More SEN, better diagnosis, lack of funding or a combination?

[genuinequestion235]

Genuine question:

I read a lot of threads on here relating to poor provisions and support for children with SEN. When I was a child I don't remember many children with SEN (3 spring to mind in my school of 200!)

So do people think more children have SEN needs? Or are we simply better at diagnosing?

I’m only early 30’s and we had the naughty children including me. Highly likely undiagnosed, me personally I was bored in lessons because work was easy.

I think medical advances mean children who were never meant to survive are and that has added to the rise, older parents again increase the Risk. Also now there seems to be a lot of well Danny can’t do that because he has Sen. Rather than Danny just doing what he can and that’s cool that’s Danny now it’s a big deal.

we also now we have a generation of parents making excuses for all poor behaviour because Sen rather than trying at all to even make their child’s life easier while at the same time recognising Sen. So yes Ben shouldn’t hit but he finds it harder because Sen and his parents try and help and teach; now it’s well Ben has Sen he doesn’t no better tough shit don’t be ableist against my child he can’t help it suck it up.

It's not just survival, though - with the advent of proper knowledge of conditions like autism and ADHD, those people are no longer considered socially unacceptable and kept out of sight...we have much more in terms of opportunity to have a real, meaningful life...meaning we also have a much higher chance of reproducing.

We also tend to flock together, unintentionally ending up with other ND people (I did, and neither of us were diagnosed), which then massively increases the chance that our offspring will also be ND.

Compassionate and understanding post🙄

I think since 2010 funding and support has been slashed by the tories.
Before that schemes like SureStart were solving /helping before children went to school . Now we have an incredibly poor early years support which means schools resources are being eaten up trying to get EHCPs etc for kids whose needs previously would have been highlighted.
Weve had 24 years of incompetence , poorer nhs support and this is the result.

Other thing is the change in settings children are placed in, and push for mainstreaming. More children with SEN in mainstream means the level of need of the average kid at a special school will be higher. More children receiving education instead of being warehoused means a higher average level of need. More children being able to be supported outside a hospital means a higher average level of need. Every setting ends up with children with a higher average level of need.

It's like the fact that lots of people who would've been under mental health services back in the 90s are now dealt with entirely by primary care thanks to cuts and "recovery model" appropriation bullshit. Services that have been set up to provide talking therapies for mild to moderate short term depression and anxiety are trying to help people who would've been seen by the Community Mental Health Team in the past. The average CMHT patient is more unwell than the average CMHT patient back then. There are far fewer hospital beds, and the CMHT needs to focus its straitened resources on patients who would've been in hospital 30 years ago. The wards are full of only the sickest patients, some of whom would've probably been on PICU in the past. And so on.

There’s loads of possible reasons but I expect it’s a combination:
-neurodiversity is genetic. More able adults with adhd/ autism (diagnosised or not) are likely to have children who are also neurodiverse and may have higher support needs than their parents. Does modern society mean neurodiverse people are more likely to meet and have children? For example two autistic people might meet at their tech or research job or online?
-A lack of early intervention meaning due to education/ health cuts mean needs may stay higher for longer?
-young children/ their parents spending a lot of time on screens. While this certainly can’t cause autism it may mean those with lower support needs are getting less social interaction practise at a young age meaning their needs stay higher for longer. At the moment we’re seeing lockdown toddlers and babies in nursery/ key stage and this impact may be higher than in other years.
-more children with health needs and low birth weights surviving due to advances in medical care. They are more likely to end up with additional diagnosis's later down the line.
-Enviomental factors eg ultra processed food, pollutants. We don’t know the impact of these but we may find at a later date this has an impact.
-People having children at a later age. Older mums are linked to chromosomal differences eg Down’s syndrome and older dads are linked to autism.

It’s better diagnosis. I have been diagnosed in my 50s with ADHD and ASC. My children have been diagnosed in their late teens( still too late). 1 has an EHCP, all have awareness and that will ensure that what happened to me doesn’t happen to them. Children going through primary now will face an even better awareness of diagnosis than my dc so hopefully they won’t have to go through the awful undiagnosed seriously struggling teen stage my children have had.

Why is this continuously questioned on MN?

More diagnosis
More children surviving early birth
Lower funding for schools
Fewer special school places
More academic curriculum
Focus on every child making academic progress

Presumption of mainstream for almost all has seen pupils coming to school in nappies, non verbal, not able to self regulate. Specialist resources have been slashed and local authorities insisting on mainstreaming all but not providing the support staff or facilities to cope. In SEN schools previous thought of as catering to moderate needs it is more severe and complex needs arriving. The teachers are not being invested in so nobody wants to do it because there is no extra money to account for the specialist training and skills undertaken. These schools can't get staff because of the violence problem. It can seem unimaginable to parents but when there are 12 SEN 7 year olds there is a high level of intervention to avoid violent outbursts. They can find it very hard to negotiate and to take any direction, this means it takes a high level of skill and understanding to manage it all so the pupils thrive and are happy. Education needs to change, stereotypical NT set ups work for hardly anybody as there is hardly any room for creativity or independent critical thinking. Our creative and critical thinkers tend to be somewhat ND and need a high level of freedom in their settings to thrive. Being instructed doesn't work.

I think there may be an environmental cause for some. We are busier than ever. Kids are now taken to school for breakfast club, stay for afterschool club and then taken home sometimes by a nanny or grandparent. My kids spend two hours in their house in total per day in the week. It's just so many transitions and stimulations. When I was at school, the majority of kids were picked up by a parent and taken home. Weekends were more about chilling at home and seeing family. My kids live in a constant state of trying to fit in activities, clubs, play dates, socialising, experiences. She is on the waiting list for assessment but I'm sure that a lot of her behaviours wouldn't have seemed so prominent if she had more down time and less asked of her. But we live in a capitalist system. I have to go out. Her brother wants to go to birthday party's. It's just how things are.

Its not just better to diagnosis though as i said all four special schools in my LEA ave doubled in capacity over the pat five years
One of the primary and secondary schools cater for children with autism and or moderate to severe learning disabilities and the other primary and secondary school cater ,s for children with autism and or severe to profound learning disabilities these children will have always have been diagnosed with complex disabilities even before we had better diagnostics tools so something is causing the increase .

But they were reduced previously. I taught in the 90s when special schools were starting to get closed and kids moved into mainstream.

Many wouldn’t have been diagnosed with autism , I wasn’t and my dd wasn’t in 2007 onwards. She was diagnosed in 2022. She now has the EHCP she should have had years before.

Dsis was in a form of 46 at primary, and I can name at least 8 straight off who nowadays would be given some sort of diagnosis without question. I'm sure there would have been more but that's memory from a younger sister who didn't have much to do with that form.
Our form I think there would have been a couple (out of 30) but the year below had, I think 12/30 who had some variation of "behavioural needs" as I think they put it.

I think there's a mixture of:
Fewer SEN schools (the two from dsis' form who did get a diagnosis were immediately removed and sent to "special schools". That goes with the lack of funding
More knowledge from parents (so parents coming forward)
Better diagnosis
And also some of the stigma attached to having SEN has been removed, so parents happier to look for a diagnosis.

This is also a factor. Children are surviving now when 20+ years ago they may not have made it.

Same here, but I do remember things being much easier when I was at primary and secondary school. Far less pressure even at GCSE and A level stage than some schools put on primary school children nowadays.

I work in a special school and anecdotally, and completely without judgement, I have noticed a few things about a large proportion of the parents:

1. The vast majority of the mothers of the children almost definitely had the child as they were approaching, and probably quite a bit after, their 40th birthdays. No, we don't always know the exact age of parents, but we often find out by things in their email address like 1977 (which I acknowledge isn't necessarily the year of their birth) and things like "we went to a restaurant for mums 50th!" etc. One even joked that her "eggs were fried when we had him"

1. Some of them are graduates of the same special school, and one really sweet couple both graduated from Year 11 just 10 years ago (definitely our youngest parents!)

1. Many have more than one child with SEND, which does make one ponder whether genetics is a strong factor. One of our (very autistic) teachers has read reams of stuff about this and came out with some stats once.

Figures have risen due to earlier recognition and also the age includes those up to 25 now. The terminology has also changed. We had dull and slow children previously and may not have heard the term SEND used so broadly. The parameters have also changed to include many gifted children who may previously have struggled in one area but been ignored as they managed so well elsewhere.

I saw a talk that said the chances of SEN and autism in a child born at 24 weeks was basically 100%, and the chances declined with each week before birth. So the improvements in survival of pre term babies will be contributing to the numbers with SEN

Autism is genetic. A huge percentage of my family have it in both sides- all born full term.

I wouldn’t go by “ a talk”

yes, the risk at full term is about 1:100, not zero, and increases with genetic factors

There are about a million similar threads about this on MN every week. I'm beginning to wonder that some people are must trolling with these questions TBH.

What do you honestly want people to say OP? Oh my kid doesn't really have ASD and I'm just making it up as an excuse to blame my own poor parenting and claim a load of benefits?

Tablewaterandbrie

I absolutely agree

It is a proven fact that the chances of autism increase with maternal and paternal age at conception. People are having children later in life now.

Many have more than one child with SEND, which does make one ponder whether genetics is a strong factor. One of our (very autistic) teachers has read reams of stuff about this and came out with some stats once

I thought the majority was genetic

I was at school in the 1980s and our school had a very busy remedial department. There were probably over 100 kids in there, and it was a separate section of the school but we all still did PE/Art/HE/woodwork/assemblies together. One of my friends thrived with the support after getting none at primary school, and it seemed that they did things at a gentler pace while still learning - they came out with exam qualifications, just less of them.

Nowadays, children are pushed into mainstream and no one benefits.

And sadly, I do think that parenting skills plays a role too. Gentle parenting wasn't a thing 30 years ago. And benefits very few children, imo.