coffeecake

I am in the process of moving to france.
I am wondering if anyone can help me as i have an austistic child.
I am basicilly looking to draw on other peoples expierences of moving to france with a child or children with special needs.
Any advice, do's or donts would be greatly appreciated.

val50

Hi there
welcome to the forum
You don't mention what part of France you will be moving to, so not sure if this is of interest, although you might find more help by contacting them
http://paris.angloinfo.com/forum/top...?topic_id=2080
as well as
http://autisme.france.free.fr/fichie...0(English).pdf
good luck with the move

G-J-B

Hi coffeecake. Welcome to the forum. How old is your child? My brother used to work at a specialist school in Burton-Upon-Trent for children with autism (usually mixed in with other complications), so I can vaguely appreciate some of the problems you might encounter. I hope someone in a similar position may be able to answer your query, but if I were in your situation I think my main concern would be finding a place with necessary facilities and whether the move might hamper your child's ability to communicate as best they can.

cupoftea

We moved to France over 4 years ago with our autistic son, who is now 18 years old.

The move has been a tremendous success and we could never have imagined the support he would get, nor the progress he would make. He is truly transformed from the withdrawn little scrap we brought with us.

The way in which he has been nurtured and valued here makes me ashamed of the inadequate and thoughtless way he was treated by professionals and services in his own country.

I would rather not go into all the details on a public forum, but you are welcome to pm me and I will happily tell you more of our story.

G-J-B

That's a nice story and it's encouraging to hear somebody came here with a positive experience.

coffeecake

Hi cupoftea,thank you for your reply its great to hear a positive outcome,our six year old son has autism and no speech he uses pictures to communicate.
He attends a unit for autism within a special needs school and is making very little progress,he is a very sociable little man and loves attention from people unlike your typical austistic child.Our reason in moving is mainly for him to have a better quality of life he loves outdoors and water.
We hoped to move to area 16 or 17 La Rochelle where weather will be nice but property will be affordable.My main concern is a suitable placememt for his needs i know now he will never be Bill Gates but we still believe in him.Our french is working progress an my computer skills arent great but im up for the challenge.I hope you havent fallen asleep reading this,any help you can give me would be great.

cupoftea

Not sure where to start with offering any help or advice, but I am happy to try if you have more specific questions. I am by no means an expert, but have accumulated a fair amount of experience over the years.

Probably the biggest piece of advice I can offer immediately is to learn french, learn french, and learn more french. We live in a very remote mountain community and we simply could not have managed if we had not spoken french - although of course things may be different in bigger more cosmopolitan places.

Another thing which I have learnt over many years, is to trust your instincts with your child. I wish we had been more confident in this respect in the earlier years, we wasted a lot of time following both seeking and following professional advice until it dawned on us that we didn't have to if it didn't feel right.

By the time we came to France we had home educated our son for three years, and he made more progress than he ever did in 'school'. However, he now attends a small special needs college near to where we live, something we would never have believed possible - and which has been made possible by the incredibly imaginative and gentle way he has been coaxed and supported by his workers.