To politely ask that SEN is not suggested as a ‘cause’ for every behaviour on here?

[Cuppasoupmonster]

Because it’s panicking mums unnecessarily? I don’t mean where there are multiple ‘symptoms’ or clearly something very atypical. But chatting a lot, not studying for GCSEs hard enough, only having one or two close friends - SEN has been suggested as a reason for all of these lately, without any other pointers or red flags.

There is yet another thread this evening by a mum with a young baby panicking the baby has autism because she demonstrates some very normal baby-like behaviour. I was the same with DD and I really regret the time I wasted worrying rather than just enjoying her, but then everything she did seemed to be a ‘SEN indicator’ on here and I was an anxious first time mum.

AIBU to just ask people to think a bit more carefully before suggesting it, and consider whether it’s really proportionate?

I’ve worded this as sensitively as I can and I hope it will be received as such…

I’m in my 30s and this really isn’t my recollection. I’m not trying to be awkward. Of course everyone was different, in the way people should be. But I can only think of one person who i think was different to the point of a clear disability.

What may help you is seeing another angle- rather than an increase in labels mindset consider how people are being disabled by society or the school system. This can cause a rise in identifying needs.

SEN means the child has a special educational need. This means they need support beyond what the curriculum offers, in simple terms, in order to make typical progress or achieve their expected outcomes.

The curriculum in our schools has narrowed in many many ways and is therefore impacting more children. Some of these children previously did access the curriculum, so made progress.

Ten years ago we had more adults in teh classroom, now the average primary class has no TA. This will impact those that require prompts or learning support.

We used mixed methods to teach, now we tend to drill synthetic phonics for all. We had older teachers who were more likely to be experienced managing the classroom, more budget for training teachers once in role. The curriculum was more skills based, it’s moved towards memorisation and facts under Gove. A huge thing is the change of expectations- we are putting pens in the hands of reception children and expecting sentences for example. This would be laughable for most children 15 years ago. This impacts children is so many ways, sometimes emotionally, sometimes it simply excludes them. Other issue is the loss of alternative training or qualifications at high school level for pupils not following traditional routes.

Many people have needs because they are disabled by society, not before of an innate deficiency. If content isn’t accessible for many like in our curriculum, more people are disabled. If a building isn’t accessible more people are disabled by it. If a recruitment process is accessible more people are disabled, if a website, culture etc is narrowed …. Then people are disabled by it. Online learning or recruitment is an example of this.

I’m not saying people wouldn’t be disabled without these changes, but I am saying the formal identification of children on SEN registers has exploded in response to budget cuts and the new curriculum. An academic autistic child for example is far more likely to need formalised support in class in response to expectations and the lack of adequate pastoral provision. A child with immature motor skills is now going to fail to meet expectations in the early years, whereas in play based learning they’d have had the natural opportunity to develop skills whilst playing in sand and using craft etc. Their speech had more opportunity to develop in play based learning, rather than during formal sit down and listen learning at desks. Some of them barely have a conversation or use correct posture in a whole day of year one. Sit, listen, skimp,
fail… go home. It’s not a good start and it certainly doesn’t provide any protection against future health and well-being needs.

@Cuppasoupmonster Diagnosis (especially for girls) has increased because like anything in life, as time goes on we understand things better.

So for example, early years practitioners and teachers are better informed and able to raise concerns more than they could 10 years ago, 20 years ago.

Parents themselves now also have access to a wealth of information online and are able to read around things and get the ball rolling themselves.

Nobody ever raised concerns about my own DD, she is academic, has friends and masks well at school. But at home it's a different story and after doing my research I became pretty confident she was on the spectrum. And guess what, I was right. In the past, before the Internet or when it was in its infancy I don't think I would have had a clue.

Yes I completely agree with this. We are more aware now, the condition is much better understood. I can think of many people from school who undoubtedly were spectrum disordered but it wasn't a "thing" then. I am approaching 54. My own ex-husbands school reports made pitiful reading. He was clearly a child in need of diagnosis, support and nurturing. He never got it though because again it wasn't a thing. It wasn't until our own child was diagnosed that the penny dropped. His own father has been diagnosed in his 70's 🤷🏻‍♀️

I also note a pattern with older parents. That's not to say that all older parents have ND children, but there is definitely a higher proportion. I am one of them. My eldest child who is in her mid twenties is NT.

Further, autism/ADHD is genetic. So there will be many undiagnosed people having children not realising that they are passing that on. Again, this relates to my own experience. I've got one friend who has five children, all with varying severity of conditions. It is blindingly obvious that she is also on the spectrum but she remains undiagnosed but she is a truly exceptional parent in terms of her fight for support for her children. However, from a personal perspective, had I had my DS first, I am fairly certain I would have stopped there. He is wonderful but the last decade of my life has been exceptionally difficult as a single parent caring for a ND child.

I am glad that there is more awareness, it is better understood, that our children can get the support they need. There is nothing negative about that at all.

I would suggest you do some research into legal definitions of SEN rather that simply relying on your own view. Under the Children and Families Act 2014:

(1) A child or young person has special educational needs if he or she has a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for him or her.

(2) A child of compulsory school age or a young person has a learning difficulty or disability if he or she—

(a) has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age, or

(b) has a disability which prevents or hinders him or her from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools or mainstream post-16 institutions.

(3) A child under compulsory school age has a learning difficulty or disability if he or she is likely to be within subsection (2) when of compulsory school age (or would be likely, if no special educational provision were made).

Your suggestion that every child with a disability must require everything in your list is manifestly incorrect.

@DoggyDwelling Do not quote from other threads, you might get deleted. And then you are silenced.

I have a child with autism and recognise OPs name from some posts about ND. Some people are not worth your time, they’ll stay ignorant and think they know more than professionals. My child’s assessment involved so many medical professionals and they do a great job. One of them had been diagnosing autism for decades. And OP seems to think she knows more. Just laugh at her and others like it.

I’m pleased your daughter is getting more help and is happier now. That’s why we go through these stressful, very thorough assessments and not be put off by the ignorant.

AHH I see, thanks for explaining that.

To be honest I probably wouldn't have asked for an assessment. I just thought he was a bit of a live wire, the fidgety kid. 🤣

The Dyslexia is what we were working on/concentrating on. The ADHD apparently though is not uncommon to have alongside it. Which I didn't know.

I've not even told DS he has ADHD 😳 kid would use it as an excuse for everything lol I just accept a lifetime of high alertness and always watching.

Concentration wise he's ok, if he's engaged in a activity and likes it he will participate, it's the danger/ lack of risk assessment we fall foul on. Climbing everything, running into roads, and once setting fires because he found a lighter on the street and pocketed it and I didn't see, so he melted a hole in the carpet in the house 😳 🤦🏻‍♀️

The prevalence of autism hasn't changed, just the formal diagnosis rate You hear a lot about people being diagnosed now as the system is finally catching up with all those it missed. In my family alone there have been 5 diagnosis in the last 10 years and nothing prior to that. Why? Because those 5 cases are across multiple generations. People who've struggled for 30, 40, 50+ years are finally getting the answers to questions they never knew to ask.

I really would urge parents who are withholding a diagnosis from children to think twice. I mean either if you're child has a diagnosis and you've decided not to tell them, or if you think they likely could merit one but you prefer to focus on behaviour rather than labels. For those of us who have reached adulthood in this sort of situation, by this point it may have caused untold pain. Because while you may feel you are successfully managing our external behaviour or what people think about us, please remember that we have to manage our internal world and how we perceive ourselves. The explanations we have to create for our difference may not be positive or accurate, and the pressure we put ourselves under to meet other people's needs assuming we "should" be able to do so can be extremely harmful. Please please please think twice.

*your

My niece is very clearly undiagnosed ASD and her parents are fighting an assessment. She’s 7 but has never said a single word to any of her classmates as she has selective mutism. She’s never played with toys, ever - her parents tell us not to buy her Christmas presents etc because she won’t use them, just send money for her savings. I’ve rarely seen her smile; her face is kind of blank and devoid of emotion a lot of the time. She also has what are clearly sensory meltdowns regularly, becoming aggressive over something she can’t really describe. The excuses have been ‘she’s a girl and girls are shy’, ‘she didn’t go to nursery’, ‘covid lockdowns’, and now ‘she’s just introverted, not everyone needs friends’.

We’ve gently suggested they follow her teacher’s pleas to have her assessed, but they won’t.

Please don’t think I ‘don’t believe in SEN’, I’m literally talking about isolated normal behaviours such as ‘my baby likes to wave its arms around’.

Yes. This is one of the main reasons I pursued a diagnosis for DD. I wanted her to be able to understand herself as she got older and not feel like a failure if she struggled with certain things in life. I wanted her to be able to make allowances for herself and be able to put strategies in place to deal with life's pressures. I want her to be kind to herself.

I will tell him, when he's old enough to actually grasp it and what it means.

But my child is a clever fucker, and he will use it at aged 8 to literally try and get away with murder 🤣 it would become the go to excuse for everything. He would deliberately misbehave and say "well it's my ADHD mam"

I'll probably tell him more about it at 11+. He's got enough right now with grasping the effects of severe dyslexia. He doesn't need more on his plate.

He's not medicated either so there is nothing day to day that signals to him he had a "condition". We struggle more with the hyperactivity than the attention deficit also, so again schooling wise it's not a massive issue for anyone.

@Cuppasoupmonster your niece doesn't necessarily have autism. Selective mutism is a condition in itself and blank expression is often found. It could be caused by an anxiety disorder, or trauma, and it can be comorbid with sensory processing disorder, a developmental delay, or autism.

I completely agree that her parents should be seeking help but I find it fascinating that you're automatically jumping to "clearly undiagnosed ASD" when you think it's over diagnosed and people are made to worry about it unnecessarily!

How offensive!

Agree with this entirely.

Half the benefit of a diagnosis is the positive impact on self-esteem - because if you don't understand why you struggle with something, you instead conclude you are lazy, or stupid, or unlikeable.

I understand what you’re saying, OP, and I’ve gone back and forth on this even with diagnosed ADHD in my family. Is it overdiagnosis, an unexplained epidemic, or are we finally recognising the massive amounts of neurodiversity there is?

I’m falling more on the latter camp these days. If neurotypical is the “mean”, let’s say, then of course most people would show some variation. Of course you have to decide what level of variation you recognise before giving a diagnosis of neurodiversity, but I think the more we realise that vast, vast swathes of the population have some level of it, the less extreme and disastrous it is, like a child needing glasses or wrist/ankle supports.

I saw a thread a while ago where a mum with a toddler was describing some fairly clear ADHD behaviour, and although the child seemed to be mostly healthy and happy, she was devastated at the thought of that diagnosis. Why? It’s how the child feels that matters, not the label we put on them.

If I’d had my ADHD diagnosis forty years ago, I wouldn’t have needed different medical or psychological treatment, but understanding my brain and functions worked differently would have reduced my suffering at school, university and work massively and changed how I felt about and functioned in relationships hugely too. It doesn’t have to be expensive intervention, just understanding tools and systems for those neurodiversities that just require a little support and lateral thinking.

What do you think?

Plus it's rather offensive to autistic people when a kid's naughty or a man is abusive/bloody useless to attribute that to autism as though we're all incompetent arseholes.

I am absolutely mind blown quite honestly. I do hope OP doesn't share her views with her family. Utterly bizarre. Also offensive at this point.

It was the teachers and SENCO who said autism, I’m just assuming they’re correct…

I have been reading OPs previous posts on other threads about this topic. There’s a lot! Offensive really doesn’t cover it. She doesn’t have a clue and is chatting total shite. Interestingly, she often seems to team up with another poster on this topic. 🤔

I would urge anyone to see their GP/Health visitor/school SENCo team if they have concerns about their child’s development/behaviours or the GP if you’re an adult. They will provide reassurance/referral as appropriate. The diagnosis process is thorough, if you don’t meet the criteria, you won’t be diagnosed.

Can I just point out that ND is NOT just autism and ADHD. I am ND I am dyslexic. Many children are missed with dyslexia due to people like you who thinks stuff is "just normal behaviour ".
It is far better to have A day or two of being concerned your child may not be NT and then do the research apply critical thinking and decide against. Than it is yo have people like yoh proclaim something is " nor al behaviour" when for them that behaviour actually is a sign of a ND.

Again as I said earlier. Far better to have concerns raised to find they are wrong. Than to miss 1 person out for their diagnosis.

I support 2 of my daughters with bad dyslexia and it had long lasting effects in their lives. I'm still so ANGRY with the senco who pushed her agenda and wouldn't support the dyslexia suggestions. Thank heavens for my.lovely MIL who paid the £££ for the private assessment. Many could not afford that.

It is attitudes like yours op that allows children to slip through the net.

Yesterday I watched my AMAZING dyslex daughter walk across the stage to receive her BSc in psychology.. she did it with her dyslexia she still has days she thinks she is stupid.. the late diagnosis attitudes like yours give will affect her for the rest of her life.

You honestly think a day/ weeks worth of anxiety for 1 mum is worth more than a life time if anxiety for those who were missed? I don't and I find attitudes like that upsetting. What you need to be talking about is education and critical thinking. What to 1 is "just a quirk " for others is a sign thst together with other issues shows a full picture. This is what you miss.

No, you wrote your niece has very clearly undiagnosed ASD, thats very different to school have said it. Also, any SENCo or teacher that says a child has undiagnosed ASD needs sacking. They know about as much as you by the sound of it. Or maybe it’s all bullshit because it makes no sense. SENCo may mention things that are a possibility but should never say a child very clearly undiagnosed ASD because they are not qualified.

The irony that you’re against others assuming but you’re saying you’re assuming. 😂

What a load of shit. We can see you.