is sn on the increase?

[spritefairy]

Now this is not to offend anyone with a child with sn but every other post seems to have someone who has a child with sn be it disabled or autistic. This makes me wonder.
Is sn on the increase or is it just diagnosed more than it used to be due to medical advances?

You're right MrsJayy. DH was one of those children, even went to a SS until he was 14, left school with no GCSEs. Had he been diagnosed now, he would more than likely have a dx of ADHD/ASD.

'Should we all just stick to the SN boards then, would that make it better for those with non SN children?'

A lot of parents do exactly that. There are a lot of posters that don't venture onto the main boards.

I have 5 children with SN. Years ago, DS4 would have had a diagnosis but the others wouldn't. DS1 would have been "a bit odd", DS2 would have been "a bit frail", DS3 would have been "a bit sickly" and DS5 would have been "a bit clingy".

Sorry, the cat posted for me, I'm typing round paws.
It's not a good thing that posters feel unwelcome on the main boards, or just plain weary of having to explain things over and over again to adults that have little clue and less interest about the realities of having a person in your family with a disability, hidden or visible.
But I can't blame them when there are so many DM attitudes around.

Dh is the same they tried to put him in a unit when he was in secondary I reckon he is dyspraxic and dyslexic 1 of my dc has dyspraxia and he has similar things going on its a shame really.

No they will outright tell you and direct you to parenting classes if they think this, even if they suspect it. (They umbrella it under ODD, and give parenting tips)

Aw what the fuck, its way worse than I thought.

Some parents of children with SN on this thread clearly feel like they are outcasts and thats very sad. If fellow parents can't give them a helping hand (whether they have experience with SN children or not) then how are the mental health services in this country going to improve.

It shouldn't take YEARS to diagnose a child- what the hell will that do? they need help now and the CAHMS stuff is appalling...

Do assessors ever come round to parent's houses to spend some time with the family, maybe observe a child in their own environment to get a view of what the parent's are talking about? I know resources are over stretched but that would be a good way to start improving the system by the sounds of it.

Talked about and diagnosed more. I don't think it is on the increase at all. So much better understood now which is a fabulous thing.

Ollie, years ago when DS2 was going through his dx, he had professionals observe him both at home, hospital and at nursery several times before having a dx. It wasn't a case of having an appointment, doc saying yep he has xyz, off you trot. Although a lot of people who have never had any experience of trying to get a dx for a child do think it is.

Yes understanding is on the rise i think although it must be beyond frustrating for parents to not be able to get aDX, took me 4 years it was exhausting

Tbf they did say they didnt diagnose until 7 but I still knew something wasnt right with her develpment they put it down to her being prem then she was a young start at school it is so frustrating. This was 10 years ago though so maybe things are quicker

ollie

I was observed several times at school, home and they contacted my occupational therapist (I had previous problems with coordanation and speech) before they diagnosed me with ADHD in 1998.
I also had to be observed in 2004 when i got a diagnses of aspergers, but it wasn't as bad as they were able to use the notes dating from when i was about 5 or 6.

I've never recived DLA or anything.

I made a claim for the first time a few months ago, but it was rejected becuase i attended the interview alone and could answer questions.

I have two boys with sn and I mostly post on the SN boards, but that's mostly because I'm dyslexic too and don't enjoy people take ing the piss pointing out spelling mistakes.

I think as said before, diagnosing the issues is better than it was when I was a kid. You was just naughty, stupid back then. I'm sure the boy who threw chairs with the force of a adult at seven had ADHD. But he was just a terrible, naughty child with bad parents back then.

I do see stats that ASD is on the rise, not sure if it really is or people are just better spotting it.

I have been waiting 5.5 years for a ASD test for son. So in my experience, it's a very very hard diagnosis to get. Drs want to be sure. My toddler was diagnosed and we had the "talk" about whether or not we wanted to proceed to a diagnosis. So for me, I had the choice to not get him diagnosed. I didn't want to wait another 5.5 years so we went ahead.

Btw he's 3.5 and has no words at all so it is ASD and he's not "stupid, lazy" etc but I suspect he's also quite naughty at times, like all three year olds.

In 550 kids in my older boys school, only three have SN provision at the statement / EHC level so that's not a massive % of sn

I think it's on the rise - and not just gor reasons of widening diagnisis (which IS a reason).

Kids like ds1 (very severely autistic) could not have been missed. His special school - which takes the most severely disabled in the area- has been around 40 years and used to get the occasional child like him. As an ancient governor/ex parent who has been involved with the school for over thirty years said to me 'and now there's classrooms full of them? What's happening?)

I know my local authority has had to change the way they provide child respite & adult social care as well. Until about 8 years ago people like ds1 were sent out of county. That became unaffordable because of increasing numbers & now provision for the most disabled/most complex is local (which suits me). It has meant creating new services & new ways of doing things. Commissioners I have spoken to have been clear it's because numbers are increasing.

Well – one of the things that is happening is that 40 years ago many kids with ASCs might be considered ineducable and would not be in school at all. (Try googling the 1978 Warnock Report.) And as other people have already said, other kids with less obvious manifestations would have just been considered badly behaved or poorly parented and would not have been recognised as having autism. Aspergers and High-Functioning Autism were not recognised in the UK before the 1980s.

Another thing that happened is inclusion. I recently heard a radio programme where a woman returned to the special school that had educated her. What impressed her was the much greater difficulty and complexity of the SN of the girls now at the school compared to when she attended. One of her classmates had been there because of asthma. She was told that kids with her level of SN would now be in mainstream education - leaving the special school for those who earlier might not have been in education at all.

If it is true that there is an increase in severe SN, how much of the reason for the increase is because of improved infant and child mortality and improved methods of treating the health problems that are often Comorbid with SN?

I'm really glad that parents of children with SN post on mumsnet. It has been the biggest eye opener. I'm sorry that you have to struggle so hard and so often. When you don't have any experience of dealing with these systems it's easy to assume that they must be competent and work smoothly. Clearly it's not the case and the more people are aware of this, the more likely that is to change. In some ways it seems like we have moved on massively WRT diagnosing and supporting SN but in other ways we are still stuck in the dark ages.

Somebody mentioned that 40 years ago ADD was a crazy American idea. True - ADD/ADHD did not even exist in the ICD (the equivalent of the DSM that we use in the UK) until 1997. There was a hyperkinetic disorder of childhood but this only caught children (usually boys) who were so extremely hyperactive that they were unable to control their violence towards other children or animals.

And re ad(h)d, even now it is quite common for adults who think they may have been ovelooked for diagnosis as a child to be told that ad(h)d doesnt exist in adults. Like it magically cures itself when those diagnosed as children turn 18?!

Yes, quite.

I was watching a talk on ADHD recently and the (American) professor said that it is diagnosed in higher rates in boys than girls during childhood, but come adulthood, the numbers even out. But he also said that you can't get it as an adult, if you have it then you always had it, and that it's very rare for children to outgrow it, that if they outgrow it, it probably isn't ADHD. He finds the gender disparity very strange. I find it a glaring bit of proof that ADHD is hugely overlooked in female children, because their symptoms don't fit a male norm, but also because they tend not to be as disruptive. Girls who are diagnosed with ADHD as children tend to be tomboyish in their behaviour and personality and so they adhere more to the male profile. There are absolutely similar trends with Autism and Aspergers. It makes me despair because although these girls are not running around and distracting their whole class or destroying classrooms while having a meltdown, their education, relationships and self image are all being affected just like boys.

Nice of you to say that Bertie, I do feel there are many who don't feel that way, you know, the ones that chunter about the 'sn brigade' and that everything is always turned into a sn issue. So it's nice to feel heard.

I also find it incredibly frustrating when people expect me to be beatific and serene at all times and chide me for 'hurting the cause' when I'm spiky (often in reaction to extreme toss-Dom and provocation). Like I'm not allowed to be a person with thoughts and feelings, like I'm challenging their perception of fairness and equality in their own little thought bubble.

I don't have a child with SN, one of you greedy bitches must be hogging mine. But I do have a family member with SN though, does that count?

Anyway OP, yes you're right that SN is on the increase because of better medical technology. We're also better at diagnosis now than we used to be, but the simple fact of the matter now is that people living now, and living for longer, when they never would have before. This is relevant obviously for more acute medical conditions, but also for things like autism too, that people wouldn't necessarily think of as being affected by improved medical science. But autism is associated with gut issues, often very severe ones, so even a few decades ago some autistic children would have died young because of this.

Bertie I find medicine is generally sexist, but especially when it comes to conditions for which diagnosis is based on observed behaviour.

The diagnostic criteria for all neurological conditions seems to be skewed toward the typical male presentation. It's the same in mental mental health to some extent (women tend to be diagnosed differently to men because they present differently, but the cause of their behaviour is often the same).

Women do seem to be better at superficially hiding their difficulties and fitting in, but perhaps pay a bigger cost psychologically. Boys externalise/girls internalise.

These differences make me wonder if there is a bigger difference in the way boys and girls brains work and their behaviour than people think (and I'm not for one minute into gender stereotyping). Or is it purely down to social conditioning?