Why so many ND now?

[Jumpking]

Had much with 4 friends yesterday. All the ladies told me they're waiting for ASD assessments for their children.

I know so many parents of ND kids.

I don't think I'm unique.

There was around 5 or 6 ND children in my primary school growing up. Now this is per class, minimum. The children weren't in special schools, they just didn't exist in such high numbers.

What do you think has been the sea change in our society that means there are now far more ND children than there were 30 years ago?

(And it isn't because they weren't diagnosed 30 years ago, or we weren't aware... There really weren't children in my school, or the school's of friends I've discussed this with, who had sensory issues, or clothing issues, or only beige and/or dry food, or toileting issues, or obsessive interests issues or all the other ND things which are so prevalent with children today)

I think there are many issues at play.

greater awareness from parents and teachers so early warning signs are recognised and investigated. There is a reason to get the diagnosis now - the child will be helped.

poorer parenting so teachers are seeing worse behaviours in the class room which is triggering assessment for children who aren’t ND.

financial incentives - both for schools and parents

other incentives - children get more time for tests etc so parents push for the diagnosis

@Pringlesaremyspiritanimal I think op wants to hear that there has been a rise in diagnoses because teachers are too soft and parents need an excuse for their fussy, naughty children.

Also op, unless you are Beyoncé, please don't address us as 'ladies'.

@FMSucks . When I/we realized that my DH had ASD, it meant that I could say 'you know that is autism talking, don't you?' He could then stop, reconsider, and we moved on. We could then discuss sensibly what needed to be done without him thinking I was being difficult, which had been his standby response. He just did NOT get why he was thinking the way he was till then. It even got to the point where me wanting a new kitchen was thought of as strange,because until the whole thing fell onto the floor, it wasn't necessary! In reality, he didn't want 'strangers' in the house because it caused him distress.

in my primary school growing up...they just didn't exist in such high numbers

They did exist. They were not diagnosed. Some were mislabelled as naughty, slow, etc.

Many are being diagnosed as adults now.

I think you were probably a bit oblivious if you can only identify a couple out of a school who would potentially qualify. Kids often are.
i think many, many people struggle with neurodiverse traits, I’m not surprised at all if it’s more than half of the population. The question is at what point do you diagnose people with a disorder, for that there has to be a hard cut off line. There have been debates on here before but personally I think it’s detrimental not to recognise that some people will never be able to function independently in society

The kid in my class we 9 year olds helpfully called 'psycho' almost certainly had ADHD. The girl who sobbed all the time and made a fuss about normal stuff almost certainly had ASD. The kid who went to hospital with several different head injuries even though they had loving caring parents? Probably dyspraxic. The kid who couldn't manage even the simplest French phrase, and who we all laughed at? Dyslexic. All the kids who were bullied for being different? Who knows. The kids were around, we're just more aware now.

I'm not sure but perhaps more kids were just known as 'quirky' before or didn't have to face the things which set them off so regularly? Most families would just work around triggers without even thinking about it to make daily life easier.

I probably have some ND traits, but nobody other than my close friends would have known about them. I can control my environment now so I don't end up having to deal with things I don't like anymore. I was extremely well behaved and very very quiet at school, so you'd think somebody might have thought it was odd on the couple of occasions when I had big, screaming, crying tantrums after being told I MUST eat certain foods. I just stopped eating altogether and my mum gave me lunch boxes with the few things I would eat. I also wouldn't wear certain socks or tights, cried at loud noises and busy places, couldn't cope with bright lights and was generally really bothered by the textures of lots of things in my mouth or on my skin. None of this severe enough for most people to notice and my mum just worked around it instead. I can cope with these things better now and kind of force myself to get on with unavoidable things, but sometimes I feel so overwhelmed by noise and busy places that my stress levels build up really high and I have to cover my ears. As I'm doing it I think I must look really strange, but most people haven't noticed.

My husband has other ND traits, but again not severe enough to have caused many problems or draw much attention. Can't make eye contact at times, goes mute when faced with anything difficult or uncomfortable, really struggles to handle plans changing/mess/things out of order. His dad almost has classic asd symptoms but he's in his sixties now. He's very socially awkward and just seems completely unaware of many things. Takes everything literally, doesn't understand anything subtle, doesn't seem to grasp that other people have emotions, let alone figure out which one they are currently displaying.

My eldest son should have been diagnosed by camhs but for some reason they were so shit that he was discharged without them even doing that. They even said he would probably get worse during his teenage years. He is a bit more noticeable in that he is always moving/falling off chairs/distracted in class/very loud and his handwriting looks like a child just learning to write (he's 14). He also has tics, is highly anxious and has intrusive thoughts, which he sometimes acts on. Also symptoms of ocd. I doubt most people see the worst bits of it and just think 'oh that's the way he is' because he's very friendly, chatty and has very high confidence in social situations!

I think I should have pushed more and harder with camhs but my son actually found it really distressing and I found the counsellor to be quite obstructive and unhelpful. He really wanted to stop going and stop dwelling on things. They didn't really resolve anything, refused to give him a diagnosis despite believing that he has a condition and then discharged him. It means that he can't access much help at school, but his writing is so bad that he can't keep up or write in a way that other people can read. It's worrying.

I think, because none of these are extreme or very noticeable, all of these would have just been seen as personality quirks rather than indicative of being ND.

I get and agree with the principle behind this and It was seriously suggested in my training as an Occupational Therapist some 50 years ago.... that many issues should only be medicalised in terms of diagnosable as an illness or disability if they cause the person an actual problem..... I haven't put that very well, he meant that in society, the definition of what is "normal" was/is too narrow and that a wider acceptance of people's needs and behaviours would, in many circumstances, change what needed "treatment"
We see evidence of this on MN actually...eg on every "help my child is a picky eater" thread...and society is changing. When I trained, everybody who heard voices was diagnosed as schizophrenic and needed treatment. Its now understood that "voice hearing" can be a benign thing and provided that the voices are not distressing or dangerous, then medication may not be needed and may be harmful. www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/h/hearing-voices

BUT I don't agree that the rising level of diagnosis should not be happening because we don't yet have that accepting kind of society and currently diagnosis is what gives those people validity and visibility and gets us on the way to broadening what society does find acceptable.

My own school experience ( 1958- 1970).
Looking back to primary school, I can remember 3 children in my class of 30 who were probably diagnosable and a few more who had younger sibs with problems. There was no required school uniform and I didn't stay to school lunches so there may have been other kids with issues that I never noticed. In the grammar school I went to, there were definitely girls in my class who had problems but as it was the time of the 11 plus, people who had problems that impinged on their learning would not have gone there. Not saying this was a good thing but it was the way it was. The thing is that in both cases, the schools were much smaller and, looking back, i can see that the pastoral care was really good. In primary particularly, we were a small community, more like a village even though it was central London. Families, including parents, were known well and as it was a church school, the parish church offered support wherever it was accepted and regardless of the family's beliefs or lack of. In secondary there was less support for sensory issues around food and uniform, but more educationally. We were taught how to organise our thinking, exam technique and other things to enable us to navigate our way through the system as it was and again, parents were involved in the process. But I do get and am grateful that I was one of the lucky ones.

I encountered many views like the op has when my middle child was diagnosed with Autism aged 2.6 yrs.

Lots of "oh but he's so young, how can they even tell, he looks ok to me, they are so quick to diagnose these days, he'll grow out of it, how sad you are sending him to a special school (cue actual tears).

40 years ago my autistic, learning disabled
child would have been classed as 'mentally retarded' and stuck in an institution.

If you look, as the diagnosis rate for mental retardation fell, the diagnosis rate for Autism rose.

@Jumpking

having read all your posts on this thread now I think that its not that you haven't been around unrecognised ND people in your life but that you don't recognise them.

The rose tinted glasses that you view your own school days with (everyone ate their packed lunch, arrived on time, sat their exams, la, la, la) suggests that you really weren't aware of what went on outside your own friendship group.

Particularly as your friendship group was likely mostly girls. ND girls are skilled at masking ND and you would have been less aware of what was going on with the boys.

Maybe its a lack of awareness or empathy on your part, maybe its just rose tintedness of the years passing.

Neuro-diversity has always existed, it was just ignored or brushed under the carpet. Children went to the local "special school" (the one in my town still exists even today) and just weren't part of mainstream education, so you wouldn't notice them or realise they existed.

I have Aspergers but didn't receive a diagnosis until I was at university in the 2010's, despite the fact that it runs in my family (my granddad, dad, at least one aunt and a cousin are all ND too).

Looking back, I can think of a couple of children in my class that would be considered ND today - two from primary school and even several at secondary. At the time, they were just seen as odd, weird or quirky and were generally bullied for it or ignored completely.

40 years ago my autistic, learning disabled child would have been classed as 'mentally retarded' and stuck in an institution.

Sorry but the institution stuff is nonsense. Prior to the destruction of the state special needs schools by Ruth Kelly, who then sent her son to a private sn school, specialist state provision for for learning disabilities and special needs was good.

Growing up we had two fantastic (state) special schools near us, one for severely physically disabled kids and the other for learning disabled kids including autism. They are now expensive housing.

Yes I wondered that as well. My grandson shows traits but he has physical ones when he is playing computer games ( stimming)

life is definitely more complicated , louder, and more stressful for children.

Also, and this is my last post because I'm winding myself up here, which is most likely pleasing op no end, when you are a parent of a disabled, autistic child who will never live independently and is too frightened to leave the house except to go to his special school, you will see NT kids literally EVERYWHERE.

And it will break your heart a bit because although you love your child beyond measure, you wanted them to have all the happiness and joy that isn't available to them because they are disabled.

Am I the only one who is finding this thread really depressing. It seems I have paid for a diagnosis to justify medicalising my poor parenting/consumption of alcohol/ignoring my children etc. The ignorance is astounding. So many "experts" with zero experience of living with ND and the profound impact this can have.

Its a good point,, we have fooled ourselves in society to think that the modern way of sending children with very clear specialist need to mainstream or the odd specialist school has been of benefit

Very few children have been able to benefit because the support needed just isnt there in those schools, even specialist schools cant recruit/limited funding/permanently excluding pupils.

Have you read up about mental retardation? I think maybe you haven't understood?

@loislovesstewie - thanks for that. I think my DH just doesn’t want to know tbh. It’s sad as we could have figured it out together and I loved the bones of him but I just couldn’t reach him. Perhaps through our son’s assessment he may look towards himself too.

I wish you well and love your username. Big family guy fans here too!

You're not the only one

MN in general is pretty ignorant when it comes to autism and ND behaviours, though.

Yes. My mum was a nursery nurse in a fantastic special needs school. Kids with all sorts and levels of additional needs given a wide range of educational support, according to need. Some of whom managed part time education in mainstream schools and achieved O levels in a wide variety of subjects.

Suddenly that segregation was deemed a bad thing and all the good it did was thrown away!

I'm nearly 62. At my nice private girls school there was no pressure whatsoever to get O'Levels if you weren't academic. Lots of my friends got 2/3 O'Levels and then did secretarial/cookery/floristry/Nanny courses. Most of them married well. Anyone remember the late Princess of Wales. Funnily enough they were all pretty well educated and had significantly better grammar than some of today's graduates.

Having said all that looking back very few of them were actually dim but there was a fair amount of anorexia, drug taking, personality problems by their mid 20s and not many worked after their first child. Many were also pretty disorganised.

I think the rise in teenage MH issues, rather than later, links directly to expectations around academic achievement (qualifications) rather than being well educated.

It’s a depressing reflection of an ableist society. I’m sorry you’re feeling it, I get it.

@Mellowyellow222

I’d be interested to know what the financial incentives are

Bugger I wrote along post but it crashed and I lost it.

Lots of severely affected ND children were in special schools in the 90s and before. Not in mainstream. That's one difference.

Then under the guise of inclusion (really cost cutting) lots of special schools with excellent facilities were closed. Mainstream schools were told they need to be inclusive.
And that's how my youngest daughter's reception class came to have 3 severely affected autistic children in it. Two have stayed on and in the intervening 6 years another 20% of the class have been dx as ND.

A diagnosis is helpful and that's perhaps why you hear of so many these days.
It prevents ND children being labelled as naughty and impulsive (ADHD), clumsy and poor handwriting (dyspraxia), stupid or slow (dyslexia), quirky, odd or geeky (autistic), fussy (sensory issues). A diagnosis should lead to greater patience and understanding.

In my family we have ADHD (DB dx at 40. DD1 suspected), dyslexia and dyspraxia (DD1 diagnosed), sensory issues (DD2 undiagnosed), autism (DBro dx & DD1 strongly suspected).

It is good that ND is being recognised. Hopefully it will make people more tolerant!

It's a bit of a downer, isn't it?

With all the awareness and the information we have available we still have the 'but why do you need a diagnosis?' Ignorance. I try not to go into too much detail because I have to protect myself and my past life was traumatic and deeply painful. The majority of which could have been avoided with the benefit of the diagnosis which I now thankfully have. People are so dismissive of something which is so completely vital to some.