SAS

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wendoe
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Acceptance of PDD/NOS kids at SAS

Post by wendoe » Fri, 29 Oct 2010 4:35 am

We'll be relocating to Singapore shortly. Our 7-year old boy is high-functioning PDD-NOS. Our first choice of school is SAS, but we are unsure as to how willing/able they are to accomodate or tolerate kids with this diagonosis there.

He does not have any special needs that have to be accomodated in-class, but we are concerned that the school may not be prepared- or even willing - to take him on the basis of any perceived issues or preconceptions around ASD.

Our thanks in advance to anyone who may have insights or experience around this at SAS.

movingtospore
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Post by movingtospore » Sun, 31 Oct 2010 9:28 pm

I would contact SAS directly. Although our children don't go there, when we went for a tour of the school it seemed that they had access to a great deal of learning support, if needed.

wendoe
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Post by wendoe » Mon, 01 Nov 2010 1:07 am

Thank you very much. We hope to visit the school and take a tour in late November.

Like most high-functioning kids on the spectrum, our son either performs with or outperforms neurotypical peers academically. His issues are mainly social.

In some places, this is often not well understood, and kids on the spectrum are often thought to be "slow" or retarded. Not knowing what the thinking on this is in Singaporean society, we want to ensure that misperceptions around autism don't impact his academic oppportunity.

Again, thanks for your advice!

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gravida
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Post by gravida » Mon, 01 Nov 2010 8:56 am

Luckily, in SAS you should not encounter too much of "Singaporean society way of thinking". To be frank in Singapore any form of disability, learning difference, special needs and so on is treated by a majority of people (not everyone of course) without a basic understanding. People are afraid, shocked or sometimes ashamed. What is really sad, it happens not only among those people who have nothing to do with such a problem, but also among teachers, parents and other caregivers. :? Of course this is huge generalization, but indeed it is so different here than in other countries (Europe, AUS, US), that it may be a significant 'culture shock'. On the other hand, it is getting better! At least right now you can see social campaigns supporting special needs education, or simply educating the public. I can see changes within the years I am here.

If your son is so called (I hate this term) highly functioning, most of the people will not notice there is something going on, otherwise you may expect staring with mouth open, or even comments... in case he will act unusually in public.
Well, on the other hand, it happens when they see neurotypical people as well ;) (i. e., pregnant woman, couple holding each others hands or any other 'reason'. TV works similarly to 80-90% of Singaporeans :lol: ). That's uniquely Singapore ;)

I do not know if SAS indeed support children on the spectrum, but I do know they do have a great group of speech therapists there, and they do accept kids with learning difficulties such as speech and language delays, attention deficits of other learning differences, so I guess PDD-NOS should be also OK.

wendoe
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Post by wendoe » Tue, 02 Nov 2010 12:42 am

@Gravida: thank you for your comments.

I hope we can contribute to accelerate the change already underway in Singapore with respect to these issues! :)

Thank you again for your insights.

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