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

Gosh and that first study was from 2016 before the steepest part of the curve. If 1 in 15 children were verbally delayed to the point of learning difficulty back then, I would be interested to see the rates now. It’s actually incredibly worrying - we could be looking at 10% of the adult population unable to work, and that’s on top of the ageing population issue. How we would sustain that while also providing support services I have no idea.

Over time, generationally, it is perhaps not surprising that there has been an increase in diagnosis and severity.

Anecdotally, I was an odd child and things got worse as I aged but eating disorders and severe anxiety were seen as discrete. I was diagnosed with an episode of psychosis which occurred out of the blue and has never been repeated when I burnt out and was hospitalised. I coped after a fashion and had DC. Maybe I was always autistic. I've never sought a diagnosis but am worried about my future ability to advocate for myself in healthcare settings as I also become selectively mute - I have experienced staff frustration and would like to avoid this in future.

Genetics played out - DS1 had worse anxiety, dyslexia, huge sensory issues, auditory processing issues and eventually diagnosed ASD. EHCP, tribunal, failed specialist provision, housebound for the last 7 years but he is settled into his routine now and I'm no longer on suicide watch 24 hours a day. I'm bloody glad he was never hospitalised.

DS2 was under SLCN from 2, eventually diagnosed ASD and ADHD. Never had the same anxiety issues. Home schooled throughout secondary but went to 6th form (maths, further maths and physics) and on course for uni. Already has an offer from local uni for engineering so can remain living at home.

So in their generation both diagnosed and one non-speaking as selectively mute and one non-verbal and speech delayed/difficult to understand requiring years of SALT. (Different to non-verbal and then acquiring 'normal' speech or remaining non-verbal.)

It is concerning that existing special schools are increasing provision and seeing an increase in severity. At the same time that mainstream schools are seeing an increase in severity due to DC not getting specialist places. I think absolute numbers have to be considered over time. Forget individual schools - how many places? If the number of places has increased then we need to consider why the number of eligible DC has increased in such a short time.

Most of the children went home at the holidays, however some went into care.
My father taught at an al boys school and they all had a head inspection before they were allowed in the building. Anyone with head lice had their head shaved!

My brother went to Lingfield boarding school in the 70s. It was a school for children with epilepsy I believe. He was very happy there. They taught him to read, write and do basic maths. He has autism and LDs. He left at 18 I think. He came home every weekend and during the holidays

I apologize you have a point ,did the children go home for holidays or were they basically forgotten about?

Sorry I did t really explain myself properly.
My parents in the 1960s both taught at (different) ESN schools. What was barbaric was the terminology and the fact that these were boarding schools.. What was good was the small class sizes.

@UsingChangeofName - that's quite interesting. I kind of assumed that might be the case, hence thinking of ways to infer it (like following the money, which should be available).

The obvious thing to do would be to try to figure out the right questions to ask, and submit a Freedom of Information request to force it out of them on aggregate.

OK, cards on the table: a big part of the reason I'm sceptical is that nobody in the thread (thus far) has actually shown trustworthy numbers detailing the scale of this "increase". It's just a hand-wavey "I've seen..." and that's it - it's all anecdotal.

I couldn't find anything useful on Google, either.

Does anybody have anything concrete?

I certainly have access to that sort of evidence for my LA, Of course, I would not be able to share it on here, but my point is, the data is there and would be very easy to draw down if the Government wanted to (and I presume in other LAs and I presume on Health systems too). The fact of the matter is it isn't in any Government or LA's interest to collate and share it as it will highlight how many dc are being let down.
Bit like the fact that waiting for 4 - 18 hours in an ambulance outside A&E to even get in to the hospital (despite the highly skilled paramedic having decided that's where you need to be) is an anecdote lots of people can share. The fact it hasn't been collated Nationally, peer reviewed, and published somewhere the public can access it, doesn't mean it isn't happening day after day, week after week at hospitals around the Country. We've gone from being able to expect an ambulance within 8 minutes in my HA, to 'you'll be lucky to get one within 4 hours'.
None of the dc I was teaching in Special school 20 - 25 years ago would even get an assessment for an EHCP in my authority at the moment, let alone specialist provision.

"At school entry, approximately two children in every class of 30 pupils will experience language disorder severe enough to hinder academic progress."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5082564/

"It is currently estimated that about 30% of children with autism spectrum disorder remain minimally verbal, even after receiving years of interventions and a range of educational opportunities. "

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3869868/

Ninety years ago we did not have antibiotics in the UK. Nobody is talking about that long ago. But about an increase in complex disabilities in the last 10 to 20 years.

There are so many reasons. I think part of it is that more people with SEN are meeting each other and having children when before they weren't. More children are surviving. Not just premature babies and "failure to thrive" babies but I'm sure my ds3 who has adhd wouldn't have made it in the days when children weren't supervised like they are now. Also (and this is of course a good thing) there isn't the shame in having SEN that there used to be. My in-laws are proud that dh made it to adulthood with no diagnosis but now parents are desperate to get a diagnosis for their child. I'm not sure about the increase in children with more severe learning disabilities. Maybe that's mainly due to babies surviving when they wouldn't have before.

Several factors in play here.
When I left teacher training college, (when dinosaurs roamed the earth.....) one of my friends (still in touch), a very talented teacher, landed what was in effect a deputy headship, unheard of so early in anyone's career! The reason was that she went to work in special education, in an institution that, until a recent change in legislation, had not been classified as a school.
Some very outdated terminology here, certainly hasn't been used for years, but below a certain ability level, children could be regarded as under the health system rather than the education system.
The staff who took care of them were nurses rather than teachers, and their remit was to care for their physical needs and keep them happy and occupied, which they did admirably; learning expectations barely came into the equation.
My friend's brief was to encourage a set-up which was more like a school, and to raise expectations of what should be expected of the children.
Another factor is the survival of vulnerable children who would, sadly, not have reached school age in earlier times. I read the autobiography of a lady, now in her nineties, who was born and raised in the East End of London. She recalled the birth of a younger brother who was "poorly"; her mother was told to treat him kindly, as he would not thrive, and he lived for about a year before this sad prediction came true. Nowadays, there would doubtless be medical interventions to keep him alive, but he would have lived with lifelong additional needs.
As for autism; I really not that old (!), but I can remember this being mentioned as a condition which was just beginning to be recognised when I was in my teens; certainly not a factor to be considered during my teacher training, It certainly existed, and in retrospect, I can think , made sense of some situations.
A saying penned by Victoria Wood and spoken by Thora Hird in one of her dramas:
"We didn't have special needs in my day, you sat at the back and did raffia work!"

Until fairly recently my area experienced a small baby boom. There were lots of bulge classes, schools increasing PAN etc. At the same time, SEN school places were reduced. No bulge classes or increase in PAN. So even if the prevelence of non verbal remained the same at, say, 1%. 1% of a bulge cohort is more children. They would head to mainstream as there were no other places. At a reception level the boom has ended now, but I think we are still getting more non verbal children in mainstream - but i am not sure.

As an aside there was a period when the 2 year health check was scrapped. This check was essential at picking up language difficulties and getting SaLT in at a key devdlopment stage. I dont know if they brought it back in.

I know of one special school who had to make changes to their sixth form common room as those attending the school now were far more profoundly disabled than than in the past. Partly it's because the more able are now being forced into main stream schools (not necessarily best for them) and that those who were more profoundly disabled are surviving longer due to advances in medical care.

They do still.have. special school, s my son goes to one ,obviously the. terminology has changed but it is far from.barbaric
What would be barbaric would be placing my son in a mainstream school.

Exactly. Its the same at my sons special school.,these are children who are. mainly non verbal or very little functional language. and have a diagnosis of severe or profound learning disabilities as well as often autism.

Genetic screening isn't available for many chromosomal abnormalities or. Rather it is but it isn't generally offered to pregnant women
My sons rare chromosome disorder was picked up.on a micro array blood test when he was four
And even if it had Been discovered prenatally there.is no.way of knowing how much this going to.impact someone until .they start developing.

I seem to recall reading an article a while back which suggested that the diagnosed population in the UK was higher than in other countries, and that difference was statistically significant. I don't remember the actual numbers, but it was on the order of double (think 3-4%, as opposed to 1-2%).

I have ADHD and ASD. The former diagnosed aged 3... But in the 80s you either had to be on high medication or muddle through. If you were academically able you just ended up as the odd (and often bullied) kid. We now have a wider range of support available and better diagnostics.

My little boy almost certainly has ADHD and ASD. At the moment this is not a real issue for him. But with the increasing focus on going back to very strict ways in secondary school, I worry about how he will cope in a few years time. He is bright, loves learning but would struggle with overly rigid 'pointless' rules and punishments. Being put in isolation would cause him problems, especially if it were a punishment for something minor like not taking his coat off before he got in the building, or wearing comfortable black trainers instead of black leather shoes -- these examples commonly coming up on threads about secondary schools.

Is the increase in numbers unique to the UK, or is it global? Confined to Europe, or western countries?

And even if it did it wouldn’t be particularly meaningful as these days children who might have been diagnosed with ‘severe learning difficulties’ 20 years ago are now also diagnosed with autism. So if you could evidence it the data would be skewed.

@Sometimesnot and @BillStickersIsInnocent - I don't really have the resources (or even the first idea of how to look!), but it strikes me that the only source of such numbers will be the money...which is to say, looking at a combination of disability benefits now (and possibly back then), and funding for long-term residential/mental hospital care back in the day.

If anybody has the enthusiasm to go looking, I'm guessing that'll be the only way it can be quantified.

The major problem, though, will be the gargantuan scale of misdiagnosis when you go back more than 10-15 years (which will only increase the further back you go). There would have to be a lot of guesswork and supposition involved, with an appropriate margin of error applied.

Ah sorry @ntmdino
I’m guessing that will be hard to study as an ASD diagnosis code in records won’t indicate non-verbal children.

I feel like I sound like I’m some kind of conspiracy theorist saying it but I agree there’s no clear data to back up what we’re all saying at the moment which is weird. I’ll admit it’s mainly anecdotal but when every single person who works in schools and healthcare is reporting the same we’ve got to start listening. Part of my work includes visiting schools and nurseries and part of my work includes supporting the ASD diagnostic service and every one of my colleagues is seeing this increase and talking about it. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that this is the year the nhs/ government start to notice this and start to act on it at a higher level.

But this doesn’t explain the huge number of preverbal kids starting school currently. We didn’t miss those kids.