‘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

Because for political reasons we've chosen, so far, to have an administrative/judicial system that takes these Articles extremely literally.

That is a political choice we have made and not a law of the universe.

It's quite an expensive political choice.

I do not have access to the original study so could not see how the data has been split. As the graph showed a combined line for all diagnoses, I assumed that you had just split out that total into the different components of Asperger's and Autism and hence it could be totalled. I now understand from your post that they were shown as percentages related to each separate diagnosis. That absolutely wasn't clear from your post.

You keep believing though that this makes your little graph and stats more valid.

Exactly this!
Look at how other countries and you will see that there is very strong precedent for the Articles being interpreted and applied very differently depending on political will and societal expectations. If these things change in the UK (and it looks like things are going that way) then we will see a very different system emergency and providing the reform isn't too extreme, then international law will not be used to stop the reform.

I would definitely not throw the savings at funding the current EHCP education model though!

The current model of mainstreaming kids who should never have been mainstreamed (thanks Blair) into schools that increasingly treat their kids as robots, punish neurodivergent behaviours such as failing to make eye contact, and punish the basic human kindness of helping a lost kid get to class, is absolutely broken and is guaranteed to result in more EHCPs as ND kids who could have coped in mainstream nineties schools struggle to cope in the modern military-like school environment.

The whole education system is broken.

You have access. I linked it. It's a free PDF, you don't need institutional sign-on to see it.

I only have access to the preview. I have to sign in or pay for the full pdf.

I expect much of that is elderly and end of life care.

Do you, daughter or school notice any difference with medication? “True” adhd diagnosis often confirmed after trial of medication.

I agree actually - I would be happy to see quite a lot of reforms to the school system. I was educated overseas somewhere where there was a lot more variation and school choice and I find a lot of aspects of the system here quite odd. School ethos has a huge huge impact on the overall school experience, and different children will thrive in different settings, but here it seems that you only get that choice if you are very wealthy and can afford private school...

We haven’t got that far yet, the diagnosis was very recent. Also it’s next to impossible to get DD to take medication anyway, so I’m not sure what to do.

But I agree that it would also be useful diagnostically.

Yes I think that’s point I’m trying to make. We are both talking about the same thing. Just you think it’s right that labelling that is ND. I’m saying I don’t think that’s necessarily correct.

But then I’m not a stats expert.

But then equally I could tell you day 1 they stopped trials for incidences of guillian barres on Covid vax that it was a bad idea to get Oxford if younger. Took the stats scientists a few years to figure that one out.

I must have a saved institutional sign-in. I'm sorry about that.

If you are in UK, you might be able to get GP to prescribe if you have a consultant prescribing. The wait is impossible on nhs for assessments and some areas are having to use private for assessment.

Exactly this and I posted somewhere earlier in the thread 'what is autism'.

Another poster completely misunderstood this and posted the criteria!

What we need to do as a society is consider whether that definition and criteria, which is simply put together by theory, its not tested by blood, DNA, x ray, brain scans, any other tangible test, is actually valid for the vast majority of what used to be called Aspergers or high functioning

Someone else put it more succinctly 'scatterbrained geminis'. The concept of a descriptor which could include all of us, all of our traits and personality quirks.

And funding schmunding - where are the staff. We cant get teachers, doctors, social workers, care workers

The people just arent there. We cant magic them up.

The people just arent there. We cant magic them up.

LAs often cite lack of funding, resources or staff as a reason why SEP in F of an EHCP can’t be provided. When enforcement action is pursued, it isn’t an actual barrier to the provision being provided. For example, with 1:1 detailed, specified and quantified in EHCPs, which is what was being discussed, with the right funding, potentially substantially more (higher wages, potentially much higher wages in line with the teaching MPS, attracts more applicants), and effort (LAs often only start taking parents seriously when they see parents know the law and will advocate and enforce DC’s rights) an appropriate appointment can and is made. That is because LAs know lack of funding, resources or staff is not a lawful excuse for breach of s42 of the CFA 2014 and JR will remedy the situation.

Which kids though, because an argument is that mainsteam pupils are being let down by money pouring into SEN that isnt being poured into mainstream.

We could have more specialist school placement which I would argue for, but I cant tell you how many specialist schools have also come to the end with children placed with them and cant meet need either. Hugely costly bespoke arrangements are not benefiting 'kids', they are benefiting one child and I think the outcomes for those educational placements are not great.

The only reason it isn’t a barrier is because LAs will be forced to indebt themselves to provide it as they’ll be ordered to as a statutory duty. And what will this result in? Council tax rises and things like Safety Valve.

None of that is the concern of the individual child, though.

Many conditions aren't tested by blood or any other falsifiable test. Are you going to claim that migraines, dysmenorrhea, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and deafness are somehow not worthy of being taken as seriously as broken bones and septicaemia? Are you going to cast doubt over their diagnostic criteria? Are you going to cut funding for mental health support services because the symptoms are all either self-reported or behaviours that could be faked? Will you stop free glasses for children because the kid could be lying to the optometrist about his blurred vision?

That’s because here the one-size-fits-all has been a knee jerk reaction to parents complaining about inequality and pigeonholing.

Think about it, years ago we had grammar schools, technical colleges, and kids could finish school at 16 to work if they chose. So many people complained about this model ‘keeping working class children down’ that they attempted to remedy it by giving all children an ‘equal chance’ by putting them all on the same path. Has it worked? Nope. Yet if they announced tomorrow that kids not suited to the current model of academia and exams would simply be put into colleges to learn how to be electricians or hairdressers, there would be howls of outrage at them ‘writing children off and putting a cap on what they can achieve’. They can’t win.

No but migraine sufferers all have the same
symptoms, unlike the nebulous symptoms of neurodiversity. Every single one has extreme head pain, that’s literally what a migraine is. Whereas ‘if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person’.

Sadly it is as they are constrained by constraints.

So well put.

In my course of work I see the same thing again and again. Child does okay at school until some kind of anxious episode at secondary. They then receive a diagnosis of ASD/ADHD/anxiety and school refuse. They then spend the rest of their education hopping from one costly setting to another, and every time they say it’s unsuitable. These are places costing tens or hundreds of thousands a year for each child. I don’t know what more can be done for them, it seems a lost cause because there is no realistic solution.

The parents say they’ve been failed by the education system but how? They’ve had more than their fair share, have been offered several different places but because none of them offer exactly what they want, they say it’s unsuitable.

It is not the individual child’s concern and thankfully the law disagrees with you.

Not everyone who suffers with migraines has extreme head pain. For example, those with silent migraines/migraine aura without headache.