School system in the US | Autism PDD

Hi everyone

I am really enjoying being on this forum. As you can see I am from the UK and would really like to know how the autism school system works in the US..I am reading different terms in the posts and feel a bit lost in the dark so to speak!

If someone could enlighten me on how things are out there I would be really interested to learn more and perhaps contribute a little more.

Over here, for the benefit of mums and dads who are not familiar with the UK education system I will give you a little rundown!

There are 8 autism specific school (all autistic children) in the entire country run by the National Autistic Society (NAS) - thankfully my son has been in one now for 3 years after a HUGE fight with the education authorities and special needs tribunal in London. This took a whole day of very emotional and intense meetings with our solicitor and expert witnesses i.e. educational psychologist, speech and language therapist and occupational therapist.
Countless parents have been through these tribunals to fight for their childs educational needs, paid out thousands of pounds (ours was Ł10,000 mark) to pay for solicitors and expert witnesses. It took a year of preparation on our part. The NAS schools here are in the region of Ł45 to Ł140,000 per year for authorities to fund a placement.
The classes in NAS schools are 6 or 7 pupils with one teacher and up to 3 assistants. Some pupils get one to one if they are very severe and non verbal.
The NAS schools take children with ASD, Aspergers and Epilepsy and ADHD.
Then we have SLD (severe learning difficulties) schools who take a wide range of children with varying disabilities. Some of them have Autism Bases with specialised staff trained in autism.
Then there are MLD (moderate learning difficulties) schools. Varying disabilities. My son was in one of these from age 5 to 8. This one also had an autism base but the authorities could not continue to fund the base unfortunately so we pulled our son out of there and went for the NAS one.
All these schools use PECS and TEACHH. The NAS schools use these and also adopt the SPELL approach - Structure, Positive (approaches and expectations), Empathy, Low Arousal and Links.
Residential/boarding are in most of the NAS schools but not so much in the SLD or MLD schools.

For kids kids with disabilities that affect their educational progress, a Free Appropriate Public Education is guaranteed from age 3 thru 21. Of course, the DEFINITION of what is Free and Appropriate is up for debate, since that is defined based on INDIVIDUAL needs. The best website to find out the most about the special education system in the US (IMHO) is www.wrightslaw.com Parents here cannot be made to pay for any part of the education. AND we parents are legally a part of the team that makes the decision. But SO much depends on a parent's knowledge and ability to negotiate that what a child actually gets varies. Also, individual states can have MORE protections than the Federal law requires, so all of this varies from state to state.This is true since Daniel's iep failed him for 3 years in public school. Some school staff make the parent's part so hard by not listening to there input since we know the kid best. The main problem is unhelpful principals who think they know what is best for kids with iep's. Se rules changes alot also. Say no if you don't agree with the idea's in the ard's. They can't do it unless you agree. Go to mediation if necessary. I would send your ideas that would help to SE. We didn't return Daniel for safety reasons do to bullies who were not taken care of.

Our super told me that Daniel should return to Se where he was last year since he had progress there. He hated all my complaints. I filed a Se complaint to Tea.