Reason my DS has learning difficulties

What the heck? I hope this Ed psych was struck off. I do not believe a person could get through training with these sorts of ideas (or indeed, get on to training).

My sons paediatrician , sent him for a micro array blood test which picked it up ,they can detect micro deletions/duplication, s etc
My self and My dh,were also tested after ds,was picked up.and neither of us have it so it couldn't have Been inherited so its de novo,in his case

Well this thread has become a bit of a mess.

The reason I mentioned pseudoscience is that ND is very, VERY trendy on social media right now. Which does not mean I don't think it exists. My life has been improved immeasurably with my own diagnosis and treatment of ADHD. The problem is that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of greedy fingers hoping to get their hands on your money, taking advantage of people's hope that "just this next one thing" will make things better. I get bombarded with them, I must see 20+ ads a day for different supplements, exercise programs, planners, workshops, apps, meditation, approaches, explanations, blah blah blah. The vast vast majority of it, especially if it is aggressively marketed, is a pure cash grab.

I don't know enough about retained reflexes to be perfectly honest to make a judgement. I just have seen some criticism/scepticism about them. I would simply recommend to everyone whatever condition you're dealing with whatever treatment or suggestion or practice you want to look into, seek out experts in the field and be sceptical of everything. It might be that there is something in that - but the other thing I see recently is people taking some topic which actually does have some good evidence or theory behind it and doing it badly and calling it the same thing. For example, nervous system regulation. Incredibly trendy right now. Huge buzzword - also happens to be probably the most valuable thing I have learnt about over the last year, both for myself and my child (suspected ND, not sure which flavour). But now I am starting to see it pop up as a buzzword everywhere in ways where it is little more than a sticking plaster.

If you can try something for little to no cost to you then try it - why not. Just be careful of placebo effect. For example if you can't access ADHD medication then there's no harm in trying things like diet and supplements, but if you do have access to it then it makes no sense to try those things first because medication has such a stronger record of being effective for the majority of people. Don't put off an effective treatment for something which might have a slight beneficial effect. (And BTW, exercise is the second most effective treatment after medication for ADHD, I'm not putting it down.)

Fully agree with this post

my son has a similar profile to yours- we have no idea why. He’s never had genetic testing to be fair but this isn’t something I have felt the need to do. One of his main difficulties is with language, which has a genetic element but there isnt a family history so he would have the ‘denovo’ element.
There is no family history on either side anfd other children have no difficulties. Sometimes something just goes a bit awry in utero and there is no way of pinpointing it imo

your post is just, well not at all correct.

i am what you would term HFA/aspergers, i was not diagnosed till mid teens.

I stim constantly, i have never managed to make or keep friends. I have two friendly acquaintances from school, and friendly acquaintances at my volunteering job, but I wouldn’t say they were actual friends. I wish they were my friends, im not sure.

i can only speak to people outside my immediate family, if I have a set thing to say. Like at my volunteering job, i do the till, but if someone tries to make conservation I freeze up. If anything doesn’t go as expected I need someone else to help.

i have a uni degree.

i can’t work, its too much pressure and i just can’t cope. The volunteering works as it’s no pressure, i don’t have to be there.

i did not thrive independently as an adult. I am late 20s and its just not possible.

in many ways i am exactly the same as a child, from like 2 years old through adult age.

there is no one end or the other, there are many that go from each end to the other. It’s not an either or.

also many non speaking autistic children, grow up, become speaking (on different levels depending on the child), work or go to uni or volunteering or different things. Just because a child is autistic non speaking at say 3, or even 10, doesn’t mean they will stay that way forever.

obviously there is no problem if the child never speaks, or doesn’t get to a different level. That’s just how they are. But just because they seem that way as a child doesn’t been they are like that forever. It is different for every single autistic person.

There are multiple reasons why autism appears to be dramatically increasing. Firstly, having a child with a disability was considered shameful until fairly recently. My dh was diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome as an adult after his parents tried to avoid getting him diagnosed. Secondly more ND people are meeting other ND people and having ND children.

OP I have a 10 year old with MLD but not autism. We have a few theories as to why but no definite cause.

Maybe it's genetic? Are you and his dad older parents? Older parents are more likely to have dc with Sen.

That's MN for you

Yes I understand this but it seems currently that very other family has a child ( often more than one )being assessed or diagnosed, unless it's just on MN ?

My eldest is severely autistic with severe learning disabilities. I never think it’s anything I did.

We have an autistic DS1 and a second DS2 who is currently undergoing an autism assessment (likely also autistic).

Our DS1 was in a class with a non-speaking autistic little boy who also had quite a significant learning difficulty.

From what we understand, autistic behaviours can be associated with a ‘de novo mutation’ (i.e. a new random genetic mutation), which is also often associated with lots of other issues, such as major health problems and serious learning difficulties. If that happens, it’s really just bad luck.

You can also be autistic because lots of your family have autistic traits and you inherit them. Our DS1 and DS2 are in that position. There’s a lot of technical jobs/visual thinking/dyslexia/delayed speech/verbally-inarticulate smart people on both sides of our family. DS1 is pretty-much an engineering savant. DS2 is turning out similar. They have on-paper speech and language difficulties, but it’s compensated by their visual intelligence and, as such, they come across as weird rather than disabled.

DrRuthGalloway thanks that’s really interesting, we sometimes get referrals for young adults who don’t meet our criteria (health team) but really would fit but we can’t accept. Also explain a lot of the language used.
agree standardised terms would be a big help.

I think this is a matter of whether you work in health or education.

I am an ed psych and we talk about learning difficulties, because we are describing not diagnosing. We talk about global learning difficulties, which are indeed linked to IQ - a controversial subject in itself, but let's call it "likelihood of doing well in an education system". We also talk about specific learning difficulties which would be things like dyslexia, working memory problems, slow processing speed, but where the person's fluid, verbal and spatial reasoning are ok, or more ok. So their ability to understand concepts is ok, but their ability to demonstrate that understanding subsequently is likely to be impacted.

I would not refer to autism or ADHD in itself as a 'learning difficulty" .
This obviously from our initial training.

I mean it would be helpful if there were standardisation but it isn't so at present.

Please see extract from the English law on sen in education, the "code of practice", showing terminology used as I have described.

I have ADHD. It’s not a learning disability.
People with ND can’t have problems with learning and describe it as a learning difficulty. Which surely literally says it’s something that makes learning difficult for those who have it?
it’s still not a learning disability as defined here tho.

@MereDintofPandiculation yes I am distinguishing the two and list autism adhd and dyslexia as examples of learning difficulty rather than disability in my original reply. They can be classed as a disability but not a learning disability as defined by the DoH in the UK, but of course can co exist with LD as well.