Going Abroad

[Guest guest]

Hi - I have experience of living in the US - but am married to an Italian. My impression from talking to psychologist friends in Italy is that service is very patchy particularly speech and language. I think the general culture surrounding disability is not very unaccepting certainly in S.Italy - judging by reacton to my son and the fact that I never see disabled people or kids in public. One good thing, but your son may be too young to benefit is that Teaching Assistants for disabled children have to be trained teachers. I think it would be very important to plan your return to the UK carefully. If your child has a Statement already you will lose it by going abroad. You cannot apply for a Statement until you are resident once again in the UK and as you probably know it takes months to get a final Statement and you

are unlikely to get many services in the interim. Our son was a year out of school on our return from the US.The Uk is very myopic about foreign professional reports and tend not to accept them unless they provide something that is not available here eg a newer WISC (we had WISC IV) when Surrey were still using WISC III or a SIPT (OT SI test). If you want to use independent experts assessments for your Statement these would need to be booked prior to your return as there can be 6-9 month waiting list particularly if you felt you might need to get a school place using Tribunal. Hope it works out - we found it more of a culture shock coming back! C