To think perhaps my son isn’t autistic but instead modern society is too challenging for him to cope with.

It's set up for people who don't have executive dysfunction, auditory processing difficulties or sensory processing disorders to start with. We know the world doesn't accommodate physical difference, and you think it magically accommodates neurodevelopmental differences? It's not 'oh none of us likes loud noises' or 'many people communicate differently' as isolated traits - it's how you function in the world with a neurodevelopmental difference.

So there isn’t an ‘autistic brain’ as such just variances from person to person? Wouldn’t that apply to everyone?

Then either the statisticians should resign in disgrace or I am an exceptional fluke in that I know 7 children with autism diagnoses, out of about 50 in total (DD class at school plus relatives and a few families we know socially). 1 more is pending diagnosis.

I absolutely refuse to believe it is 1% given my own experience and the experiences of everyone I know and read about online. Every other poster on here has a child with autism, ADHD or both, and it’s reached the point I am genuinely surprised to ever open a thread and not see it mentioned. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way.

Only 1% of children have an autism diagnosis in this country. The wait lists for diagnosis are dreadful and again there has been and still is huge ignorance in how it presents in girls.

Second how do you know the exact diagnosis details of children in your DD’s class? If you do know intimate details as regards diagnoses there is an issue with privacy and data security at your DD’s school.

Thirdly the data from your DD’s class doesn’t speak for the whole county as illustrated by the actual figures.

What kind of person is it set up for? Does anyone here feel the world is set up for them?

I’m sorry but your ignorance on this is outstanding. I have lived my life for the majority of time with late diagnosed ADHD and possibly autism,

I was academically high achieving. Yet the difficulty of living with these things has led me to underachieve at work, fail in many of life’s tasks and been suicidal at times

With an ADHD diagnosis so much makes sense. It’s enabled me to successfully navigate and cope with life..

Im gobsmacked people are so poorly educated that they still think ADHD/ND is. Somehow made up. It’s so fucking insulting

It's possible for both things to be true. I do feel that modern life makes things harder for everyone and maybe causes earlier burnout for ND people. We used to have better odds of making it to adulthood and THEN have a burnout!

I don’t believe they exist in the prevalence that people think they do now.

I think as OP says, people are overwhelmed by modern life and technology and this is manifesting as ‘ADHD’.

I think there has always been classic Asperger types (boy at school with a briefcase springs to mind) plus autism with learning difficulties. But I don’t really believe that 1/4 of children are autistic (current stat in DD class at school). I just don’t, sorry.

If society was set up to accommodate difference it wouldn't be as much of an issue for many people but the most severe presentations. As it is, it's called a spectrum for a reason and people need the diagnosis to access support to help them manage the condition in a society that doesn't adequately accommodate. I always thought my daughter had seemed to escape the family cluster of neurodivergence but it's becoming evident she probably hasn't, in many ways she's a carbon copy of my ADHD sister 25 years ago. So now I'm watching and waiting, and trying to weigh up whether it's worth putting her on a waiting list and putting her through a diagnosis process, or trying to support her and advocate for her until such times as we have a clearer picture. Her school is supportive for the more 'minor' things we've identified to support her learning but we're well aware of the issues in schools. My number one concern is that she gets any and all support she might need to manage the things she finds more difficult because the world is set up for a kind of person that she is not (and neither am I frankly).

So maybe instead of continually resisting the idea of neurodevelopmental difference, we could accept that it IS a thing and try to be a supportive society.

So why aren’t we simply using brain scans to diagnose it?

So you think ADHD and autism don’t exist- okaaaay.🙄

And as for nebulous. Do educate yourself.

It hasn’t come out of nowhere, both have been around for over a hundred years and medication with Ritalin started in the 60s .

I mean is it ‘ignorance’ or is it the fact this fairly nebulous condition seems to have come out of nowhere in the last 5 years alone and frankly all the ‘research’ is quite tenuous and the symptom net is ever widening? Nothing I’ve seen convinces me people have ‘different brains’, whether that’s for gender related issues or this. We seem to be convincing people at the drop of a hat that they are ‘differently wired’ when we have zero evidence of this.

Screens definitely cause behavioural issues so maybe there's an argument that they exacerbate what we see as bad behaviour. Screens do NOT cause neurodevelopmental conditions that people are born with. So it's what's we 'know' as bad behaviour, and the assumptions that go along with that and how we perceived people who are neurodivergent with screens v people who are not neurodivergent with screens - not what we 'know' about ADHD.

No they all didn’t stand out like a sore thumb. There was huge ignorance as regards how it presents in women and girls who went completely under the radar. We know better now but still it is under diagnosed and under treated.

ADHD is under diagnosed and under treated in this country.

As I said, not ALL cases. But ADHD is being diagnosed in an ever increasing number of children and younger people and I do believe it’s a huge factor in this.
I think that there’s probably different ‘types’ of ADHD and that the one we are seeing such an increase in is due to screen usage.

There’s absolutely no way that all ADHD is exactly the same. At the end of the day, it’s just a name given by doctors to describe a pattern of behavioural traits. The causes of those traits are bound to vary hugely. At school in the 80’s, the ADHD kids (undiagnosed in those days) stuck out like a sore thumb when you look back, but there was usually 1-2 in a whole year group. They had very obvious issues.

I really do think a new branch of ADHD will be recognised in years to come and it will specifically be related to brain changes due to screen usage. This will become an ever-increasing problem as screens continue to dominate lives.

Yes it does. You can have a predisposition to something that then needs a trigger to manifest.

I don't see why you seem so disbelieving. We know for example that older mothers are more likely to have children with autism. Why is it such a leap to think other aspects of pregnancy (diet, stress...) play a role?

It's not just wild speculation either. There have been studies done. Google it and you'll find lots of research links.

I am not autistic and went to school in the 70s and 80s. There was a staggering intolerance of difference, from race to sexuality, and prejudice was everywhere. I don’t think it would be much fun for a child with ASD or adhd there at all.

I agree to some extent but I think people with adhd fill their brains with other things regardless and did before screens. I’m late 50s andc late diagnosed with autism and ADHD. All my children have both via the NHS and severe mental heath difficulties.

We didn’t even have a tv for most of my time growing up and I was born in the 60s. I wasn’t on screens as I child but my busy brain and day dreaming was out of control. I was hyper focused on my autism special interests too. I was far more disorganised than now. I was dreadful at uni. I’ve learnt techniques and went on an nhs adhd treatment course that has helped somewhat. I’m too scared to have the meds they suggested.

I am trying really hard not to reach for my phone first thing( failed miserably today) and yes it can help with mornings when I’m slightly more chilled and maybe the day( I need to try it out more)but I’m still disorganised- heaps of things I can’t find on the floor, inability to make decisions about what to wear, eat, lost keys, glasses, watch , restless, struggling to focus, fidgeting etc. I was like this before all the way through life pre screens.

I do doom scroll too much to relax ( ironic because I’m not sure it’s relaxation conducive) but would simply fill my time with other special interests,
day dreaming and be late like I did previously without I suspect. I do mean to fully test it though.

I do wonder about the white screen on all day in schools and the impact on MH from doom scrolling. I had MH difficulties but nothing like my dc’s. They have had serious mental illness aand I mean really serious.They are battling through and making progress but I often wonder why my difficulties weren’t as serious. Is it the impact of phones and modern life on their MH that is the difference? I’m not sure kids would get away with the amount of day dreaming I did and I absolutely hate shops, public transport etc now even more than I did before as a child. Is that because everywhere is do much more busy and full on?

I find the discussion interesting but I think it’s important not to fall down the MH abelist incorrect rabbit hole saying ND is over diagnosed and it’s just down to a modern day lack of resilience.

But I suspect most of us know that we are very different in our behaviours now because of social media than we used to be.

I am in my mid 50s. I can spend hours and hours on mums net, facebook and instagram just scrolling through rubbish that makes no difference to my life and means I don't then do other things. This then puts me under pressure in other areas of my life, affects the amount of time I spend on other things whether that is keeping on top of laundry/paperwork/my job/returning things to shops etc.

Then I look at stuff online too that affirms my suspicions that I might have ADHD because it talks about procrastination and leaving things until the last minute, letting laundry mount up, not keeping on top of paperwork, struggling at work with deadlines, missing things because I'm not organised, being late for things etc etc.

My behvaviours are changed because I can't focus properly, I get distracted, I start one thing and then a million other things are constantly popping into my head because Im used to the ten second hit of distraction form scrolling on instagram.

This affects me in this way and Im an adult and generally regarded as a very competent one. I was born in the seventies and didn't even have a mobile until my mid twenties. The effect on the developing brain of a child must be massive.

I don't think there's any evidence for this. It doesn't make much sense. What about those of us who get diagnosed in our 50s, 60s or 70s? Tbe only screens we had when growing up were TVs yet we had ADHD. I'm pretty sure DM has ADHD and she was born in the 1940s. Her family got their first TV after she had left home:

What we do know is that it is inherited. So when children get diagnosed, parents TW d to the also seek out a diagnosis.

It would be really nice if children could be fully supported as they are without needing to go through a process of diagnosis. The school telling children one thing and then doing another drives me insane as it really upsets my daughter and is so needless. That's not a resilience issue, that's a trust issue. It teaches children they can't trust adults and children do take that message from it. So - totally understand a diagnosis is helpful in many many circumstances and I'm not advocating for not pursuing it- wouldn't it just be nice for children to be in environments where adults followed through on what they say as standard, instead of needing an individual diagnosis to understand why some children might really struggle when they don't.

DS is also autistic. He was sent home early today due to flooding and cried for about two hours because he couldn’t do something he’d been promised at school. He screamed and screamed for me to take him back (he’s 8) even though I explained school was locked and not even the teachers were there. It’s not a resilience issue, it’s a perception and emotional processing issue. Edited to add I was told by the head at DSs last school that he just needs to develop some resilience, plus quite a few other incredibly ignorant things. We moved schools and he has soared. They don’t even notice he’s autistic because the focus is very much more holistic and child centred. Best decision we ever made.