To think Katie Hopkins has officially lost the plot and special needs children do have genuine medical disorders

[Arnie123]

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/katie-hopkins/why-must-everything-be-a-medical-condition_b_3751096.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

I know she is just a gobby professional troll but this time she has gone way too far. So special needs don't exist and it is just crap parenting? Unbelievable

Schools cannot make a diagnosis any more than a parent can.

They can identify a need, and that need can stem from inadequate teaching, or remain unmet from lack of training, lack of resources or simply too many children in a classroom, but no-one except a qualified medical professional, can make a diagnosis.

My DS has ASD. I believe he could and should be in a mainstream school learning alongside his typically developing peers. However he is in a special school because we had to choose between bored or bullied as the majority of teachers are not equipped to teach him.

The BBC article is nonsense. It is talking about schools identifying children as having 'special educational needs' then calling that a diagnosis. 'special educational needs' is not a diagnosis. It is what it says it is, - someone needing extra support in education. It is entirely appropriate that schools identify children who need extra support to meet their potential.

It has nothing to do with DLA, or disabilities.

When I think back to my last year in primary I can think of at least 2 of my classmates who couldn't read or write. There were others who had "easy" spellings so pretty much CVC words and who were tested on the two times tables every week. So 25% of the class would nowadays be classed as having significant SEN.
Then there were two boys who were regularly beaten for behavioural issues and a girl who didn't speak and who was dirty ,smelly and dressed in rags who the teacher ignored.
In dd's y5 class it would be about the same two have statements and probably another eight are struggling so I'd say nothing much has changed IME other than now they are classed as SEN rather than naughty, slow bad and thick.
There was far more rote learning which hides a lot of difficulties and a lot more free reign in what we were taught and of course there was no compulsory testing.

SEN is not the same as SN...SEN is an educational label defining that a pupil needs more support than would be expected from a typical child.

I'm in Scotland, so I'm not as up on the English system - but in Scotland anything requiring support will be flagged up, that could be a short term issue such as a physical injury or something emotional like a bereavement...children being cared from away from home are automatically considered to be needing additional support for instance. Conditions like dyslexia or just a general failure to make expected progress would all come within the same support system as disabilities. (I think England is still a little bit stricter about what is considered an SEN, but the SEN system does include non-medical issues)

That however, does not make them the same thing, just that all extra support comes from the same place.

Schools cannot diagnose any medical conditions, any developmental disorders or behavioral disorders - they can diagnose dyslexia or put children on to support registers for other reasons.

So, anything claiming that SENs are overdiagnosed by schools by default cannot include conditions like ADHD as schools do not diagnose and cannot decide whether a child has it or not, that is left up to medical professionals who then inform the school. They may try to conflate the two things, but that doesn't actually make it true.

Kit, schools do NOT make a diagnosis....only a doctor can do that....unless of course you would be happy to take your child to a teacher next time they get some odd rash or other.

What schools DO say is that "this child is having more difficulties that is usual for a child of tis age and stage of development".

They have to refer elsewhere for assessments which MIGHT give a diagnosis or might not.

My son got a diagnosis at age 7 (autism) which followed YEARS of difficulties in nursery and school with various staff knowing he was struggling, helping him cope but not knowing WHY he struggled.

Funnily enough it was a paediatrician who specialised in autism....(.so at least 15 years of study) who gave him a diagnosis of autism. The same paediatrician diagnosed ADHD a year later.......the Educatuonal Psychologist disagreed other her because DS sits politely and nicely in class. The paediatrician was RIGHT because at the age of 8.5 years my son finally learned to read with medication which gave his concentration just enough of a boost to help him.

Ad people like YOU fuck me right off because you don't WANT to hear anything except your own narrow viewpoint. The campaign is aimed at people like you but also wasted on people like you because I doubt you will listen.

You have people on this thread telling you their story and how it was for them. In return you link to the Daily Mail lol.....are you really THAT thick?

Actually cannot believe I wasted my time replying to you Kitty, you are an example of the ignorant folk I need to deal with on an all too regular basis. You know nothing except what you read in the popular press and have no intelligence or desire to consider they might have anger agenda.

Oh and SEN is not the same as SN.....just so you know. Perhaps read through the campaign and LEARN something before spouting ignorant rubbish.

Hi Jake

I have a different views to you does that make me ignorant? I'm not sure it does. No one has answered why ofstead has a different view to you and why there are now many people now with special needs, it does not make sence and potentially very worrying. Would children be better served if their behaviour was addressed rather than trying to find a label. Which may well not do the child any good in the long run. Perhaps a lot of these issues could be solved with different parenting and teaching techniques

Is a racist ignorant or should their 'different views' be accepted and tolerated?

'Would children be better served if their behaviour was addressed rather than trying to find a label'

Absolutely. I am 100% in favour of this. In fact I am hoping to do a Masters next year in just this thing, so important do I feel it is.

However, in order to address behaviour you do need some understanding of the cause. And almost always for school-aged children, the causes FIRST investigated are parental, then environmental, and then lastly internal.

This can take YEARS if everyone worked together, but is substantially slowed by the wide-scale reluctance to give up on the parental explanation as an environmental one would cost money in adaptions, and then, once proven without doubt that it isn't parental, there is wide-scale reluctance to give up on the environmental explanation as an individual or disability explanation gives the child rights and an entitlement to certain things, including an adequate education, which can be denied with the previous two explanations.

kitty. I think you are muddling up SEN and SN
SEN- special educational needs. Yes, teachers may say something to the parents that their child may need extra educational help. That is not a diagnosis.

A diagnosis is a medical term, and hence only done by the medical staff, who may then say that a child does have special needs - SN

"I have a different views to you does that make me ignorant? I'm not sure it does."

It does if your views are based on wrong information and when that is pointed out to you and you are told the correct information you ignore it.

From the BBC article..

"Ofsted's inspectors said the term SEN was used too widely and assessments varied widely in different areas.

They said schools should "stop identifying pupils as having SEN when they simply needed better teaching and pastoral support"."

That is a comment on the SEN system, not medical diagnosis of conditions referred to as SNs.

ADHD cannot be diagnosed by anybody other than a medical professional working in that field.

The pupils being discussed in that article are those who are identified by schools as having SENs, not those diagnosed by a doctor.

Whether schools are trying to categorize children without an SN because they need more support rather than just offering more support is a completely different issue because it cannot and does not include any children with a medical diagnosis, schools aren't medical professionals.

The earth is flat right?

Disagree at your peril.....

Oh FFS

Does anyone have any idea how hard it is to get a diagnosis for a child with ADHD or ASD. You can't get one if your a shit parent not looking after your kids properly, it isn't that easy.

No matter how many people say their neighbour or brothers uncles cousins daughter has done this!

Find one parent of a child with one of these conditions who will say it was easy to get a diagnosis, it won't happen!

Kitty lots of people have explained to you the difference between SEN and SN. And the difference between a medical diagnosis and a school identifying a child as needing extra support in a lesson. And they have also tried to explain to you what the BBC article is saying. You are either choosing not to listen or do not understand what is being said to you.

kitty but you didn't just have "different" views, you have totally ill informed and inaccurate views and despite the in depth explanations provided by many on this thread you are still spouting them, so yes I would say that does make you ignorant not to mention goady, smug and about as thick as they come

She is utterly revolting, I can't think of another female who I am more repulsed by.

Special Educational Needs = a child who has difficulty in accessing the curriculum. The reason might be medical, developmental or social. A child who is deaf would be considered to have SEN and appropriate adaptations might be needed for him.
Equally a child from a chaotic and neglectful home where he gets inadequate sleep might also have difficulty accessing the curriculum..he has SEN but no actual SN.

SN = my child is deemed to have special needs because he has a diagnosis of autism, mild learning difficulties and ADHD as well as dyspraxia...this means he struggles with day to day things like crossing the road. He also has SEN because he needs support to help him cope with classroom noises.

The child from the neglectful home does not have SN, he can cross a road, he can wash and dress himself....but the fact he is tired means he needs support in the classroom.

Over the past 15 years teachers have seen a rise in the numbers of children starting school and lacking some basic skills that in the past they would have had. They are noting a lack in social skills which needs to be tackled before they can even begin the process of teaching these children.

There are any number of reasons for that....children having too much access to computer equipment, phones or parents who do and never bother interacting. THAT is what OFSTED are seeing and rightly raising....lots of children who should not be struggling to access he curriculum ARE struggling. But the teachers are not diagnosing anything...simply identifying children who are struggling.....some struggle because of undiagnosed development issues such as autism or ADHD. Others struggle because of their circumstances.....home, divorce, drug using parents or other circumstances.

These children are then identified as having a SEN and a plan is put together to help them achieve. Some will cope wit the intervention and no longer require it after a while, some will continue to struggle until they are eventually diagnosed with some form of developmental issue, some will continue to struggle either because there is something in the child's background which is impacting upon the learning or because they continue to have an undiagnosed SN.

AmberLeaf - Sorry to drop and run earlier, I was on the way to work. I say that because I work for DWP and know that a large number of DLA claims were migrated / transferred over from the predecessing benefit (can't think of it's name, but DLA replaced it 21yrs ago). I know DLA is very hard to get an award for and requires countless statements, signatures etc from professional bodies but just because it's like that now, doesn't mean it always was. This is the preliminary report, there is a more recent, finer tuned version available online too (see section / table 4) www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/223063/analysis_of_disability_living_allowance_DLA_awards.pdf The poster upthread that spoke of family members being awarded it for made up conditions / non-serious conditions may well be correct if it's an older award. Saintly - I get what you're saying about being re-assessed for PIP, but if a doubt arises about previous suitability for DLA and failure to notify of change in condition etc which could affect award then I can there being a case for overpayment / prosecution etc. Sorry for the hijack.

This is my child

Only just seen these didn't even know they'd done it. Just to add something beautiful and positive to this crappy thread.

I can only get that picture of that gorgeous girl now. Can't get any other photos. there are arrows either side of her but when I click it just reloads here.

How do you see the others?

Hold on will try to link again.

hope this one works, if not go onto MN desk top

No. The page just doesn't work at all for me.

Do you get one big photo at the top, and then tiny ones vertically under them?

If I click on a tiny one, sometimes I get a different one sometimes I don't.

The > and < arrows don't work at all.

Is it just me?

I am on an IPad and it's working for me.