To wonder where the inclusion/equality is for people with learning disabilities?

[AmericasfavoritefightingFrenchman]

Or if you prefer, people with academic disabilities.

For full disclosure I have a secondary-aged DC who was initially diagnosed with global developmental delay. This was upgraded to ‘academic/learning disability’ when DC failed to catch up by the age of 5.

Mainstream school isn’t equipped to support inclusion for DC who can’t more or less keep up with the curriculum at the pace of the rest.

Specialist placements mean mixing only with other families of DC with learning disabilities.

Hobbies and clubs are difficult unless specially for DC with learning disabilities so again no mixing outside of that limited circle.

Support groups are usually targeted at Downs Syndrome or ASD etc so no welcome there.

Those with physical disabilities eg wheelchair users, those with CP, those who are Deaf regularly make a point like this: ‘I’m in a wheelchair/Deaf/etc, I don’t have a learning disability, so don’t talk to me as if I were stupid.’ All very well but where is the solidarity for DC like mine? Is it ok to talk to them as if they’re stupid because they do have a learning disability?

Even those with ASD, who make up a sizeable proportion of my DC’s peers at the specialist placement, are keen to point out that it’s any learning disability, not ASD, that is really disabling, again taking care to distance themselves from any solidarity with those like my DC.

AIBU to wonder what is left for us?

That’s fantastic for your son @mummyof2boys30. Any tips on how to actually get through the door? I mean, yes I suppose I could pay privately for 1:1 lessons but I can’t actually afford that and it may need to be two or three to one.

I don't think we've broached the subject of entitlements such as PIP/DLA/Carers Allowance (apologies, I might be out of date on some of the terminology now, DS2 is 29 & receives PIP & ESA). I found these really useful for funding activities for him.

When he was younger, I did also set up clubs which he was then able to enjoy with others. Two long-running ones were trampolining and a computer club. DS2 quickly lost interest in the computer club - I suspect he may also have undiagnosed ADHD, but others loved it.

My son asked to try it so that probably helped. When he first started two people ran around with him, holding him on and a lead. He was in a class of 4/5 others on lead reign. He had 1 with him for about 6 months before he went off lead on his own

Thanks for your answers guys. I imagine it really helped that your son was keen. I’m glad it’s working out for you.

Honestly I’m really stumped that I started a thread to vent about the way folk with learning disabilities are constantly excluded, even by the rest of the disability community, and just got a bunch of people insisting to me that horse riding is the answer- at disability-specific sessions no less.

Even after I came back to say that these wonderfully inclusive super stellar horse riding volunteers had failed at the basic initial courtesy of setting up an automatic email response, I’m still hearing that it’s the answer. It makes no sense.

I mentioned earlier that we’ve recently been encouraged to explore whether a co-morbid autism diagnosis would better describe DC and to at least request an assessment. Doing some reading over the weekend about advancement in assessing “non-typical” cases, which we certainly would be, and a theme keeps coming up In quotes from some of the parents involved:

“They told us DC was retarded … (yes that’s a direct quote, I hate the word passionately but I think it’s helpful to know that it was printed that way) … they told us DC was retarded but it turns out it was autism all along!” “I knew DC was actually really clever at some things, the LD label made no sense.”

Many similar examples but that is the most direct. Can you hear it? The disgust that the paeds would think their family member ‘retarded’, the indignation at the mis-labelling, the vindication and relief, because of course autism is a valid option, a real person, whereas someone who is ‘retarded’ is just wasting air apparently Imagine the indignity of someone mistakenly thinking you were like my beautiful, generous, sensitive, empathetic daughter. How very could they suggest such a dreadful thing.

Yes retarded just means delayed not necessarily incapable although that is no longer a medical term iq below 70 is still considered basically unreachable. Sorry op. Maybe getting her a diagnosis of autism as well might enable her to access support she needs to develop further? You are right that the label of ld or very low iq means schools will ocus therapy where they think they can quantify results for funding, the purpose is questionable.

What the hell do you mean ‘unreachable’?

Unteachable I mean, labelled as by the diagnosis and so ignored.

Bit rude!!

Well it’s also a bit rude, and untrue in fact, to call my daughter ‘basically unteachable’. So I guess we’re even?

"Unteachable" sounds both rude and also wrong.

I mean, of course everyone has their limits in a very narrow academic sense - I suspect I would be "unteachable" in a particle physics PhD, surrounded as I would be by people who would be extremely gifted in that arena. Doesn't mean that I can't connect with something more accessible in that arena pitched at my level though.

And moving away from academics only, most things that one learns are not actually like that (ie people have to learn specifies things on a standard timetable so that the whole group can move together and/or be assessed in a standard way). Many of the things we learn are collections of experiences, that we have managed to decode, so that we can do them even if they are not exactly the same next time and some things are unlocked by having layers of experience. This is absolutely not the same, but I honestly believed as a teenager that I was Unteachable at driving; after 6 years away I passed first time at the next attempt, because spending 6 years as a cyclist had unlocked a fluency as a road user that meant that things were somehow no longer as hard as they were. I can't believe that someone with LD's has no means of making connections, creating new pathways and decoding experiences, even if their route looks different and might be at a different level to others.

Yes, that is what I was saying if you read it. Defending you about the labels put on your child. I won't bother anymore.