‘Interesting’ article on overdiagnosing in Times.

[Soontobe60]

Just putting this here for discussion.
https://www.thetimes.com/article/9f82545c-57f5-4db2-8a47-9a8cc2304243?shareToken=c0f809004b0c59cf1b96f6b6eb6129c3

State pension is around £900 per month. DLA is £737 every 4 weeks. One is the amount a person has to live off, the other is a ‘top up’. Seems very generous to me.

JFC if you think that that's how the UN work. JFC if you think that I think that that's how the UN work.

I am perfectly aware of the sums being discussed. I do this day in, day out.

You on the other hand seem to be ignorant to the costs of being disabled. Scope’s latest disability price tag research says on average disabled households need an additional £1,010 per month to have the same standard of living as non-disabled households. This is in addition to disability benefits such as PIP or DLA. Scope say if the figure is adjusted for inflation that would be £1,067 per month.

This SN Jungle article discusses the large sums wasted on SENDIST appeals as a whole.

rely on others to the social and client interaction for them.

This is an example of a "reasonable adjustment". The lack of a formal diagnosis doesn't mean that the person isn't disabled nor that they don't need reasonable adjustments. And it doesn't mean that the person "just manages". That colleagues have to do some tasks for them is proof that they don't "just manage"!

Thank you for proving my point to others on this thread that not being diagnosed doesn't make someone magically not disabled and doesn't make their support needs go away.

I haven't said anywhere that every penny should go on SEND. I have said that cutting SEND hurts kids and suggested other places to make cuts.

Lying about what a poster has said is a form of personal attack.

But that’s how it feels. If £900 a month as a pension should be cut to give yet more money to SEN, then would anything be safe from your cuts? Because I’m sure if you lived off £900 a month, you would feel differently.

Enough is spent on SEN. Let’s take a child with autism and ADHD (because that’s what 90% of SEN is these days). If they have a one-to-one (let’s say 2k per month), DLA (400 a month at lowest), even if we utterly disregard other spends (such as NHS appointments, therapies, UC uplift if the parent is on that, carers if that also applies etc…) that’s 28k per year. Basically what an average earner gets for a whole year’s work.

For higher needs cases - special school plus all the add ons described above - we are looking at hundreds of thousands per year, for 1 child.

Is this not enough in your eyes, given half a million children have EHCPs?

I'm obviously being flippant but the substantive point made by PP is that there's no point having "human rights" and "statutory commitments" if the money isn't there for them. And correspondingly, if we decided to make these things not be "rights" any more, no-one will stop us.

They are simply political choices we have made, couched in the language of rights to make them seem inviolable.

The UK has a significant problem with too many things being "defined benefits": anyone who meets X criteria is entitled to £Y worth of direct benefits. It's easy to see why (from an administrative point of view, it's simple). But it is not linked in any way to the financial health of the country, or the local authority responsible for it. More people qualifying doesn't reduce the amount given per person - the pot is expected to simply grow and grow. This is fantasy economics.

(This is true for pensions as well as SEN - I'm an equal-opportunity critic)

1. £900 with housing benefit paid based on income, is more than I earned in my first graduate job and more than working age adults on UC get. And many now have an occupational pension on top of that.
2. Occupational pensions are now mandatory in most jobs (remember the "we're all in" adverts) so the proportion of retirees living on only State pension will fall over time. It's time for State pension reform.
3. Abolishing the triple lock isn't an immediate cut, so stop talking like it is. Abolishing the triple lock would be an end of the privilege of having a more generous CoL increase than every other benefit.

Let’s take a child with autism and ADHD (because that’s what 90% of SEN is these days).

No it’s not. The 23/24 statistics can be found on the government’s website.

A total of 400,413 pupils had EHCPs and 1,139,746 were recorded as receiving SEN Support. Of those, 132,249 with EHCPs had a primary need of ASD and 104,395 on SEN Support had a primary need of ASD. Most whose primary need arose from ADHD would have been recorded as SEMH. Although not all with a primary need of SEMH will have ADHD. 62,125 had an EHCP with a primary need of SEMH. 254,202 were on SEN Support with a primary need of SEMH. Some with ASD may have their primary need recorded as SLCN but even accounting for that, it still isn’t 90%.

If you have an occupational pension you probably don’t qualify for housing benefit. The income cap is £283 a week.

1. What year was your graduate job, and were things cheaper back then than now? Meaningless comparison.
2. Yes but many pensioners do not have an occupational pension.
3. i never mentioned the triple lock. Wrong poster?

Either way there is no more money for SEN and when Labour agree you know it’s bad.

I’m afraid for example the ‘kids in the 80s didn’t get any diagnosis and they were just fine’ type stuff sounds like she’s hammering out her thoughts on FB.

Tbh I can’t say she’s wrong for a portion of the population. Sure there’s those on the spectrum where support, treatment, diagnosis etc will be essential.

Then there’s everyone else.

I am definitely something. ASD? Asperger’s or ADHD? No idea what but I am pretty sure I’m on a spectrum of some degree. Would a diagnosis make a difference to me. No.

DP is 100% dyslexic. Has he ever had a diagnosis? No. Would that make a difference. No.

In my late 20s I also had a mental health crisis. A series of psychotic episodes and was sectioned. Thankfully the doctor had the foresight not to diagnose me with schizophrenia. They said they think it probably is but it’s a limiting diagnosis and she’s going to give me this chance. However if I come back then sadly she will have to put schizophrenia. Would that label have made a difference to me. Yes. In a negative way.

The reasonable adjustments aren't formal though.

If I know my colleague is good at x but bad at y, and I am ok at y then I do it instead.

This works in teams until you get a new and stupid manager who tries to impose their way or even worse performance management.

But this is what is confusing me. If actually a large portion of the population has mild ASD/ ADHD etc then it’s not really neurodivergence is it? That would be its NT to be mildly on a spectrum somewhere.

So how for these cases is it helpful to be told your different. When really everyone is different.

I know a few dyslexic people.

Those who were diagnosed as children learnt how to thrive with it. So yes a childhood diagnosis helped them especially if they went to a private school between the ages of 11 and 16.

The couple who I know who were diagnosed as adults found it helped them mentally. As they realised they weren't thick but different.

With ADHD I know people who were diagnosed way back in the 80s and 90s as children. One, who is an old friend, wasn't given a proper label. He learnt coping methods. He initially did badly in school but thrived in adult education in his early 20s. He actually taught and transferred some of his ways of working to NT people around him.

2010, not that long ago.

You were accusing me of wanting to cut pensions. I'd actually said that the £111bn pension bill was a legitimate source of savings and in a later post I suggested abolishing the triple lock. I'm not suggesting telling the elderly couple over the road from me that their £900 pcm is £850 starting next month.

A large proportion of the population doesn't. It's just lots of people online on certain forums, people in certain jobs/companies, people in certain groups or even certain neighbourhoods.

It's simply a case of people finding they fit in and staying.

Not rubbish in my experience. I didn't just fill out a form and when I did, it took longer than 10 minutes.

I also provided evidence from two consultants, physio, OT and more.

My son gets HRC and HRM.

Watchful waiting prior to diagnosis is a legitimate approach for a condition characterised by recurrent episodes and failure to do so would lead to overdiagnosis.

Sure there’s those on the spectrum where support, treatment, diagnosis etc will be essential.

I've seen on this thread that a person "just manages" followed in the next sentence by an admission that said person has a colleague do some work tasks for him. It's astonishing to me how much denial there is about people are getting adjustments and support. People will describe how someone does something for them because they can't but "I get no adjustments". My boss let me have first pick of the desks so I can sit away from the window, that's an adjustment! I think people think that adjustments and support are always these huge disruptive things that inconvenience everyone else, and that's not the case. And I think people fear stigma and shame about needing adjustments and support.

Then there’s everyone else.

"Everyone else" isn't getting support. "Everyone else" isn't getting diagnosed with ASD, ADHD etc. The ones who do have those conditions are waiting years for assessment.

I'll refer you back to my earlier post:: www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5290463-interesting-article-on-overdiagnosing-in-times?reply=142772284 The graph image has now been approved so you can see it.

Autistic people make a minority of the population and on the AQ50 screening tool that tests for common signs of autism, we show a wildly different probability density chart of results compared to NT people. NT people rarely fall into the "almost autistic to only just autistic" region of the chart and autistic people very rarely fall into that region.

Everyone I work with (enough to know them well) all have adjustments of some kind if we are including teams picking up others work. Surely that is just normal. You work as a team and play to everyone’s strengths.

If someone is genuinely excellent at everything well they are in the wrong level job and need a promotion no?

For dyslexia; surely that’s pretty obvious that you have it. My partner can’t even a write a birthday card without misspelling 😂 But he has a masters and runs his own company. His adjustments are he needs a proof reader for important communications. Thats me currently in the evenings over dinner. We don’t have corporate infrastructure to fall back on. In future its probably going to have be a secretary. So a diagnosis makes no difference. It’s not curable. It’s us who has to pick up the slack regardless of whether he’s diagnosed or not.

What I mean about ‘everyone else’. Is if one person now is being diagnosed. And it turns out their parents, grandparents, siblings etc also have it undiagnosed. Then they are everyone else. That’s a quite considerable amount of undiagnosed people who aren’t on the stat sheet. If there are things which can improve outcomes for these people then fair enough. But for non curable, non treatable things; or mild enough that the side effects of treatment offset benefits. Then it’s not helpful. And if it does become that when we add all these undiagnosed people up and it’s over 50% of the population. Then that is not ND. That means it’s NT to be on a spectrum. The ND then will be the extreme ends. Whereas now everyone uses the term for anyone on a spectrum at all. Which I think is strange. Because logically if it’s a spectrum that doesn’t make any sense.

For watchful waiting. I understand that and super grateful the psychiatrist was sensible. Even then if I relapse and have another episode. Do I want to be told I have an incurable mental disorder!? Of course not. If I had been told that first time I don’t think I would have recovered.

If I am reading that graph correctly is it not saying 50% of NT boys have the same or higher score as those diagnosed with ND at the lower spectrum.

So here in between these yellow lines..

Are these undiagnosed boys, or is this overly diagnosed neurodiversity?

I was simply stating that your talk of international Human Rights law was really misleading. We are not mandated under any international law to provide SEN education at the level that you seem to think we are. It is just plain wrong to suggest otherwise.

What do you mean by ‘treat’? We treat cancer in order to cure people of the disease. Do you think autism is an illness that can be cured?