Luciano and Sigrun
Content Warning: These stories are about violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation and may include references to suicide or self-harming behaviours. They may contain graphic descriptions and strong language and may be distressing. Some narratives may be about First Nations people who have passed away. If you need support, please see Contact & support.
Luciano is autistic and has apraxia, a motor speech disorder.
‘But basically, he’s a pretty smart kid,’ his mother Sigrun told the Royal Commission. ‘He had a comprehension level of more like a six or eight-year-old when we tested him … but he didn’t have the language. Like, when he enrolled into prep, he had probably 100 words. So he’s very delayed with talking and stuff like that.’
In prep, Luciano got no support for his speech problems. ‘There was nothing … It’s now turned into a language disorder and a speech disorder,’ Sigrun said.
Halfway through the year he became ‘really school-refusal’. It was at this point the psychiatrist diagnosed Luciano with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Sigrun moved Luciano to a new school that ‘indicated they would be more supportive’. She went to great lengths to explain his condition and that he was ‘not your typical ASD kid’.
Grades 1 and 2 went well. But in grade 3, everything ‘just went downhill’.
A new inclusion teacher came on board and immediately put Luciano in a foreign language class. Because he was struggling, the school decided he had an intellectual disability.
Luciano had ‘specific apps’ to support him in class. Sigrun had paid someone to train teachers how to use them. But the new teacher wouldn’t allow them, telling Luciano to ‘never bring them out again’.
‘They just grabbed some teacher and put her in the role of inclusion. They’ve never assessed him … They treated him as intellectually impaired, they secluded and segregated him.’
Luciano became unhappy and started having ‘huge rages’.
Sigrun enrolled him in a state school for year 4. It promised to provide Luciano with the supports he needed, specifically occupational and speech therapy, but didn’t.
‘They put 60 kids in one room with two teachers and one support. So he wasn’t learning ... he’s getting frustrated. They’re giving him work that was beneath him. He felt that the teachers bullied him. He’d come home saying, “They’re not helping.”’
The school had extra funding to support Luciano’s reading, but ‘the only thing they ever did’ was a reading assessment.
Sigrun said the school never ‘properly assessed’ Luciano. It used an autism diagnosis to get funding for his educational adjustments, even though she had explained that Luciano wasn’t ‘suited underneath the ASD verification’.
Sigrun said the school has altered Luciano’s ‘entire file’ to the point that ‘is just false’.
‘They have adjusted his attendance records saying that he was there when he wasn’t. They put down that he loses his language when he becomes mad. They put down that he has issues to noise, which he doesn’t.’
Despite that, ‘none of these adjustments [for autism] were in place’. Meanwhile Sigrun was ‘begging for them to provide him with speech support’.
‘They were accessing both federal and government funding on behalf of my child. And the principal thinks of it as their pay packet.’
Luciano is ‘upset’ that’s he’s going into high school after making no progress, and Sigrun is scared.
‘I’ve had to push and fight for everything for this kid … This last school was the worst … I don’t want to keep fighting for what is actually rightfully his.’
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.