As a teacher to be surprised at how many in my class have SEN?

[Floatingcactus]

I teach a reception class of 26. 4 of them have an EHCP plan, 6 are waiting assessment and at least another 4 are showing possible signs of SEN including speech delay.

I’ve been teaching for 10 years and I personally believe there is an increase.
I don’t know if lockdown plays a part or whether it’s down to other factors.

Exactly this.

We can talk about inventions and specialist support but what’s the outcome. What intentions are we expecting? A lot is said about “closing the gap” but what does that mean? School focus is academics. Do we want children to pass qualifications or to enjoy learning and being engaged with little formal paperwork. I think for many parents it’s seen as failure if their bright but behaviourally challenged child doesn’t get qualifications in school but realistically it makes little odds to future outcomes. There are lots of opportunities to retake or just skip and do other qualifications post 16. Plenty of jobs with training schemes and foundation courses leading to degrees.
Surely the social aspect is most important. Happy, engaged children going on to successful lives.

Theres no magic to good teaching, a good one will impart knowledge to SEN child as easily as a typical child. Size of class, speed of teaching and environment are much bigger factors than lots of very specialist input that takes months of time, money and effort to organise.

In my experience so many of my generation went undiagnosed and we are now having children who obviously have SEN to as it is mostly hereditary. Add that to more understanding about SEN and of course you are going to see an increase in the amount of children with SEN.

You’re right, the school needing to have spent £6k or £10k or any other amount before a pupil is eligible for an EHCP is not the law. It is a myth that that is required and shouldn’t be perpetuated. LAs often act unlawfully, but it is just that, unlawful and should be challenged.

I’ve been wondering this. Obviously when I was at school there was certainly less awareness ie diagnosed kids but I can also say you knew the kids that struggled. There were not that many. But now it seems a lot more “common” and I’m curious as to why.

i mean - sure absolutely covid would have meant children that who should have earlier interventions in normal times are being picked up later and that I get. And if that’s purely the case then surely numbers should level off and return to pre covid norms.

but Overall in the last 10 years or so are numbers starting to climb more and more than the decade before? And if so is parenting/technology the reason? And will they continue to climb into the next decade for children born post covid as tech becomes even more insidious.

It’s the nature v nature argument - if it’s nature then sure more awareness/better diagnosis etc naturally would have absolutely led to a increase in Numbers of diagnosed SEN but if those numbers continue to rise year on year then there is absolutely something else going on and contributing to that so then you have to start wondering about the environmental effects - the nurture - and wonder what has significantly changed

In what way?

In my LA the ideal route for sen that isn't worthy of a ehcp at reception but with needs that disrupt is mainstream > expulsion > pru > out of school and all education. My LA is absolutely broke. They destroy kids lives with SEN. They absolutely do not dish out ehcps to 'snowflake parents' who think their child deserves more. The LA dont guve a Fbomb about kids with sen. They rather they saw a child doing county lines than get a ehcp I'm sure. They have hundreds if not thousands of kids out of education with sen.

So thats a no then.

You are entitled to an opinion. But if that opinion has no basis in fact and is ignorant and misleading then be prepared to be called out on it.

The bar for diagnosis has not been lowered. You have no idea what you are talking about.

I’m an Educational Psychologist and a big portion of my work is working with Early Years children. Yes, there is a general increase in SEN which can be explained through factors such as earlier identification, more babies surviving, less early input/support.

However, there is an astronomical increase in children with very clear, very complex needs. Completely non-verbal at entry to reception, for example. We’ve always struggled for specialist places in our LA (we ask the government for funding to expand, they say no), but now it’s insane, we’ve got move specialist spaces than we did have but we could fill them 10x over - and these kids aren’t ’borderline’, they have very clear and very complex needs. I have this horrible feeling that one day we’re going to find out that something in our modern life affects the growth of the foetus, some common medication or chemical in a shampoo or food or even high stress, and we have no way of knowing as any research on possible causationsl for ASD are controversial, never mind when you include pregnant women. No one is doing this research.

And I agree that parenting has a big impact - and it’s something that is controversial to say. Parents who access MN are unlikely to be the parents that struggle to such an extent that it impacts their children’s development but it’s huge. I saw a 4 year old this week who probably has ASD, but the biggest difficulty was around use of very violent language and behaviours and it became very clear that he is accessing ‘horror’ cartoons on his iPad at home and copying the language. Similarly, I saw a 9 year old, and I asked the mum what the child was interested in and she said ‘I don’t know, she just goes in her room’. I see kids who don’t leave the house for the entire holiday, that have absolutely no bed time routine and children in primary going to bed later than their parents, having been on the PlayStation. If I ask a parent what their child enjoys and all they can come up with is ‘iPad’, it’s a problem in my opinion. I can tell myself the impact that social media has had on my attention skills, never mind that of a child. The underlying need will already be there but I do think parenting and technology, in some situations, makes it worse.

Older parental age was suggested- People have children far older than they once did.

There are a few studies out there about it. It's harder to parent without screens, but if my kids were young today, I wouldn't take the risk. I was born in the 60s so no screens and I still am ND and so is my sister. I had my kids in the 80s so still no screens. Neither of them are ND but my DS has slight lingering issues from a traumatic brain injury.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7920949/

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35099540/

This.

I wasn't diagnosed as a child, I met DH (he is still undiagnosed but almost certainly autistic too) and we had children. The children are autistic.

I think now my behaviour in school would be treated much differently to how it was in the 90s. I'm still quite angry that I struggled so much yet instead of asking why that was I was simply punished repeatedly and branded the bad kid.

This is a really interesting thread and echoes what my friend who teaches reception has said about this year’s cohort. I think covid had a huge impact. Not just because of the nursery/pre school closures but because normal services were suspended.

DTS is 5, he has disordered speech. His speech therapist thinks this is down to him having mislearnt sounds due to hearing loss from glue ear as a baby/toddler. His audiology appointments were frequently delayed or cancelled because of Covid, as were his ENT appointments to discuss having grommets fitted. His speech is coming on leaps and bounds now but had he had hearing aids or grommets from 2 I think most of his problems would have been avoided. The fact D.S has had any help has been because I have been incredibly sharp elbowed and probably annoyed lots of people into letting me have appointments.

I think parenting has had its own impact but it is unfair to blame this huge upsurge in additional needs on ‘lazy parenting’ or screens. Many parents were suddenly expected to do their paid jobs without adequate provision for their children. Other parents needed to support several children at once with home schooling. Many parents were unwell themselves, either with Covid or with poor mental health in some way due to Covid. People were caring for poorly relatives. Of course many of our children had more screen time than we would like or was good for them. I don’t think we should be shaming parents but instead working out how we can support this generation of lost DC.

Prove it hasn’t 🤷🏼‍♀️

Most of your posts are disablist though.

You think NT people who have a few quirks are getting diagnosis and ehcps thrown out like candy. Just because you have a disability doesn't mean you can't also be disablist.

You even replied to my post which was saying that adhd had a significant impact on every part of my life, you replied saying that NT people have their own problems too.

Tell me, what would you feel if you described your physical disability and someone said "well, i sometimes get a sore ankle so your disability must just be over diagnosed. They've lowered the bar for diagnosis, now everyone's just saying they've got it too."

That would be stupid, wouldn't it? But that's what you've said to me.

This is also true. Having children at an older age, especially if the father is older.
So likely a combination of things.

Autism and screen exposure in infant boys

ASD and screen exposure may be linked, for boys especially

Many parents were suddenly expected to do their paid jobs without adequate provision for their children. Other parents needed to support several children at once with home schooling. Many parents were unwell themselves, either with Covid or with poor mental health in some way due to Covid. People were caring for poorly relatives. Of course many of our children had more screen time than we would like or was good for them

Yep! We couldn't possibly have expected anything else given the combination of pandemic and lockdown we went through, either.

Speech issues can be a developmental language disorder(DLD) .

It is 7 times more common than autism. Its a neurological disorder and absolutely nothing to do with parenting. If anyone judges you its simply a reflection of their own ignorance.

A child with ASC/ADHD who is supported well will present with less challenging behaviour and will make more progress in areas like communication and social skills they same a NT children.
Often children with SEN are less resilient to trauma and seem over represented in communities such as refugees. The likelihood is without the additional trauma many may have flown under the radar and been able to cope with mainstream education with just the minor adjustments that teachers do anyway.

@IncessantNameChanger
is your LA in the south west, perchance? Or are there more corrupt and reprehensible authorities across the country?

The more they push targets, the more they take flexibility out of the curriculum, the more nurseries are underfunded to spot things, the more special school provision disappears, the more people push their child through mainstream anyway. It all changes so non round pegs are being put through an identikit approach.

I know it's unlawful but it's still most LA rough benchmark. Can not meet needs within the schools budget. I'm just saying this is how LAs commonly work so commonly this is how hard it is to get a ehcp. Breaking the law is almost policy in my la to prevent spending.

LAs break every single law in the children and family's act, they break safeguarding laws to Actively avoid forfilling ehcps. i have local government ombudsman rulings confirming they have broken the law.

I'm wondering where I can live where I just ask unwarranted for a ehcp and get one?

I can’t be arsed looking it up but this post has just made wonder. - what are the SEN numbers for somewhere like Finland where the school system is a heck of a lot of different.

Interesting. However, in my situation DS
had more screen time because it was the only way to get him to relax, have down time. He was autistic either way, but he definitely relied on screens when he was younger to regulate himself.