Me and my partner have minor/ moderate learning disabilities. Should we have children?

[Benny91]

As I feel it wouldn’t be right to have any?

Do you know anyone with a learning disability that has children? As I find it quite rare with our disabilities to have children!

We are both 33

I apologise, MNHQ have said you're not the poster I'm thinking of.

I've seen lots of people with learning needs have children. Most people don't know what sort of parents they will be until they have children.

Than what? I pointed out what he had said and said who’s being ableist? I’ll leave you to your guarding duties, because this seems like a one-sided argument you want to have.

Do you mean "learning difficulties"? It is not impossible for someone with a learning disability (an IQ under 70) to work, learn to drive etc, but it would be highly unusual for a person with a moderate learning disability to work as either a nursery nurse or a bus driver.

Did you both go to special schools when you were children?

Whether you mean learning difficulties or disabilities might change the answers and advice you get. However some people with mild or moderate learning disabilities can be supported to become parents - they would almost certainly need a lot of support though.

Can I ask, if you are already determined that you want to have children, and you feel it's "ableist" for anyone to suggest otherwise, and you've self-described yourselves as having "moderate" learning difficulties (which could really mean anything as we don't know you), why were you posting a poll?

You certainly would have received different responses were to you pose an honest question as to how someone with what type of disabilities you feel you and your partner have cope with children. If that is, indeed, what you want to know, I'd suggest asking MN to delete this thread and for you to start a new one where you might get genuine guidance.

If, however, your intention was to create some sort of provocation where you can claim to be a victim, then crack on here.

Op your wife is a nursery nurse so has demonstrated she can pass nvqs and can already look after children. I don't see the issue. You have a full time job dealing with the public who can also be difficult. What is it you are concerned about. What are your learning difficulties?

Years ago I worked with people with learning difficulties and on a staff training course we were asked if you knew you were having a child with learning difficulties would you have a termination. Without exception the people who were parents already said yes, because they know how hard raising children is without adding a learning difficulty to the mix. The staff members who didn’t have their own children were a mix of yes & no

Why do you keep asking this?
Thread after thread after thread.

Really interesting to hear your perspective and insight thank you. I was more at the application of statutory guidance/legislation end so my frustration was with the inconsistencies.
Fascinating job you have.

If you look at my posts you will see that IQ very much not outdated in most areas, and learning difficulties can be general or specific in education law.

OP do you mean learning difficulties or learning disabilities?

There is a massive difference between the two.

@DrRuthGalloway you explain the differences between learning difficulties and LD so clearly. I worked in a related field and lots of professionals still get them mixed up, let alone the general public!

One thing I've always wanted to know, because I've never been involved in actual IQ tests, is what happens if the general overall IQ score is skewed by an incredible ability in one or two areas? E.g. in the case of the stereotypical image of an "autistic savant" and where overall functioning and ability to retain and process info remains significantly impacted? So basically, where someone has the functioning of someone with an LD but an IQ of 80 because they have isolated abilities? The Leeds Inclusion Tool mainly focuses on functioning to make an educated guess at LD in the absence of an IQ test and LD always affects functioning to some degree.

Sorry, I'm not making myself clear, it's been a very long day...

Because the OP has posted previously about financial struggles, including a thread specifically about not being able to afford children because they both need to work long hours to pay the mortgage.

Ok if that's correct then that might be slightly different.
This whole thread is a bit odd to be honest.

It's interesting, confusing, and frustrating. DD1 tested 3-5th centile on 3 out of 4 measures for the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, then she scored <0.1st centile on the fourth. That gave a non-interpretable Full-Scale IQ, and a 3rd centile General Ability Index (because the <0.1st centile was excluded as an outlier). So not quite at learning disability level. Yet she clearly functions at a very low level. However, she is also very verbal (with limited understanding of what she talks about). Fortunately, the LD team psychologist cut through all the debate at the transition meeting when she transferred from CAMHS to adult services and told the team that it was ridiculous to debate the level of her LD because it was clear she would need lifelong services.

If you BOTH want them, can love them and care for them - yes!

That's incorrect of your tester. She would have been at LD level because of regression to the mean. And I am not certain of WAIS but WISC V says that IQ should be determined despite discrepancy across scores (and this should be discussed in analysis). She would absolutely score within LD level if they produced an IQ.

ETA I have checked and yes, FSIQ should still be calculated and discrepancies discussed.

It's pretty rare to have a single outlying ability (and "autistic savant" skills aren't usually in the things tested in cognitive assessments), and a single subtest wouldn't tend to have a massive impact on the score. I mean if you were scoring 1-2 on the subtests and then suddenly got like an 18, I have never in 25 years had that happen.

We do get children with specific issues, such as developmental language disorder, where they score low specifically in the language tasks. In those cases you would discuss the range of scores and your hypothesis in the report.

ETA a full scale IQ is in my view more a prediction of how likely someone is to have difficulties (or not) in learning given their profile and range of skills. Not a fixed measure of potential.

Happy to go into regression to the mean if anyone is interested!

@DrRuthGallowayI am!

Ok. So where scores are arranged on a normal distribution (a bell shaped curve), at a population level each test's scores cluster around the average (the mean). For every single subtest, 2 in every 3 people tested will get scores in that broad average range.

There are a number of tests that make up a cognitive assessment. For example, the WISC has 10 subtests, 7 of which go forward for calculation of FSIQ. So when an IQ is being calculated, whilst some variance in subtest scores is expected, most people will have a range that at at least some points hits or crosses the average band, because at a population level for each subtest there is a 67 percent chance of the score being in that band.

So a person who has a range of scores which might all be around 5-10th percentile, for example, has had 10 chances to hit the average band and yet they have not done so. This makes their learning profile rarer than someone who has some lower scores and some in the average band (the same is true for very high scores, where all are higher than the average band). This phenomenon at a population level is called regression to the mean because most people will have at least some scores that regress to the broad average (mean) band.

This is why it's really important to calculate FSIQ. Because a person with a range of scores around 3-10th percentile in all the subtests will get a full scale score that is lower, probably around 2nd percentile. Because unlike most people, they didn't hit that average band in any of the contributing scores, and so they are rare, and don't have particular relative strengths they can draw on to compensate for the areas they find more difficult.

I hope that makes sense!

Yes that was my point. I’m unsure why it’s relevant in this thread because you could ask the same of anyone having children

Thank you, that does make sense. It's frustrating that the FSIQ for DD1 is just blanked out with the explanation that the verbal comprehension score and processing score have a large variance so it would skew the FSIQ. I mean...you can't remove a processing speed difficulty from the equation - it affects everything she does. To my mind, it's like saying of a paralysed person 'if we ignore the fact that they're paralysed, they've got great potential as a runner!'

Sorry @Benny91 I've derailed your thread somewhat.

Well yes but the FSIQ should be quoted and that variance explained, especially where both the contributory scores are trending low. It's not like they are going to say she has a learning disability despite a verbal comprehension score that is average. If her processing is at 0.1 percentile then following any kind of conversation will be incredibly difficult for her.

I do wish people would train people properly on cognitive assessment use and analysis.

FSIQ is also the most robust measure as it has the most contributory data. You shouldn't set too much store on a single subtest as the contributory data is much smaller (and therefore the standard error bigger).

Thank you. I know an autistic child with severely delayed language, very obvious autistic traits (was non speaking for a long time etc) but incredible mental arithmetic, memory and a tiny number of related skills. Couldn't solve mathematical word problems and had extremely limited basic life skills. Anyone who spoke to him would assume (did assume) he had an LD. Went to state special school from Reception. It was one of the only times I've seen a child with such a striking presentation like this. The IQ test came out borderline despite extremely low scores in many areas. I know this because one of our services kicked him out because of the IQ score, which some of us felt was the wrong thing to do. Then the mainstream services couldn't find people to work with him due to his limited language and capacity to learn new skills etc. They kept him in mainstream services though, because of that score.

Bump.

So to also say as I was busy working and couldn’t go into more detail.

My girlfriend has a minor form of Rubenstein Taybi Syndrome and it’s 50/50 between rts or normal.

I do have high functioning autism.

However, we do live a normal life with jobs and a home we maintain ok. We have looked into pets, but work commitments make it hard for us at the moment.

What are your thoughts?