To be so angry that people like this are in charge of SEND budgets

"Yes it is absolutely true that numbers are rising due to increased awareness, more knowledge of masking in girls etc."

My DD was diagnosed 12 years ago aged 3. Finding resources and support groups was nigh on impossible. Thankfully that has changed over the last few years.

I'm not sure we can blame Covid for everything
I went to a parent carer information evening in December 2019 so just a few months before Covid hit and the People hosting the event said that the rise in children needing special school places had risen dramatically in my LEA and I know that all of the special.schools in my LEA( we have two primary, and two secondary )have doubled in capacity over the past few they were expanding, the buildings etc before Covid
So unless my LEA is particularly unique there is something else going on.

I try to keep factual generally, but this is wild speculation. I had swine flu during my pregnancy and was very ill (in hospital) and it triggered two other conditions that impact on the baby. I was induced 5 weeks early as my son was at high risk of being stillborn. He has autism and my other child doesnt.

I would not be surprised to find that there were surges of sen after surges of viruses. I looked for ages for a paper showing a link but couldnt find one other than a few papers linking extreme maternal stress and high fevers at a key point in pregnancy raising the risk of autism slightly. A few saying women hospitalised by viruses having a bigger chance of a child with autism. But i dont understand medical research well and assume its not a clear link or people would be talking about it more.

Oddly I would say the parents I know of autistic children (mostly more overt presentations) are markedly not overweight though I appreciate that’s less than 100 people so hardly scientific.

Thanks for that post it’s very interesting. So there are greater needs in higher numbers. You do have to wonder about screen use not just the children themselves but also maybe the parents. Screens now allow people to essentially not have to do anything else. They can talk to friends without having to meet up, which would have given children some stimulation. I know someone who does still work in early intervention (we are lucky that we have a charity covering in in my town) and she is horrified at how many fathers (yes it is always the fathers) spend literally the whole day gaming. The whole day and often the whole night too. This is a lost generation now having children.

I absolutely agree with this. Secondary school is a completely different ball game.

The number of children coping OK in Primary School but falling apart shortly after starting Secondary School is astonishing.

I believe it's the Secondary School environment that needs to be looked at closely and changed. Detentions for minor misdemeanours like a missing pencil, isolations, long detentions (3 hours at a school I know), children needing to walk in silence, high academic expectations for all, even those that aren't academically able so they feel like they are a constant failure. Schools are overcrowded and the facilities were often built with a much lower pupil number in mind.

It's creating a highly stressful environment which is impossible for a lot of neuro diverse children to manage on a prolonged basis. The number of ASD girls being diagnosed or awaiting diagnosis in their early teens is very high. If the Secondary School environment was different then perhaps these children would cope much better.

@AliceinSlumberland
Unfortunately research into the factors which may contribute to asd was shelved as many in the autistic community felt it was ableist. do you mean the genome project?

I’ve been reading through this thread wondering when someone will mention screens & I totally agree. This is the massive massive change I think but it can’t be discussed easily as adults are addicted to their screens, it makes an easy life giving it to a child, and there’s big money being made.

Medical research has and is being undertaken on obesity and a link to autism. If you consider about 1% of the UK population was obese in 1960 compared to 25% now and the population as a whole is 65% overweight it’s a very possible additional cause as is research linking older Fathers being more likely to have children with autism.

Research like this take years and needs multiple projects with published outcomes.

I'll tell you where my son would have been in the 70s and that's probably borstal on a fast track to prison aged 16.

I mean I said that my kids are massively struggling and the whole system is failing them and many others, but you focus on me being too vague about chemicals. Plenty of chemicals can cause harm, it's why we banned lead in petrol. I didn't really fancy listing them all out though as I was focusing on the issue the OP raised.

This is exactly why it’s difficult to have this discussion. There will be children who have nurturing loving homes who most definitely have SEN. They are born that way. That’s why I stressed not all children. There are children who don’t have nurturing loving homes who are subject to what the state would deem low level neglect (as in not enough to have ss intervention) and the results of this essentially display in the way that adhd/ somtimes asd would. The end result is the same, the cause isn’t. They are just as likely to end up with an EHCP. In fact probably more likely than the many high functioning children of MN that mask well in school but fall apart at home. In previous times there was a lot more early intervention available. I truly believe it mitigated many of these factors and the end result is less severe SE needs in mainstream school later down the line.

I’m an educational psychologist and I’m involved in the EHCP progress. Yes it is absolutely true that numbers are rising due to increased awareness, more knowledge of masking in girls etc.

However, in addition to that, the number of children with very very complex needs, who are non-verbal, unable to interact at 3/4 years old, has SKYROCKETED. This isn’t about increased awareness, these children were always known about as their needs are so great. There is so so so many more of them than every before and there absolutely must be some sort of underlying cause. Unfortunately research into the factors which may contribute to asd was shelved as many in the autistic community felt it was ableist.

I also agree with the pp who said that some of the SEN I see does relate to poor parenting and just a complete lack of awareness about child development. Children who at four spend 8-10 hours on a screen but don’t know how to turn the page of a book, for example. I think we will look back one day and be horrified at the impact early excessive screen use has on children’s brains, but it’s seen as outrageous to even suggest this.

Part of the problem is that while people pay lip service to diagnosis they still to some extent don’t really believe that children can be born with invisible disability or have much understanding or imagination about how that might impact their lives. It’s exhausting constantly explaining and there is an assumption of crap parenting rather than innate deficit. It is in my experience true that people do worry about “traits” that appear to fit descriptions of disability but are actually not as severe as they think. I don’t believe those anxious parents get diagnosis for their children (or themselves) easily or often though through the nhs or ehcps from the LA.

My sister is of this view. Her friend has 5 kids and all of them have a SEN diagnosis. Her take is how can ALL the kids have it and it has to be down to poor parenting and when a child is “being a brat” that the parents scream autism so they have an excuse for their behaviour. She is a teacher and says she is sick of badly behaved kids being labelled as SEN and being given a pass to act out because of Poor boundaries at home. She said her job is becoming unmanageable and every second kid is on a waiting list for assessment and the majority of them have nothing wrong with them at all but the parents insist they have to take away from their child being feral due to their own parenting. Most of the other teachers agree with her apparently…..
The funny thing is she has one child and he has SEN. Go figure.

Yy re EHCPs being difficult to get. We didn’t have to appeal or anything however even with 3 degrees between us and masses of Sen experience going through the EHCP process was one of the hardest things we’ve had to do on this journey. I’m in awe of others navigating it without all the above.

In terms of suggestions being helpful though it would be much better to say something like 'certain chemicals may be somehow involved', which is actually still meaningful and doesn't suggest lack of any basic scientific understanding.

PS I should have also added that I am not sure aspirin is really a good idea in pregnancy either, unless for specific directed reasons.

The poster made it very clear they didn’t mean all of the kids, just some of them.

I have heard anecdotally from various people that in my area, the numbers of children with SEN have hugely increased. I’m not criticising or disbelieving, by the way, my own child is Autistic.

As for the numbers of children with EHCPs, EHCPs are very difficult to get.

I absolutely don’t agree.

SEN isn’t due to neglect and trauma, how bloody insulting. SEN has such a stigma which this thread illustrates.

My child has an EHCP and has 2 degree educated parents who did everything we could have done ( and then some)as regards nurturing, parenting and educating. I have an early years degree and taught for several years.

This is it, it shouldn’t be in the least surprising that they’re unable to fulfil these children’s needs yet they seem to be the whipping boy.

Of course it’s over simplification as we are having a general discussion, and he/she was putting it forward as an idea, not writing a paper. My gut feeling is there’s no one reason, but instead a few things which are then exacerbated by a reliance on screens and sensory items which prevent babies and small children from interacting properly with the world and their caregivers. Plus the reduction of early years services to pick them up.

Well going on figures announced by my LA, as I said upthread, since covid EHCP have tripled. Obviously lots of other costs too. Care costs etc. The LA is on the verge of bankruptcy and now making the most awful, ridiculous cuts. I just don’t know what the solution is other than more money ! It’s no wonder that councils can’t keep up with that increase in need.

Of course there are different classes of chemicals, but the pp referred simply to 'chemicals' in things, which is over-simplification. I do think it would be interesting to further look at maternal (and even paternal) consumption of certain compounds, in either higher than normal or lower than normal quantities, just in case there are some links we are missing. Of course not to ascribe 'blame' but to give advice going forward. Regarding thalidomide, that's a very interesting topic - it was seen as a wonder drug initially, but clearly soon became evidently not a wonder at all. Thalidomide is still used today in some circumstances, and research also showed the chemical to be very interesting in that it exists molecularly in two mirror forms (as chemicals can do) - both forms being responsible for different effects. (Link if anyone interested; https://www.acs.org/molecule-of-the-week/archive/t/thalidomide.html#:~:text=The%20thalidomide%20disaster%20caused%20many,S)%2Disomer%20is%20teratogenic.)