To be confused by SEN, Autism, etc in children?

[Sallygoround631]

A sensitive topic, but I am curious, and hope that it isn't somehow improper to ask.
I admit to ignorance, because I don't have children, and I have not had much experience with children with SEN, Autism, allergies, etc.

What I want to know is, in your opinion, are there more kids with these issues now than, say, 40 years ago, when was a kid in the 80's? (when everything was put down to orange smarties and over activeness)

Was it simply less diagnosed or unknown, and put down to other, behavioural issues?
If so, then I am very glad we are no longer living with such ignorance.
But I am also curious to know if these cases have increased, or merely been there all along?

If they have increased, what are the reasons? Does anyone know?

I feel this is a tender topic and do not wish to cause upset. I am absolutely out of the loop and would love to hear about it.

Educate me!

Yes, massively undiagnosed, especially in females. You'll find a surge of women over 40yo being diagnosed at the moment. It was always there.

Ormally It's very demoralising to put your trust in an inclusion policy that, in practice, is all about how the neurodiverse should work to fit in. I absolutely agree with this and the impact on your self esteem / mental health but at the same time it isn’t uniform.

There are areas of business, science, the MOD and academia (and I can only speak from knowledge / experience of those sectors) where different ways of thinking, particularly in terms of thinking in models / patterns rather than words, are such an advantage that their culture does provide somewhere where those with differences can survive / thrive even. The MOD for instance actively recruits people with SpLDs /autism to GCHQ because of their strengths in spotting patterns.

After a miserable school experience that left me with a lifelong deepseated feeling I was stupid and a reflex response to just not bother, university was a hugely positive experience. I do fully understand that for some the demands of some subjects can lead to meltdown but for me, studying History, my ability to spot patterns and form arguments and to have, sometimes batty, ideas to offer in seminars (after emerging from a system that then valued regurgitation over argument and ideas ) meant I was suddenly getting high marks and was one of the clever ones. I was discussing this with teacher friends and saying many of those academics you encountered at Uni who were “eccentric” / “weird” were probably actually neurodiverse.

It is certainly true that my DCs colleagues in Science research have a high incidence of neurodiversity. Three with (diagnosed) Dyslexia, Autism and ADHD in a team of six, and every reason to guess that their Nobel prize winning leader had some form of SpLD to explain how they did not shine at school.

And in business too, though my working memory and processing problems were always an issue my ability to understand and see solutions to complex problems and think strategically meant I was promoted to a senior level. I was hopeless in timed meetings and but I learnt other ways to contribute my analysis and ideas. However there were always colleagues who manifested neurotypical values in their efforts to undermine my professional reputation.

None of this is to underestimate the discrimination and resulting mental health issues towards the neurodiverse. What it does illustrate is how actually neurodiversity is and always has been of value to society, and just how ignorant the recent retilting the playing field in changes to the exam system and rules on extra time etc have been.

Implicit in OP s opening post is the prejudice that increased diagnosis is the result of middle class parents with sharp elbows buying a label to get advantage for their children, a prejudice shared by the Daily Fail and Gove /Cummings (this is definitely not a Daily Fail journalist!). That is why Gove /Cummings changed the requirements for special time from a Ed Psych diagnosis and evidence of need to one where test scores for working memory and processing had to be in the bottom 14 % of the population. That was regardless of how much greater a challenge those scores would be for someone whose reasoning skills were in the top 10% of the population than someone whose reasoning scores were also in the bottom 14 % and therefore what you would expect. They therefore deprived a lot more students of the chance to achieve their potential 😡

Oh and we should send people who want to understand to Dr Google?

That cesspit of snake oil salesman and other claptrap? Of course there are good sources of information there but equally plenty of places where people can confirm their prejudices and ignorance or get sold a “cure”

Surely it is best that questions are asked and answered so ignorance and prejudice doesn’t grow. The more we are all aware, the more we can treat others with kindness and understanding.

I'm seeing people in their 60s and 70s being diagnosed. It's been around as long as humans but we don't lock the low functioning away anymore tied to radiators.

Personally I think the ratio between the NT and the ND to be nearly the same if diagnosis was more efficient. I see a lot of autistic kids and there is usually an undiagnosed parent who start to wonder about themselves.

There's nothing wrong with asking OP.

My dad and grandpa definitely have Autism but they were never diagnosed.

Also for those of us whose only knowledge of Austism growing up was Dustin Hoffman in Rainman, asking questions is really helpful.

I don't mind answering questions but there are some people (not anyone on this thread to be fair) who seem to think autistic people exist solely to provide life lessons to others or to serve as a warning to others - "ooh, don't vaccinate/TTC past 40/allow screens/let your kids eat processed food/ or else you'll end up with a child like that". The people who 'light it up blue' with an Autism Speaks border on their FB profile picture and post a meme about "tell your kid to be nice to the weird kid" then clap themselves on the back for being inclusive of autism people. I'm wording it badly. Answering questions is fine, sharing experiences is fine, trying to educate the willfully ignorant however is not my job.

Autism people = autistic people

The person with autism/autistic person is an interesting debate. I think the preferred option of a lot of autistic people is to be called autistic rather than a person with autism in the same way you’d call a Spanish person Spanish rather than a person with Spain and a Blind person Blind rather than a person with blindness. I put this to my two autistic teenagers. One felt strongly that they wanted to be referred to as ‘autistic’ the other said they couldn’t give a monkeys and people should ‘stop being so sensitive about everything’ So I’m no further on a definitive answer there but I err towards X is autistic rather than X has autism.

At the beginning of my teaching career, the law had just changed, and a college friend of mine got a Deputy Headship very young indeed because she was prepared to go into working with children who were newly considered to be under the ministry of Education's remit rather than Ministry of Health (old terms, I know). She worked alongside carers who had looked after their charges for years, on the understanding that below a certain intellectual capacity, they should be cared for rather than educated. Expectations change; some of those children would nowadays probably be integrated into mainstream schools with support.
It is certainly true that medical advances mean that more youngsters survive; I read an autobiography written by an old lady who remembered being told to be especially kind to the new baby, who was sickly and would not live long, which sadly came to pass; it was accepted as a tragic inevitability.
I can also look back to the beginning of a long teaching career to some of the more colourful characters I have encountered, and wonder if we all missed things which would be picked up.

I think that comment was the correction of a typo rather than a debating point. However, I'm not too fussed about terminology myself, although I would say I am autistic because having autism kind of implies it's an accessory that I whip out sometimes and 'on the spectrum' suggests I have been placed somewhere. Still, if you want to call me a person with autism who is on the spectrum it won't bother me in the slightest.

BlatentlyNameChanged The problem is that the internet and the media is where those people find their ideas. That it is still a fight to get the right support for your child and that along the way you still have to deal with other people coming out with them, including teachers and doctors is only because these ideas are not just held historically but are actively in circulation instead of the actual science.

When a friends dyspraxic child recently suffered a horrific injury just by tripping up in an uncordinated way the young talented Orthopaedic Consultant who performed really complex sophisticated computer designed surgery to fix it commented you would normally only get an injury like that if you were hit by a bus. When Dyspraxia was mentioned, he said. “I think that was mentioned in a lecture once”, and yet Dyspraxics and Dyslexics experience far more broken bones than neurotypical people. Ditto my DNs peers trained at a well known teacher training institution - one lecture. We can’t rely on society educating people on or off the internet so all we have left is highlighting our experiences and the excellent campaigning work of the charities that do reflect the reality (NOT Autism Speaks obviously).

@Emilyontmoor why not Autism Speaks? Is there an issue there? I haven't been in contact with them at any point. I'm very lucky in that our local Autism charity is brilliant and have been incredibly helpful.

Autism speaks is about trying to cure autism and generally has questionable approaches

My sister and I were undiagnosed as kids. As adults we have been diagnosed with autism and ADHD respectively. We both function as adults.

Definitely just under diagnosed in the past. I suspect actually a hell of a lot of people are Neurodiverse and we just haven't realised the extent of how many yet.

On another note I also have a question but feel nervous about asking so never have. When people say their asd child is non verbal, what exactly does this mean? Non verbal implies doesn't speak at all, but I also see the same people referring to things their child has said. Also what is the difference between non verbal and selective mutism, are they different or the same thing?

ThyNameIsDave As above. I am not fully involved in the argument but Autism Speaks is a big American charity that raises a lot of money, half of which is ploughed back into publicity, for awareness, but also of course their brand. Autistic friends feel their approach is damaging children by trying to make them conform to neurotypical norms whilst encouraging the parents to feel they are the victims in having a child with a “deficit”. The research they find is also directed by the in implicit assumption of deficit. Interestingly if you Google Autism Speaks the first link is an Autism Speaks denial and the following ones are are all critical pieces by the autistic community and disability campaigners.

Oh that’s interesting, I’ll do a bit of research into autism speaks, thanks for the heads up.
I think non verbal means can’t speak recognisable words but can make sounds. Selective mutism is when a child is fully capable of talking but chooses not to. A child might be an elective (elective or selective?) mute at school but speak freely at home.

No, it's just we weren't diagnosed. I was diagnosed at 51.

@Sallygoround631

When people talk fo a 'spectrum', do any of you think we are all on it?

I wonder what it means to be considered well adjusted.
reminds me of that Netflix series 'the OA' where the lead character says "to be well adjusted in a diseased society is not a true measure of health"
Or something similar.

Again, thank you for sharing your thoughts.

No we're not all on the spectrum. If we were, I'd fit right in.

Selective mutism is when a child is fully capable of talking but chooses not to.

It's not a choice. I speak fluently and can usually sound articulate but there have been many instances throughout my life where I simply could not talk. It was more common when I was a child but I'm in my 40s and still come up against situations that mute me. If I am overwhelmed, over stimulated and feeling under pressure to process and respond to something I simply shut down. I don't choose mutism, I cannot control it at all. I now have a card downloaded onto my phone which I can show people if I'm out and get into a situation I can't immediately manage.

I know that selective mutism is definitely not a choice as covidcloser says. I think the preferred term is now situational mutism?

@covidcloser, many apologies, I only based that on a child I knew many years ago. At school he didn't speak at all but once a member of staff rang his home to speak to his parent and the boy answered the phone (and stopped talking as soon as he realised it was his teacher)! So I thought it was a choice, I didn't realise it was impossible to speak at times I think the main difference is that someone with elective mutism can physically form and use words, whether they can in a particular situation is different. Someone who is non-verbal cannot form or use words at all. Is that a more accurate description?

Situational mutism is a much better description isn't it because 'elective' sounds like the person has a choice, which I now know they don't.