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?

This.

I don't believe it's any higher, I think we're just much better at recognising difficulties now. You only need to look at the number of adults getting a diagnosis. You don't suddenly develop SEN. I'm pretty sure most of us can think of the kids who were 'different/ odd/ unusual' at school. They were the ones who were probably bullied by students and teachers, because they 'didn't fit'.
I think there are still a lot of children who miss out on a diagnosis because they aren't 'bad enough'.

This is interesting and confirms my (armchair) suspicions. Life is so full on now, our brains are literally bombarded with high excitement stimulus since the day we are born, there is so little downtime or mindful activities. Just take a walk - in the 90s, you just walked somewhere. Now people have podcasts/music on, they’re scrolling, on the phone. It’s like the brain never rests or has a chance to just take in its surroundings.

Baby sensory type things are similar. I see so many newborns lying beneath big shiny light up toys, or lying in ball pits surrounded by lava lamps. It must be quite stressful for them, their tiny brains incapable of processing all of these bizarre effects.

Even televisions are enormous and now capable of producing 24/7 content tailored to whatever excitement loop our brain is in, far from the 2 hours of CBBC we used to get.

My in query about your theory is that so many of the children’s needs are complex/significant enough that they would never have ‘flown under the radar’ 30 years ago. So I don’t think that accounts for all of it.

I think parents of none SEN kids are noticing them more as they have more in their child's school, who aren't getting the support/placement they need.
This is due to the long waiting list for diagnosis, getting an EHCP in place is much harder and also special school places are much harder to come by now. So whilst the numbers may have increased, its compounded by the worsening resources in place for SEN.

I don’t think this is fair. I think SEN is now so widespread it’s become something of a societal issue. Particularly when it has a knock on effect in the classroom for everyone’s children (and that’s not me blaming disabled children or their families, that’s me blaming the lack of provision). If there had been such a sharp uptick in, for example, asthma would it be unacceptable for people to query why?

My Dh is 62. He loathes the smell of certain clothes shops and as a small child would always tantrum if his mother took him into M&S. He was in the remedial class at school. He was thick, lazy, stupid. Left school with zero qualifications. Just come to light in the last few years that he has dyslexia and autism.

My uncle is 75. He has always been very clever but highly eccentric, with lots of passionate interests like trains. As a child he used to refuse to go anywhere and always wanted to go home.

My DS hated primary school and used to leave the classroom whenever nobody was looking to "go for a walk". When we moved him in Y3 to a primary school where they sat in rows at individual desks facing the teacher he improved hugely.

My DGS is severely autistic.

Variety of reasons there.

My vote is better diagnosis skills - My son was identified as Autistic when he was in reception, and officially diagnosed when he was nine (yes it takes that long). Since then, we have realised that half the family are most likely on the spectrum, but none of us were diagnosed or identified when we were young, and because we were all a bit on the quirky side, none of us realised some of us were more different than others. Since my son's diagnosis, three more relatives have been officially diagnosed, and several more have yet to apply for diagnosis but strongly suspect they are on the spectrum now that we know the signs. None of us are what you would call severely Autistic: all verbal, all functioning in life with jobs, kids etc, so we definitely flew under the radar. But we were there.

I think there might be more SEN. I know or know of lots of families like mine where the parents might be undiagnosed ND but didn't have any major issues in school, held down full time jobs, had friends, generally coped with life. Then we/ they had one or more children diagnosed with autism with much more significant needs. I didn't have my children older than my own mother, they weren't premature or birth injured, they didn't watch hours of TV as babies or toddlers etc. I'm not sure DH or I particularly went to more nurturing or less pressured schools either.

Barry Carpenter leads lots of research teams into the impact of pre-term birth on SEN numbers:

https://barrycarpentereducation.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/premleadershiparticle.pdf

It's a combination of lots of compounding factors.
Children born early or with complications are far more likely to survive now and also somewhat more likely to have some sort of sen that presents itself layer.

Much greater understanding of Sen these days. I'm sure most of us remember (or were) the thick, naughty or weird kid when we were in school. It's likely they had an additional need but we just didn't know.

More rigorous attention to schools data means it's now in school's best interests to push for extra support or diagnosis rather than just letting struggling kids muddle along.

Greater accountability for schools mean the kids that are struggling can't just stop coming in.

Lack of funding and specialist provision being at full capacity means that kids who would once be out of sight are now accessing mainstream provision.

My two cents worth is more SEN is being diagnosed and school life if so much harder than it was even 10years ago let alone 20,40,40 etc.

I think so much more is expected at school and there is so much pressure to succeed that's kids are struggling and a lot more is picked up., a lot is missed too

Our son is about to be diagnosed ASD with sensory difficulties and if you met him you'd have no idea he was autistic. Through him, we can see and now say my husband is autistic - they share the same traits.

I had a very interesting conversation with my GP who said even he would now be diagnosed as autistic, the amount of adult patients he sees who are autistic but undiagnosed is frightening and we need to normalise Neurodiversity and stop the stigma still attached.

We are more aware and better at diagnosing now.

When I was a child, two of my cousins were taken away at age 7. One was diagnosed at 50 with autism, although labelled as a child mentally retarded (dreadful word). The other had cerebral palsy so couldn’t be looked after at home. Awful now to think of their childhoods and how my aunts must have felt.

My own child would have been taken away but thankfully things moved on and homes are adapted nowadays.

I've read a few articles that show a link between traumatic/difficult or early births and SEN. I wonder if these types of deliveries and premature babies surviving who wouldn't have done 40/30/20 even a few years ago are one cause of the i creased number of children with SEN?

it's certainly obvious in early years that numbers are increasing rapidly year but year.

I don't believe it's any higher, I think we're just much better at recognising difficulties now.

As @Naptrappedmummy said, we are talking about huge numbers of children with really significant and complex needs. None of whom would 'sneak under the radar' or 'not be noticed'. We are talking about children starting school without the ability to make their needs known. No expressive language. No receptive language. With significant sensory needs that impact upon their behaviours. With complex dietary requirements. That bite or hit out. That head bang. That have no recognition of having soiled their nappy. That have no understanding of instructions or the concept 'it is time for us all to...... now'. That sometimes just squeal or scream for a large part of the day.
In some schools 3 or 4 starting school like that per year. This is NOT unusual nor exceptional.
It is completely different from even 10 years ago, let alone 30 or 50 years ago.

40 years ago little Mary with dyslexia left school unable to read a word and nobody cared. 60 years ago Sebastian with Down Syndrome was in an institution and his parents were told to forget about him. He died at 40 from heart disease. 30 years ago Andrew was bullied and quirky but made it to university living at home, he carried on living at home and got diagnosed with ASD at 50.
20 years ago Ali was told to just try harder and that he was a typically badly brought up black boy and everyone wrung their hands, he ended up in prison and still hasn't been diagnosed with ADHD. His niece is 8 though and she's on the assessment pathway which has led his sister to realise maybe her money troubles and inability to keep a job might be related.
Mickey was in Ali's class and the teachers said his mum didn't talk to him which was why he couldn't speak in Reception. He was lucky to be diagnosed with developmental language disorder in the same prison by a visiting SALT.

This doesn’t explain why there’s so many preverbal/ minimally verbal kids with massive attention and listening difficulties and often behaviours. There’s no way we were missing these kids and there’s now at least one in most reception classrooms.

Mostly, they were kept out of mainstream education back in the 80s and earlier - out of sight, out of mind.

Lots of theories out there...... hormones in the chicken, food additives, older parents, IVF...

Several factors.

One I don't think has been mentioned yet, is due to the advent of the Internet, more ND people are coupling up and reproducing. I include muggins here and my husband, both highly suspected to be on the spectrum

Our daughter is predom non verbal, autistic etc. She was full term BTW, 2 weeks overdue, even.

We're just better at diagnosing I think for the most part.

I can definitely reel off a laundry list of people who I went to school with in the 90s/00s, who would definitely be diagnosed if at school today, myself included.

I think rates of neurodivergency are still not fully recognised tbh.

We're, as a country, shoving children like my daughter into mainstream settings they cannot cope with which is why people are seeing more. Families like ours also now have access to social media so you'll see more of us socially that way, as We're no longer hidden away like a dirty little problem.

I wish all this awareness had been around in the 90s/00s. Might have saved me a lot of trauma, tbh. The body keeps the score. If you think your kid may be ND, get them assessed. Even if they seem to be coping well in adulthood, stress can quickly unravel them. Sorry but it's what happened to me.

But hardly any of the ND parents of non verbal ND children were non verbal themselves as children?

I disagree. Can anyone remember a family when they were growing up, who had a child ‘hidden at home’ who was non verbal? (Without a clear reason such as cerebral palsy, Down’s Syndrome etc). I can’t.

My daughter and I have a chromosomal disorder with "variable expressivity". One could call it a spectrum, much like autism itself which means it really varies in how it affects people.

I definitely had issues due to it growing up that weren't acknowledged, was just left to it, tbh.

Two ND parents having an ND child doesn't mean the child will have the same level of "severity", it ls more just chambering another round

Near as I can tell, there hasn't been any demonstrated link between the nature of the autism in children relative to that of the parents (ie the particular profile of traits isn't necessarily passed on).

For example, my mother doesn't have any of my sensory sensitivities, but my grandmother (and all of my great aunts) did.

@SpudleyLass - I did actually mention that a couple of pages back ;) Because society seems to be becoming more accepting of social differences, it's easier for ND folk to do the things that standard-issue humans do...including reproducing. Also, we're vastly less likely to be institutionalised for being ourselves (and thus removed from the gene pool).

We lived in the street where all the children played out and everyone knew everyone. I can think of many who would have adhd or autism but there where no children with physical disabilities or non verbal. And you would have known because curtain twitcher across the street knew everything about everyone couldn’t have got away with anything down that street 😂