Wtf is wrong with people when it comes to hidden disabilities?

That's an appalling attitude - people with learning disabilities can and do commit physical and sexual assaults. Carers just walking away from an assault is totally unacceptable. If they can't prevent unpredictable assaults on members of the public then no, they shouldn't be taking the individual out in public.

That scenario could easily escalate - to the injury of the individual with LD and possibly their carers too.

And how will that help if the victim can't identify the person who attacked them? Surely the carer should have to give them some sort of contact details or are victims just expected to put up and shut up?

Loving the empathy towards someone who has been strangled here.

"Carers should at least leave contact details so any negligence on their part in allowing the assault can be investigated."

When someone is potentially agitated you don't stand around having a conversation with others.

People are of course free to call the police about the incident.

@Itisbetter, if you read through the whole thread, there are several people, including the op, who minimise the impact of the assaul

So the person who has been assaulted should just do what?

Carers should at least leave contact details so any negligence on their part in allowing the assault can be investigated.

Edit: and / or social services contacted to see if a further assessment needs to be carried out

"They shouldn't have been out
They should have been formally investigated - what went wrong
Assault is assault no ifs or buts
Enabling assault is assault
If they couldn't look to the victim things had gone seriously wrong"

I am not sure who all the theys are in this post but if an incident happens the carers have a specific job to do. It would usually be getting the person they are supporting away from the situation calmly and quickly. If they engage with you, this delays that and the situation could escalate.

@Violinist64
There’s quite a lot to unpick here and I’m honestly not sure where to start. You are of course justifying and minimising the abuse of a disabled child. Many of us posting on this thread will have experienced of education in the 70s or even before. Still more will have experience of children with neurological differences. We will know what it is like to be overstretched and know there are days when we could have chosen better. To be very clear nobody is suggesting that specialist provision isn’t the only option for some children. However the fact your primary school teacher abused a disabled child in your presence and he did better (if he did) in another setting away from his abuser doesn’t really support all children with behavioural issues being treated that way. Frankly if she’d been tying you to a chair after various other options then I think you would have looked happier in a specialist provision, wouldn’t you?

I think we do everyone a disservice by always excusing bad behaviour because of disabilities.
I don’t think anyone has done this.
it is certainly not fair on all the other children, who become resentful at the preferential treatment the child is getting in their eyes
no one is experiencing preferential treatment. It’s actually really very rare that children don’t understand this situation. They tend to be much more accepting of disability than their parents who didn’t benefit from inclusive education and remain somewhat limited in their understanding.

They shouldn't have been out

They should have been formally investigated - what went wrong

Assault is assault no ifs or buts
Enabling assault is assault

If they couldn't look to the victim things had gone seriously wrong

"If they couldn't protect or apologise they should not have been there."

As I said what happened should be taken very seriously and those responsible for his care should review how he managed.

No sensible carer is going to stand around giving apologies in that situation.

If they couldn't protect or apologise they should not have been there

Well said OP. Reminds of the constant threads on here about why.doesn't everyone drive / work or in fact lead the perfect mumsnet life. And Gid forbid a woman is ever wring!

"His carers just casually wandered over and guided him away without any kind of apology or explanation."

The carers would have been trained to manage the situation in that way - getting the man away from it as calmly as possible. Of course it was distressing for you but standing around giving explanations could have made the situation worse. Hopefully what occured was reviewed by the carers/ their agency.

The sort of situations you’re describing don’t really sound like hidden disabilities OP?

This did not come at the top of my last post, but I have replied to it in the post.

It might have done, but the teacher was caught between a rock and a hard place. I would imagine that this boy was the subject of many discussions in the staff room. I am not justifying abuse in any way, shape or form. The fact that the event has stayed in my mind for over fifty years shows how rare it was. What l am saying is that everyone had tried their best under very difficult circumstances and nothing had worked. The boy was much happier in a specialist setting. Don't forget that the population as a whole was much more conforming in those days and corporal punishment was allowed. Primary school teachers could and did slap the legs of naughty children - the same with parents. We knew no different. I am not justifying the punishments of fifty years ago; simply trying to explain how schools and society were half a century ago. Some things are definitely better now, others not so much. On the whole, children were infinitely better behaved then because we had strict boundaries - vital if you are a teacher with no adult help and forty children in your class. Mostly, we were happy and appreciated how much more fortunate we were in many ways compared with our parents' and grandparents' generations. We are discussing hidden disabilities. It is definitely better now that we are so much more aware, but no disability should be excused if someone else is getting ĥurt. I have brought up an autistic child. Rules were even more important for him than our other children. NT children are as capable of behaving badly as any other child and it is certainly not always because of their disabilities. I think we do everyone a disservice by always excusing bad behaviour because of disabilities. It is not fair on the child themselves because their development is held back and it is certainly not fair on all the other children, who become resentful at the preferential treatment the child is getting in their eyes. In the long run, it could well put back the progress we have made on the understanding of disabilities over the last few decades.

I was assaulted at work( many years ago) by a young adult male. He grabbed me from behind , so obviously took me by surprise, and put his hand/arm around my neck and started to strangle me. It only last a few moments but really shook me up. His carers just casually wandered over and guided him away without any kind of apology or explanation. Of course it wasn’t the young man’s fault, but I deserved an apology from the carers, just as much as he deserved a right to his day out. It’s never ok or acceptable to assault anyone .

Hidden disability advocacy has often taken the stance that this group is the "most vulnerable" (lol, remind you of anything...) and the most overlooked and the most in need of special privileges and care. And crucially, it's a model of disability that encourages people to identify into it via identity based models and/or self diagnosis.

@verysmellyjelly
Really?
I don’t think that’s true to any great extent.
I haven’t seen that type of advocacy at least and with a family member with autism who sometimes does have a invisible disability I’d be on the look out for it. (Sometimes his disability is very obvious but it depends on the situation.)
Overlooked I can understand, but most vulnerable/most in need of special care or privileges, no, but I haven’t heard people claim that?

I wonder @Violinist64 if you would feel traumatised if as a small child you’d been separated from your normal environment, away from your parents and siblings, surrounded by a class full of children with an adult in charge who tied you to a chair if you would feel it had no impact on your subsequent life experience. You are describing child abuse that you witnessed and justifying it.

I think most people do understand that disabled people who hit out and hurt others are very often unaware of their actions and/or can’t control them.

Ultimately though, if someone is unable to be around others without hurting them, they need to be away from those situations, or managed extremely carefully.

The well-being of an unknown person in public isn’t my responsibility, but protecting my child is. If anyone threatens their safety, no reasonable parent is going to smile and accept that their injury or pain is excusable because the other person couldn’t control themselves.

That's an interesting perspective, and I'm sorry you feel that way, but from my lived experience this isn't the case. I advocate for all disabilities: non-invisible and invisible. That includes developmental delays, physical disabilities which aren't visible and physical disabilities that are visible. I wouldn't pit my invisible physical disability, which causes me enormous trauma, against a physical disability which was visible or a mental health condition. It's not a race to the bottom and we work better as a team, not against each other. The very last thing I want to do is cause divisions among the people I stand with.

@AshKeys That's exactly the kind of thing I'm referring to.

I do 100% believe there are hidden disabilities that can make a person very vulnerable. But so much of the discourse and the advocacy is dishonest and overblown. If anything it does a disservice to all disabled people, in my view.

You remind me of a post I saw where a autistic comic who was part-way through a successful tour of one-women shows to well filled houses, was explaining how she was just a disabled as someone with profound disabilities as sometimes she had to return to her house, (owned, not rented) which she lived in one her own, and crash for several days/week or two….

@Kendodd that is a shocking story.

I know the professionals and his parents don't know what to do but, Jesus. There must be somewhere where he can live that keeps him and others safe.

I feel so sorry for this boy's mother. I hope she gets some sort of respite.

Do they know what has caused his disability?

I should add, sometimes the specialism of the setting is not to teach life skills but to provide an environment where children with specific disabilities can take a wide range of GCSEs and A levels. Children for whom the mainstream schools simply cannot provide a suitable environment.