Alex’s story

We first started to support Alex (not his real name) on the helpline when he was still at school, after his Mum got in touch looking for advice. His Mum used our helpline a number of times over the years as he progressed through different learning pathways. She recently got in touch to say Alex had just graduated from the University of Edinburgh and she wanted to reflect on the support we provided.

 

“As we discussed several weeks ago now, I just wanted to make sure that Lead Scotland and your funders are aware of the impact your help had on the life outcomes for my son, who was diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder aged 14. Having found out he passed his exams and graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a Mathematics degree, this caused me to reflect on what a precarious journey he had to achieve this, and naturally I was reminded of your role in getting there! As I write this many years after I first contacted you, I am delighted to find you still working at Lead.

 

When I first contacted you for help it was very apparent that you were reliable and consistent in the support you offered us, and looking back at our emails from this time, they are testament to the work you put in hunting out information to help us solve problems. There are many things you were able to signpost which I felt a normal person could not find with just a google search without knowing what the key words, jargon etc for his rights before diagnosis and accessing extra support at high school.

 

I remember getting in touch with you to find a pathway to access University without Highers because my son had failed his Highers. We used your advice and submitted his portfolio of work as a computer programmer for consideration to a university and when this didn’t work, we again got your help to understand the rejection. After this, on your recommendation, my son enrolled in a SWAP course as a non traditional route to University.

 

The beauty of the SWAP course “access to Physical Sciences” was that he did not need to sit Higher English to get into Uni. This was a subject where he would never have achieved an “A” and the university needed all A’s to get into Maths. By this I mean that due to his autism, he could not write english essays in a way they liked, nor could he make sense of the curriculum. I remember him being depressed because he could not write an essay on Norman McCaig’s poem “The Basking Shark”, he simply could not understand the imagery and the creativity. The only way he could have passed this subject was to memorise the “correct” answer. This greatly affected his confidence and took him ten times longer to do than say, a Maths paper, therefore added stress needlessly.

 

In a nutshell, my son went from flunking every subject in National 5 to managing to get into a high ranking University Degree (with all A’s) and then completing the Degree. This just goes to show what can happen when disabled kids get the support they need and also, don’t give up on their goals. In my son’s case he needed more time to mature so he could cope with the workload, and he also needed to get out of the traditional school system because the school environment was an overwhelming sensory nightmare that negatively impacted his ability to learn.”