To be angry at the ableism here on MN

[QuitChewingMyPlectrum]

I don't see any threads saying cancer is over diagnosed. Or used as an excuse for something.
More and more ableism is showing up here targeting the ADHD and autistic community and I'm pig sick of it.
Overdiagnosis conversations involving those who have no lived experience (your kids don't count, sorry) suck.
You have ZERO idea what it's like to be us.
And you say WE lack empathy.

But by the time they aplogised the damage is already done

Just found a brilliant article, by the NHS consultant on the BBC Panorama programme.

He elegantly outlines a number of the issues discussed on this thread.

well worth a read.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/17/nhs-psychiatrist-adhd-underdiagnosis

The children who did that 50 years ago would probably not have been in mainstream school - rightly or wrongly.

I don't know, maybe it's something to do with shutting down most special educational facilities and expecting everyone to cope in mainstream while providing no teacher training on it?

Maybe it's something to do with adults with ASD and ADHD being accepted in a more humane society as they are and then going on to have children themselves rather than being shut away in an asylum or otherwise excluded from society and dying at a young age?

What do you suggest - eugenics?

There is a huge difference between a cancer sufferer and someone who thinks they are autistic because they prefer their own company, or have ADHD because they work better under pressure.

Why would you seek to make such a stupid comparison anyway?

MN Thread about Ableism Generates Ableist Comments SHOCKER

When I was a child, 50 years ago, children simply did not punch, hit or spit at adults. They just didn't. I've no doubt some stuggled with ADD, ADHD - attention span/being overly boisterous.

As my SIL (from East Asia) says, half the world beats those behaviours out of children!

See the other thread about a woman, shocked that her in laws as teachers, caned children! Many posters recalled the use of the cane, slipper or strap on children in schools 50 years ago!

Also, iirc children with LD and probably obvious autism, etc in those days were kept at home, because they had no right to education until 1985!

YANBU.

It's disgusting and so frustrating.

I meant classic autism!

Yeah, obviously, eugenics is my answer.

I'm sure the closure of specialist settings is one of those chicken and egg situations. Parents demanding their children with SEN be afforded a mainstream education and rejecting the specialist setting. Now, the reality of attempting to teach children with SEN (particularly severe SEN) in a mainstream setting is not tenable but there are no longer the required number of specialist placements for parents who are not wedded to the mainstream education (designed for NT children) and accept their ND children require a different form of education to meet their particular needs. To me that's much better than attempting to shoehorn ND children into an environment pretty much designed to upset them (and the NT children around them).

But, yeah, eugenics.

Because the OP mentions it in the opening post.

Nowadays any form of bad behaviour is put down to ADHD.

If you're not a social butterfly or find it difficult to make friends, there's a push for an autism diagnosis.

Of course there are people with autism and other learning difficulties. But I absolutely do believe - along with many other medical professionals - that these things are overdiagnosed.

Nobody gets a diagnosed because they have one of those symptoms ffs. Autism assessment is grueling and they go right back to when you were a child. They speak to a parent if possible, and another person very close to you like your partner. You are assessed for hours.
There is a triad of impairment to meet. If you don't meet it, you don't get diagnosed.

Dont disregard that a huge number of children with what we would now know as SEN were either at specialist schools or residential settings and often never saw the light of day. You and your friends wouldnt have come into contact with children with those needs, or that level of need anyway

I have AuDHD.

I'm beginning to think neurodiversity, especially in women, is perhaps far more common than we, as a society, realised.
Many people are realising that their quirks are actually neurological/developmental differences. Mostly these aren't enough to stop people leading productive lives, but quite often there are significant deficits that are fairly invisible to an outsider but that nonetheless can be debilitating enough to blight a life.

I think it's fair that people like me get to understand why they are struggling.

@AutismProf do you assess adults as well as children? Only an adult acquaintance of mine (in UK) was recently diagnosed with ASD and all they've mentioned was a very long questionnaire, part of which their friend had to fill in (in the absence of parents). I've wanted to understand the process, yet am not able to discuss it with them really.

Not all assessors meet with the child for hours and not all assessors adhere to the triad. I posted earlier in the thread to say that as we access lots of different providers and assessors we see how varied it is.

Its not wrong or right but its misleading to state as fact that there is only one way the assessments take place.

Surely nobody is getting a diagnosis because they 'don't like noise' for example?
I don't believe that any teams are giving diagnosis out to anyone based on a few random symptoms.

Perhaps show us the peer reviewed evidence from a GB context?

Having been through two assessments with different family members, due regard and weight was applied to the question of trauma on both occasions, and co-morbidities identified. Lots of people have both. The experience of trauma in life is very common.

For my sister who was diagnosed as an adult, she went via the GP, the assessor contacted my parents and me.

What help that would have given her talking to my parents I do not know, my parents have zero insight into their parenting and the trauma we as children exprienced. Im not sure my sister also understands or recognises it either but the assessor certainly was thorough enough to speak to the whole family. My sister had 2 sessions with the assessor and that was nearly 25 years ago.

I dont know what it looks like now and I would be interested to know for adults because I strongly suspect my partner is on the spectrum and as ADHD, living with him I can tell and he scores highly on the screening tools.

Im not sure I said that anywhere?

Or even implied it?

That happens all the time and it's often insulting. It was even on the Letby threads.

My post that you commented on was in response to a pp who said that. I responded to her saying that nobody is giving out diagnosis based on a singular symptom.

@AuDHD4Me

While I DO agree with you and support you... I feel you have to be careful not to gatekeep 'suffering'. To say in your first post that people don't understand, even if they have kids that suffer from this, is a little unfair. It may not be first-hand experience, but the trauma is real. I see it like depression, which my wife has... yes, she suffers, but I suffer with her. I not only live her pain, but also my own as a result of her depression, anger, and the constant slog to be happy, trying to make her happy, and not to be dragged down too.

He spoke of doctors who claim parents come into their office begging for an adhd diagnosis for their child in order to get them medicated, and the pressure these doctors are under to conform to those pressures. He spoke of some schools too who push for a diagnosis of their ‘difficult’ students in order to obtain funding.

Bollocks.

We knew there was something wrong with DS1 when he was 1 year old. He finally got a diagnosis of ASD at 31. You only have to look at him to see he is Autistic.

DS2 was dx with ADHD as a 7yo back in the 90s. Had he not been medicated he would probably have ended up as a young offender. He now works with such people and has been shocked how many of them did not have a dx of ADHD but should have done.

I was dx with ADHD in my 50s and DH with Autism at almost 60, so it isn't really surprising that half of our DC are similarly affected. After 30 years of arguing with Know-Alls who decide that ADHD is made up or down to bad parenting I'm not impressed at the wave of celebrities who are suddenly being diagnosed.

So tell us who in the UK make autism diagnoses without using the criteria set out in either DSM 5 or ICD 10/11?