More SEN, better diagnosis, lack of funding or a combination?

I don't know if it means anything, but there is a correlation between pre-eclampsia and autism - pre-eclampsia rates are apparently increasing, particularly in developed countries and there was a greater increase during Covid.

I've not looked deeply into it, but presumably some is down to women being pregnant at an older age, and there is some mixed evidence of a correlation between working full time while pregnant - I suspect work stress contributed to me developing pre-eclampsia, as my workload increased dramatically in the last three months or so as on top of the usual work I was also putting a lot of work into a complete rebrand and name change of the organisation.

Starting to think there's a gap in the market for tinfoil maternity dungarees.

Your anecdotal evidence doesn't cut it, I'm afraid.

When you were at junior school in the late 80s, the majority of SEN children were kept out of mainstream education, so you wouldn't have encountered them in the first place.

A combination of a little bit of bette diagnosis and ton of label seeking. Labels command an identity, identity commands attention, attention commands victimhood.

I think it's multifactorial:

1. Increase in prevalence related to rising average age of parents at conception, and possibly also increased survival of moderate and extreme prematurity

2. Possibly a role for unprecedented environmental pollutants eg microplastics on the developing brain in utero/infancy, but far from proven and could be a complete red herring. Certainly if there is any environmental effect the evidence would suggest it is moderated heavily by genetic predisposition

3. An increase in presenting symptoms/concerns because of the ways in which the educational and social context is more challenging for all children, and perhaps particularly those with SEN

4. An increase in awareness and diagnosis is probably the largest part of it

5. Increased visibility due to decreased institutionalisation and increased mainstreaming of all children

6. Decreased support for / increased pressures on both schools and families

Personally I think we are long overdue massive societal and particularly educational reform to enable those with SEN to become as functional and content adults as possible. We do want an integrated society but I can't help but feel mainstreaming has had the unintended consequence of trying to force neurodiverse children with very spiky profiles to become generalists in school environments which are inherently toxic for them. I think of my brother's life story:

• Early diagnosis of what was then called "Asperger's" based on delayed speech and typical behaviours of autism
• Managed state primary and just about managed with lots of SEN support (feel sadly that the support he received is far less available to children with SEN now)
• Fell to bits in secondary, with severe bullying, suicidal
• Left secondary to go to local authority funded specialist school for autism (absolutely unheard of / impossible now for a relatively "high functioning" autistic child but absolutely what my brother needed to literally stay alive I think)
• Much much advocacy to get access to GCSEs, doing just his subject interests. Despite limited number of GSCEs, special dispensation to access A levels and later university (is this possible for autistic young people now??)
• Entered skilled employment but then left after a few years - employer unable/unwilling to make adaptations for autism.
• Ongoing /lifelong impact of bullying and negative messages on self esteem. Extreme social anxiety and low ability to function.
• Remains one of the most extremely intelligent and capable people I know, within his narrow fields of interest/specialism. But will always need support (even if fairly light touch) with getting along in life. Effectively unable to work, within the society we live in.

My brother deserves to be part of society but the effects of mainstreaming nearly destroyed him and will never leave him. And he faces potentially an impoverished future having been able to contribute minimally despite his potential.

I just do think what a waste. In the right kind of education system and broader society, that could support autistic people like my brother to reach their extremely high potential in narrow areas of brilliance, but support / protect them in the many significant areas of difficulty, how much could be gained?

I genuinely believe that the Einsteins of this world are largely autistic. We need amazing, innovative, different minds now more than at any other point in history. (And am aware that's not all autistic people of course but some like my brother do fit this extreme spiky profile, but at the same time are significantly disabled by autism). But how far would Einstein have gotten in mainstream UK education in 2025?

Personally I think mainstreaming is failing many neurodiverse children and we do need specialist schools for an entire spectrum of needs that support them academically but without forcing them into being generalists (current mainstream school model is to make everyone a generalist). But perhaps if mainstream were different - more flexible, less stressful?

Then we need the flexibility in higher education and employment that says no-one cares you don't have a English language GSCE, or if you can't look someone in the eye, or ever attend an interview, or you need to live with your mum, or you actually are only awake on an insane irregular schedule - you can study and work as a super specialist in a narrow area of interest. Funding STEM would probably help (though aware it's not STEM for all with autism it does seem to be a fair generalisation for many!)

Anyway just my ramblings.

https://www.naturalscience.org/news/2023/01/proven-again-microwave-radiation-has-negative-biological-effects-on-human-beings/

Lots of reasons, more extreme preemies survive but have health issues, more dc survive illness. Better recognition of problems not just due to being naughty but do think something else is amiss, there are definitely far more children with “issues”. I’ve read that older parents (yes dads as well) could be contributing as statistically older parents are more likely to have a neurodivergent child.

The better diagnosis argument just doesn't cut it I'm afraid.
When I was at junior school in the late 80s, in a class of 35 children, there were 4 kids who couldn't keep up with the normal curriculum and either had to do something else, or have special help. I can remember their names because they were the only ones who were different. You knew who the kids were that were wired up a bit differently.
Less than twenty years later, when some of my friends became teachers, they were reporting that it was now half the class who couldn't do the work or needed special help and/or had behavioural problems.
Now it's more, and more of them seem to be profoundly autistic. And just generally, in the population, I can think of multiple people I know whose children show distinct signs of ASD. Again, I hardly knew any growing up. This is not better diagnosis. It is a large increase that is noticeable not just to teachers and doctors but easily noticeable to anyone who was alive 35 years ago.
The only thing I can think of that explains it is mobile devices and their effect on delicate developing brains of foetuses and young children. Possibly a combination of device radiation and how it affects the way substances in our environment behave inside our bodies. If your brain had already developed largely before this, your liklihood of problems was quite low. If after, much increased. There is obviously far too much money in mobile technology for this ever to be properly investigated or reported.

The starting speaking in sentences thing is usually gestalt language processors. It’s usually mainly learnt sentences at first (eg copied from others or from tv/ YouTube) but quickly become used in context.

it’s not quite as simple as they suddenly catch up though as typically understanding lags behind expressive language for these kids and therefore, despite others thinking they can talk well now now, they struggle to answer questions and access verbal learning. Often way into primary they will be good at rite learnt facts but really struggle with things such as generating stories.

My relative is maybe gifted (nearly 50) and spoke on late side straight to sentences.
Sleep issues etc.

Makes me wonder on impact of siblings on speech. Obviously kids have fewer in last 2 generations. (Above sibling gap almost 4years)

Speech
Fewer Siblings
Sibs play less due to below
Sibs start school at 4y and free hours at 3.
Nursery where grouped by age so some non verbal in together
Tv/ipads
Families further apart
Some parents putting kids to bed at say 6pm before other parent is home and so less background talking
Bilingual families

So during covid less interaction for some kids (extra for others)

But even now to younger sibs if the older ones got more addicted to tech in covid and play less together.

My eldest missed about 90% of one year during covid years. So got 6/7 or so of primary school. I would say friendships were declining anyway but declined further. Half her year had older sibs. And half went in during lockdown 2.

Hence the vagueness of "often" - which, in my mind, is less than "usually" and a bit more than "sometimes" ;)

There's almost no specific data out there on this, but the number of times I've heard of children spontaneously speaking vs never speaking are of the same order of magnitude. Totally anecdotal, but then...most of this discussion is, because of the lack of quantitative study.

That is interesting. My friends son was totally non verbal and just started talking at 6 years old. She said it was nit uncommon, although I had never heard of this happening.

That's not my experience my 13 year old is non verbal.as are most of the children in his school or very minimally l verbal.,
Some children will.of course have a speech delay and spontaneously. Star speaking
But many won't .

The really interesting part is that, despite what many parents of autistic kids will tell you, non-speaking autistic kids will often (but not always, obviously) suddenly start talking for no apparent reason - often in complete sentences like they've been talking for years, and as though they just decided that it's time. ABA organisations seem to liken this to some sort of victory, when it's actually entirely normal (if not for standard-issue humans) in those cases where "delay" means "delayed", not "stunted" or "limited" (sorry, couldn't think of a better word).

That could account for at least some of the disparity you're referring to.

It's one of the reasons that I don't like "non-speaking" (or "non-verbal", which isn't the same thing) being equated to "profound", given that the latter implies a permanent state.

The language around this could all be a lot more precise, of course.

In my infant school, the 'profound' children arrive with a diagnosis of global development delay

Yes one off first cousin marriages probably wouldn't be problematic but generation after generation of first cousin marriage any genetic disorders will be passed on
Didn't Queen Victoria's Children /Grandchildren have a pre disposition to hemophilia?

First cousin marriages used to be common in rural areas in Britain, quite a few in my family and DPs before the 1950s. The population pool was small.

First cousin marriage is also a factor

Ah that’s interesting. So profound autism has increased slightly but not dramatically, whereas the rates of non-profound autism have sharply increased. I assume the latter would be better diagnosis - because these were children that would have flown under the radar years ago. As for profound autism, that says 4.6 per 1000 children fall into this category. So something like 0.5% of children. Which isn’t what is reflected in classrooms right now, particularly not reception classes. So, I suppose it’s either a case of the vast majority of more profoundly presenting children (non verbal) will catch up with support and fall into the non-profound group by 8 years old. Or there has been a very very sudden increase in the profound group (as in the last couple of years)?

Yep - there are clients I work with whom are now quite old in age - and you look at the diagnostic terminology used to describe them when they were younger and it's almost painful to see how things were described (I work with adults with Learning/Intellectual Disabilities). Language changes - and unfortunately whatever terminology is currently "acceptable" will invariably be picked up on by arseholes and turned into the next generation of "unacceptable" language to use ("autistic" and "aspie" seem to be becoming used like this by certain knobhead sections of the internet at the moment).

People can be shites.

Aaah it's time for the faux wide-eyed "I was just asking the question" disability bash thread of the week again is it?

In the 1980s they'd have had my fate:
Constantly being berated in school for "misbehaviour" I had absolutely no idea what the hell I'd done.
I had my playtimes taken away from me for an entire year because I struggled socially - all I needed in reality was someone to keep a bit of an eye out for me and talk me through how to manage the situations I'd buggered up a bit better.
Head constantly being kicked in by local youths because I was "odd" - I remember someone shoving worms down my neck on the school yard, cigarette butts forced into my mouth on a bus once, being dragged randomly into a classroom by the older kids to "you've got to get a look at this girl - she's so weird"... incidents like that were most of my childhood.
I had a year of being shoved around a corner in one classroom and hidden away behind a filing cabinet.
I was academically very bright (I'm apparently Mensa level IQ from various ed psychs who've assessed me over the years) but had the social skills of a particularly socially inept house brick - also massive difficulties with sensory processing and overload which led to me struggling throughout adult life.

I'm dyslexic, I'm autistic and quite possibly dyspraxia as well.

My youngest has similar diagnoses - whereas by the age of 10 I was getting scared to leave the house for the assaults, bullied to shit at school and it was the year of being parked behind the filing cabinet... she's happy, she's confident and she knows how her brain works so she can roll with it - rather than just being told she's crap at being a person like I was.

While neither of us claimed any adaptations or adjustments or concessions (she might get to do her SATs in a quieter room to help her focus - which is really small fry in the world of it all) and neither of us have had a penny from the state to fund anything linked with SEN... one of us has had the power of her diagnosis from a younger age to be able to support her to understand her way of functioning and accept it... one of us has had to learn, as an old dog, to forgive that younger self who she assumed was always just fucking it up.

I know which society I'd rather have so bog off OP.

‘Improved diagnosis’ doesn’t explain the massive increase healthcare staff and early years education staff are seeing in preverbal kids. It’s not as simple as we’re just picking up kids we would have missed previously. It’s that plus an increase at the more severe end as well.

This also saying 1in 38 in US. Due to improving diagnosis.

https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/u-s-study-charts-changing-prevalence-of-profound-and-non-profound-autism/

US study but covers sites in the UK, published in The Lancet

My parents in the 1960s both taught at (different) ESN schools. What was barbaric was the terminology

But you are looking at that language with 21st century eyes.
Language evolves.
The terminology wasn't 'barbaric' in the 1960s any more than the words we use today are now, although they will presumably seem so in 60 years time.