Experiences of PDA / high anxiety pre 2000ish

[moveoverye]

I know that there has been an increase in diagnoses of autism and PDA and that ut’s generally agreed that these children’s needs simply were not being recognised and labelled as such before quite recently.

I’m thinking back to my Primary school years (and indeed secondary) and I can’t remember any children who displayed behaviours that today would be recognised as PDA (with the meltdowns and complete shutdown and refusal to do things.)

Where were they? Did they just not go to school? I imagine schools were much more demanding places (at least from what I remember in my primary there were no sensory breaks or nurture groups or social communication sessions etc) and as I can’t remember witnessing a single meltdown in my entire time at school (1990-2005) perhaps these children simply did not attend? Were special schools or homeschooling more common for these children?

If anyone here is a parent or teacher of a child pre 2000 who almost certainly in retrospect had PDA-profile autism (maybe even has had a diagnosis since as an adult), I would be so interested to know what life was like, what support was available, and how you coped?

I have a relative who was that child and today would have been diagnosed, but wasn't in the 90s. And is now a very mentally ill adult not living independently.

There were definitely a couple of 'naughty boys' in my primary class who I think today would have had a lot more understanding and a diagnosis of ADHD or maybe autism.

There was also locally to me a 'naughty boys' special school which doesn't exist anymore. I think it was for difficult/disruptive boys who weren't then identified as having a traditional disability.

Oh lord that sounds terrible! 🫣

Now you mention it, I remember mum making jokey threats about sending me “to the naughty boys school” when I was little. So it was clearly a common concept.

We had “naughty” boys and girls in my class of course, but a trip to the headmaster’s office / a phone call home / bribery to be the one to help the caretaker stack chairs after lunch, seemed to do the trick most of the time, at least temporarily. That would not work in a month of Sundays for the PDA children I come across and hear about today.

There was a remedial class when I was in junior school so children with additional needs would be in that class. From what I recall there were fifteen children from a school with around 200 pupils. I'd guess two of the boys in my class at secondary were likely to be HFA looking back having two autistic kids myself now.

I don’t know about pda specifically because a lot of it can involve masking and very difficult behaviour at home. I do look back to classmates in school who clearly struggled though and were basically emotional abused by the teacher. Makes me feel very sad for them.

This might be helpful:

https://www.specialneedsjungle.com/how-has-special-education-needs-evolved-in-the-40-years-since-the-warnock-report/

There’s a tiktoker who works in school with kids with pda who says she feels she has pda herself. I remember there being pupil behavioural units for kids who couldn’t cope with normal schools. I knew someone who went to one right at the end of their education, they have asd, I have no idea if he has pda, he’s an arse hole who doesn’t do well with being told what to do but doesn’t have anxiety (note the arsehole isn’t related to their asd!)

Going back to 70s there were less pressures generally as no homework and fewer after school clubs but I recall a couple of kids whom you’d say possibly had ADHD/ASD. They were known for making a scene/having meltdowns occasionally but one boy was kept off school a lot, not all the time though - his DM was neglectful though, we knew that, he constantly turned up to school very dirty and unkempt.

There were naughty and hyperactive kids but they were basically dealt with in school. One boy younger than me went to a stage school because he was extremely disruptive and couldn’t cope with normal school. There was one little girl I was friends with up to age 7 then she left and I left but we didn’t go to the same junior school, I’m guessing she was a bit hyperactive from memory. Her DM tried to enrol her in final year of junior school but she never attended. There didn’t seem to be special schools and there were no TAs.

In secondary school I’m sure some of these kids became bullies or were excluded.

I think @Bunnyhair has expressed it very well - it was a different world back then. No internet, no grading of schools and no pressure on them all to get the best exam results (so kicking out the students who they think might fail, who all now get collected into specialised schools).

In the eighties school started and finished later and we had smaller classes with more breaks. Schools now seem to be super institutions with hundreds of pupils, cramming everything in to finish mid-afternoon, which is just too busy for any SEN children. My son was in a class of 32 kids in a school of over 1000 pupils, but I hated leaving him there, it seemed so loud and chaotic - he was actually expelled for having ADHD (they apparently can’t deal with it, even though he hadn’t actually done anything disruptive, and they were super happy to take him on when he scored in the 99.9th percentile for maths, before the diagnosis).

I wonder if it is true that these kids just weren’t diagnosed before, or if it is more like the increase in plastics or artificial sweeteners or something else in the environment or in our bodies that makes this genetic combination much more likely? As there is such a huge upsurge. No one in our combined families before ever had any SEN, so I do wonder where it came from, though I love my super bright and hyper active boy to bits.

There was definitely a girl in my year like this.the teachers were really cruel to her. Even as a child I could see what they were doing was cruel . They would laugh at her when she had meltdowns.

The kid with a PDA profile in my son's class would simply have been expelled in the past.

Now the focus is on inclusion at all costs. The cost being the other 29 kids in the class.

I am aware of at least eight parents who have complained about their child being assaulted by this one.

This child is yet to get a 1 to 1 because parents have been difficult and assessment (forced by school after so many complaints) hasn't gone through so not enough funding for one with it.

It's an absolute cluster and we've had to play hardball with the school about safeguarding.

PDA is a whole different ball game to ADHD and autism.