Irish School expels 5 year old for autistic behavoirs

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Irish Autism Action claims it offered to make its behavioural analyst available to the staff at Coralstown National School to advise on strategies for working with challenging behaviour.

It says that while this offer was accepted last month, the board of management chose to move ahead with the expulsion of the junior infant.

Statement from Irish Autism Action

Irish Autism Action (IAA) can now confirm that a five year old child has been formally expelled from school because of behaviours attributed to the child’s autism. The family, whose child was a junior infant at Coralstown National School in Co. Westmeath, has just received written confirmation of the decision from the School’s Board of Management.

We understand that this young boy is possibly the youngest child with autism ever to be expelled from school in the history of the state.

He went on to say: “More worryingly, there is no sanction on the school for a failure to seriously engage to properly integrate the child. There is however, a very serious penalty to be paid by the child, and by the child’s family. The child has already been out of school for nearly three months,