Dear Telegraph Newspaper.............

[smugtandemfeederispissedoff]

Telegraph Article

Dear Telegraph,

Please could we have an article which explains how difficult it is to get a diagnosis for severe disabilities such as autism and how it is not the first response to give medication.

Please could you remind all my family who read this article today, who called me to tell me they will diagnose anything these days and perhaps DS is just shy or sad - that this is not a true reflection of the NHSs approach to children with disabilities.

Please can you remind your readers that actually if you take your child with a severe "invisible" disability along to a doctor/peadiatrition/CAMHS you will more than likely be told it is your fault/your parenting. And no you cannot have any medication.

Yours,

Smug

[Triggles]

Oh FFS!!! Don't we have enough to deal with? Why do these stupid hacks come out with this nonsense?? And why is the public so unbelievably stupid enough to believe this claptrap??

Things like this make it a million times harder to deal with tutting members of the public, criticism, and just everything in general. I imagine I'll get a few phone calls as well. sigh...

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Dear Telegraph,

Did you know that my LA want to pay themselves more for provision for ds than I can do for cheaper and with more expertise/better outcomes?

Can you believe that they are spending tax payers money on solicitors to ensure they can continue to fund their own salaries instead of the cheaper, more effective people that they could?

Yours,

Starlight

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Give them more stories like mine.

I don't suppose the Telegraph will mind too much switching from parent bashing to public servant bashing.

[Triggles]

We have bent over backwards trying to avoid giving any medications to DS2. In fact, it's been suggested, however, we have said no for the present time, as we do not want to go the medication route at this time, if we can manage without it. And the paed was happy to go along with our wishes. Doesn't sound to me like meds are being pushed. In fact, I'd say if you actually speak to most parents of children with SNs, most of them will avoid medication for as long as humanly possible. At least, that's been my experience to those I've spoken to personally.

I find it interesting that they don't want to give children meds, they don't want to pay for them to have 1:1's in school, they don't want to pay DLA.... I'm beginning to suspect they don't want them to exist.

[coff33pot]

What they have created with that article is a vision of any child who wont say boo to a ghost or any child to kicked another in the shin twice in 6 months is being lined up for dx plus pills just like that...............

If it was that bloody easy then why is mumsnett so full of parents waiting for help hmmm? stupid writers breeding anti disability.

About time they actually looked into the real world themselves and give parents credit that medication is that LAST resort they would take for their children. If my son thumped someone twice in 6 months I would basically call him a scrapper and give him a lesson in self control not march him up to a psych! A parent places a child before a pannel of help because they consider that the child needs help after exhausting all normal routes and possibilities of normal day parenting. Stupid STUPID paper

[smugtandemfeederispissedoff]

Thank God my inlaws read the Times is all I can say. This would be all the ammo they need to give me a good kick in the teeth. Thank God my inlaws read the Times is all I can say. This would be all the ammo they need to give me a good kick in the teeth.

[Triggles]

Personally, I think they should be pulled up for irresponsible reporting. Stupid wretched people.

[willowthecat]

These articles are meant to make parents of NT children who don't need medication feel good about themselves by conjuring up a fantasy world where 'bad' parents get and give meds by the cartload whenever they ask for them. They don't have any contact points with reality. Maybe they could do a retrospective about the good old days when SN children were locked away and sedated with any number of un researched and dangerous drugs ?

[signandsmile]

mine and dh's parents read the daily mail....its no better! have to say we refer to it as the daily facist

[wasuup3000]

He was a bit thick wasn't he...blimey!!

[dolfrog]

smugtandemfeederispissedoff

your new name takes longer to copy and paste lol.

Like many journalists they have seen a crumb and create a completely different cake.
DSM-5 is part of a rolling review of mental illnesses and disabilities, and DSM 4 came out back in the 1990s.

The main issues have been from a USA perspective that many more children and the population as a whole have these types of issues as the awareness of the existance and the ability to diagnose them increases.

And the more recent genetic and neurological research has identified that many so existing overlapping conditions may be subtypes of one a single condition or spectrum. The example used ?oppositional defiant disorder" is now see more as being part of ADHD, which also has had an over reliance in some areas of the USA on medication Ritalin, the influence of the USA pharmacutical industry has been over zealous.

the most useful contribution in the article was
?Absolutely understand and help, not necessarily diagnose and treat.?

[cory]

Seeing that you can't get anti-depressants for a self-harming 14yos whose life is being disrupted by panic attacks I think there is little risk that medicine will be doled out like candy to shy 6yos.

[Triggles]

cory - no, it probably won't. But the article seems directly aimed to give the general public the impression that it will. And it is just another step towards alienating the disabled from the general public to make them seem less human and less worthy.

[smugtandemfeederispissedoff]

dolfrog you may call me smug

The most dangerous thing for me with this article is that it is in the Telegraph. If it had been in the Daily Mail I wouldn't have worried as we all know they write a load of inflammatory Tosh. The telegraph is viewed as a serious, well researched paper that you can rely upon to give you reasonably truthful articles. This one has given an awful impression to a number of friends and relatives of which they have directly related to our situation. Powerful article.dolfrog you may call me smug

The most dangerous thing for me with this article is that it is in the Telegraph. If it had been in the Daily Mail I wouldn't have worried as we all know they write a load of inflammatory Tosh. The telegraph is viewed as a serious, well researched paper that you can rely upon to give you reasonably truthful articles. This one has given an awful impression to a number of friends and relatives of which they have directly related to our situation. Powerful article.

[Triggles]

The frustrating thing is that even if they did a truthful article, for example, outlining what a normal family goes through with a child with SNs, people would just say "oh, well, they're obviously one of the few..." and would still believe 99 percent of rest would come under the other article still. Or they would think that, if the child in the truthful article had serious and obvious needs (which it would probably need to be in order for the general public to "get it"), then any child that had slightly less or different needs wouldn't be "serious enough."

Can't win really. Some days I think that people just don't get it unless that either are living it, or are very close to someone who is.

[wasuup3000]

NICE are going to do a consultation on social anxiety in this country covering all the areas that were raised in the pointless article.

Medication for depression is usually used with caution and in small amounts to treat some older teenagers with serious anxiety issues after everything else has been tried. Can't see that the DSM 5 will change the way UK does things.

Speech, language and communication are a real need as proved by professionals in this area over many years and he is a fool for saying otherwise.

[Voidka]

My MIL took a clipping of this and popped it through the door this morning. She now think she is justified in thinking that DS is 'normal'.

Having had a looked at the article the website it looks like someone has chosen the same user name as me - those views are not mine and its not me!

[wasuup3000]

Print this off and stick this through your MIL's.......letterbox?

www.thecommunicationtrust.org.uk/~/media/Communication%20Trust/Documents/Hello%20one%20pager%20-%20January.ashx

[unpa1dcar3r]

Dear Daily Telegraph
Your article could go some way in explaining- indeed justifying- the ignorance of so called professionals regarding conditions such as ADHD/SAD and so on.
For example apparently according to one of the 'experts' of our medical profession, a clinical psychologist no less, my son does not have ADHD, he just needs 'more attention from his parents'.
Now hear this; my son has Fragile X Syndrome, a genetic disorder and one of the co-morbid conditions of this is (amongst other things) ADHD which any Fragile X expert will tell you.
And he already get 90% of the attention. The other 3 get 10% between them (another of whom also has FXS)
Perhaps this is why we struggled for a year after much debate between ourselves, tears and worries, to actually get Ritalin for him; because he didn't 'have ADHD', just crap parents.
Your article makes it sound like we receive these diagosis' for our children easily. We don't. That is a misconception perpetrated by articles such as yours and reinforced by the general public.
Shame on you!

[borderslass]

Dear Telegraph,
If all these disorders are diagnosed so easily
please tell me why my 17 year old son is only just getting properly assessed for Autism despite his adult dr saying he is almost certainly Autistic and should of been diagnosed years ago.