to think rising levels of neuro diverse children in society is partly due to rising ages of pregnant mothers?

[staydazzling]

im not condeming anything here btw, i would like to make that clear. and i know this may not go down well on here, donning hard hat but whenever theres discussions about how neurological diversity in children has risen ASD, ADHD etc in society, the conversion is often about MMR Ipads or diet, discipline etc which of course all important variables but i feel its unhelpful that a lot of would be mothers are not informed of the risk past 35, of downs syndrome, autism etc, its obviously much better financially to be older and have a family. aibu to feel its the elephant inthe room regarding rising levels of children with ASD, ADHD, Etc??

As the parent of two DD with SEN, I find it absolutely ludicrous to suggest that parents seek a diagnosis for benefits or extra time in exams! (I don’t know how you would persuade NHS or reputable independent professionals to falsify test results and observations, to lie and diagnose a “normal child” with SEN anyway! All the independent ones I went to, were booked up for 6 months and would only go to Tribunal for parents with a solicitor - they could pick and choose their clients! I was lucky they agreed to see my DD at all!

As the parent of a normal DS, I never had to make a formal complaint or take the school/LA to court either to get him the education he was legally entitled to, or make sure once he was in school, that he was getting it! The LA never proposed say to send him to a SLD school, which could not begin to provide him with the education he needed, as a bright boy!

DD1 needed intensive speech therapy, OT and specialist teaching from age 4. We spent £50,000 on 4 Tribunals, with a solicitor and barrister (and the best professional witnesses) just to get DD1 the education she needed and was legally entitled to - in other words, my LA was proposing to break the law every time! Then we had to prepare to appeal to the High Court twice, because they were breaking the law again in not providing the education, she was legally entitled to.

She was in special provision for 18 years, (only because we fought for it) with other children and young people. Half of them were placed there by the LA; the other half were there with equally severe problems by order of the Tribunal (a court). Typically, their parents had spent between £25,000 - £45,000 to go to Tribunal - some driven to the verge of bankruptcy and/or breakdown by the stress.

See here:

www.theguardian.com/education/2019/dec/31/parents-three-year-battle-to-win-support-for-their-autistic-son

There is another article in The Guardian atm, about Tribunals - which features parents, who spent £200,000 on Tribunals.

What planet are pp on, if they think parents remortgage their homes to spend 5 or 6 figures, fighting to get their child an education under massive stress usually, when the real motive is benefits or extra time in exams

It would be preferable in general for benefits to be given in terms of need and not assuming everyone is taking the piss.
If you are accessing benefits the chances are your MH is pretty piss poor. Why make a difficult part of life worse by having to trawl through forms and interviews that seem to be you giving them all the information while you get none.

I remember the misery of trying to sign on when I was unemployed. I wasn't eligible for any benefits since I am a married woman (another issue with benefits) but the sheer number of hoops I would have to jump through just to register as officially unemployed (not to mention the ensuing harrassment since I was a PhD candidate) meant I aborted it

I wanted to be officially unemployed not hidden as it where.
Then I think about how it must be when you ACTUALLY have to access benefits...

My dd has an IQ on the 98th centile. She also has difficulty interpreting social cues (NOT lacking in empathy or poor eye contact) , difficulty understanding irony, sarcasm or manipulative behaviour, is overwhelmed by noisy environments and has great about change. She is quiet, well behaved and has a great analytical brain. She 'should' have an amazing employment future ahead of her but I see many employment barriers ahead that will not be faced by NT people of significantly lower mental prowess....

Ha ha ha, yes all the money we’ve spent on assessments, private therapy and sensory equipment has been for extra exam time. That’s it exactly!

Do you know what we’ve received from the NHS...absolutely fuck all. Nothing, zero, zilch.

Thankfully our current school has been good, but this is all going to change for high school, where it is clear we’re going to have major battles on our hands.

But it will all be worth it for those extra minutes (during which we’ll be lucky if our DD actually stays above the desk and not under it).

When I told people of my DDs DX, they were shocked. No one knew because we had not told them what life was like.

So to that poster who says she knows ‘for fact’ that people have lied, you really don’t. Sometimes I made my DD sound more capable than she was because it was so fucking depressing having to listen to people bleat on about their children’s achievements.

Why are people on MN so utterly unkind!??

It does seem to be a general trend that batshitness is increasing currently. I think that the tone of leaders does set the tone of people within the country to some extent - look at Boris and Trump - hardly exemplars of empathy or indeed understanding that other people and different circumstances exist.

*Why are people on MN so utterly unkind!??

Pressed post too soon!

Why are people on MN so utterly unkind!??

Because they exist in their own little bubble and cannot fathom that some peoples experience of life is entirely different to their own. They think that people having a different life must either be doing it wrong, have done something to cause it to be different, or are doing it different for nefarious reasons (e.g., extra exam time or big money benefits). They then test down the people who are different as it helps them reinforce their belief that their particular type of life is the only right and normal type.

I'm also nervous about high school - arguably more nervous than DC1! I only hope is less of the shitshow of misery it was with my peer group. The best day at school was the knowledge that never seeing them again would not negatively impact my life one bit.

As a CAMHS Psychiatrist I have seen 100s of children with ADHD and ASD in the last 5 years - of those I would estimate less than 20% of those children had ‘older mothers’.

What a load of shitty, nasty comments! Had to go private for ADHD diagnosis and treatment for DS as well. No interest in any co-morbidities after his HFA diagnosis on the NHS. No decent support at school so private there, too. But it's all for benefits and attention, it's really FASD (we were both teetotal for years at the time), or because Dad smoked weed (he's never in his life) blah blah blah.

I went private for my diagnosis - DC1 was diagnosed by the NHS but when I attempted it I got pinged back into community mental health. My MH was shitty at the time but seeing it was jobseeking induced mental illness they weren't exactly equipped to treat it!

@hoik.

Nailed it in your assessment there - agree 100%. Especially the notion that somehow you just aren't doing things quite right, and that is why you pay for a diagnosis of autism / dyslexia child because (delete as appropriate) you want some extra money for them/ or exam time.

And if they really are "unfortunate" enough to be born with these "afflictions" its because you selfishly had them too old with sub-quality eggs.

@RunningAwaywiththeCircus snap with the private assessment and the LA not accepting it, which is laughable as the company that did the assessment will have actually trained the NHS assessment team.

@OhDear2200 snap here too.

We had a private OT assessment as the LA refused to commission one as part of the EHCNA process for autism.

We deliberately used the very company that the LA uses themselves...they refused to accept the findings.

22 when I had my eldest. He has ADHD.
I agree with pp - so much more is understood now than many years ago

@missfliss no words!!! 😡😤😡

Not read whole thread yet so no idea if it’s been mentioned previously. And apologies for my perhaps clumsy terminology.

I went through a relatively high risk pregnancy last year (twins, IVF conceived using donor eggs of younger woman, I’m most definitely an older mother at 47 when they were born) and one thing my fetal medicine consultant kept saying was they would attempt to get me to 37 weeks as there is some anecdotal research showing that babies born before 37 weeks are more likely to be diagnosed with learning/non NT disabilities. As the evidence was collected in a reverse method (looked at birth records of children diagnosed with a number of these disabilities and saw a disproportionate number of them were born before 37 weeks) it could have been viewed as skewed and non randomised therefore there isn’t a lot known in advance of looking back and so couldn’t be used to say for sure that being born prior to 37 weeks alone was/is enough to lead to such disabilities.

@RunningAwaywiththeCircus “potato-brained kids?”

I have a child with ASD & ADHD and so I’m on the same side of the fence as you so to speak (even more so actually as I have ADHD myself), but I’m not aligned with you in unkindly putting down other children. Who, for all you know, may have learning difficulties or ASD/ADHD but be undiagnosed. There’s an irony in that being your wording in response to you thinking others have been risible about children on the spectrum.

By the way, the whole debate about extra time came up because of an article about comparatively more children in independent, so private, schools getting it then in state schools. A relevant factor no doubt is that these schools and parents have on average more money to pay for assessments than those in the state sector. That’s the demographic you’re part of, so you’re proving that point.

(And again, I’m on the same side as you here: my child with ASD & ADHD is at a private school and although their diagnoses were done on the NHS and they have an EHCP, several of their intake have been diagnosed with a range of ND conditions privately and been assessed for extra time by a private Ed Psych, at a cost to the parents. It is depressing that some parents have to resort to paying because their children have been failed by the NHS, and even more depressing that sone children will go with their needs not being met because they’re failed by the NHS and their parents can’t afford private assessments.)

Personally I don’t think people have been unkind, just ignorant, laughably so in some cases.

My son has autism (low functioning) and spd. He has learning difficulties as a direct result of these but does not have learning disability diagnosed. I was 30 when I had him following many miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy. I also had a very difficult pregnancy and was in hospital for some it. I have one other son who was born when I was 27 and has no difficulties. My son, myself and my husband have had our full genomes sequenced with nothing shown at the moment (as more genomes are sequenced and slight variances are assigned to conditions this may change). I am very healthy so is my husband, both nt with no learning difficulties.

My thoughts and these are mine from experience and aren't meant to upset anyone of cause offence but I do believe in having these conversations and to be honest I want to address some of the comments that have been made:-

I think in our circumstances it is likely that there was some form of genetic change which possibly my body was rejecting hence the previous miscarriages. Whether this was a result of my DNA or my husband's who knows? I wouldn't be surprised if their were other contributing factors such as pollution etc but whether these contributed towards the impact the change made or towards the change itself, I don't know.

I think the recent increase is more down to the inclusion of people who wouldn't have previously been diagnosed. I personally feel that diagnosis is a good thing but that the grouping is so large that it has lost true meaning. I.e. One person with an autism dx who can have a family and a career, go out socially and just be considered quirky or odd is vastly different to someone with an autism dx who is non verbal, wears nappies or pads, vocalises, self harms....

The term neurodiverse is too sugar coated for my son's condition as he is disabled by it and yes I would change it/ take it from him/ cure him (don't care what others think, he is unlikely to ever be able to be left on his own for any period of time and requires considerable support in all areas of life). He is also amazing and no I wouldn't be without him but would love for him to be free of the impact of his conditions on his life. I believe the rise in the neurodiversity movement had made it harder for some of these conversations to be had and because oh geek chic and the ability for some who may not have had a "tribe" before to fit in somewhere, to some a dx is comforting/ appealing where as a while ago it wouldn't have been. Being described as neurodiverse is easier to accept than having a disability and so maybe some people are more open to seeking a dx as it is more acceptable in society.

To address the point someone made about private diagnosis being easy to get (my son was dx at 2 by NHS). I struggle to believe this and trust private health professionals more than the NHS as their reputation and income rests on their work so are more likely to want to get it right especially with parents now going to tribunal more than ever before and much of their success at tribunal rests on the professional reports/ witnesses they have. I do query if there is sometimes a reluctance to give diagnosis by la commissioned services due to the lack of funding especially where there are ring fencing practices resting on dx.

Benefits..... seriously?! I gave up work due to my son's needs, I loved my career but love my son more. We are not entitled to child benefit, universal credit etc due to my husband's income. My son does get dla at the higher rates for both. I take you have never seen one of these forms? You need to complete it with either a bottle of vodka, a bar of chocolate or four or whatever you revert to for comfort in excess. I get carers allowance. The amount of "benefit" we get is laughable and doesn't come close to covering the extra's we have to buy and the carers allowance isn't even equivalent to one day of my old salary. There is no financial benefit at all.

Extra time in exams, I can imagine some parents trying for this especially if schools are arranging this without professional input but can't imagine many would if they have any indication of what the parents are doing and I hope that they would know the child well enough to do. Maybe the children do need the help and the parent service are making light of it/ blaming themselves/ hiding the fact their child has needs?

Violence and autism; these do not go hand in hand. As another poster commented someone with autism who is violent is likely not having his needs met. Some of the most effectionate people I know are on the spectrum.

All the ADHD children I know have been born to mothers younger than 30. I have my theory that majority of children with these conditions have had hard births and in most cases baby was in distress/ lack of oxygen.

Haven't rtft, accidentally hit YANBU. Meant YABVU. My 4th child is on the spectrum. I was 27 when he was born!!