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?

Sorry I did t really explain myself properly.
My parents in the 1960s both taught at (different) ESN schools. What was barbaric was the terminology and the fact that these were boarding schools.. What was good was the small class sizes.

I apologize you have a point ,did the children go home for holidays or were they basically forgotten about?

My brother went to Lingfield boarding school in the 70s. It was a school for children with epilepsy I believe. He was very happy there. They taught him to read, write and do basic maths. He has autism and LDs. He left at 18 I think. He came home every weekend and during the holidays

Most of the children went home at the holidays, however some went into care.
My father taught at an al boys school and they all had a head inspection before they were allowed in the building. Anyone with head lice had their head shaved!

Over time, generationally, it is perhaps not surprising that there has been an increase in diagnosis and severity.

Anecdotally, I was an odd child and things got worse as I aged but eating disorders and severe anxiety were seen as discrete. I was diagnosed with an episode of psychosis which occurred out of the blue and has never been repeated when I burnt out and was hospitalised. I coped after a fashion and had DC. Maybe I was always autistic. I've never sought a diagnosis but am worried about my future ability to advocate for myself in healthcare settings as I also become selectively mute - I have experienced staff frustration and would like to avoid this in future.

Genetics played out - DS1 had worse anxiety, dyslexia, huge sensory issues, auditory processing issues and eventually diagnosed ASD. EHCP, tribunal, failed specialist provision, housebound for the last 7 years but he is settled into his routine now and I'm no longer on suicide watch 24 hours a day. I'm bloody glad he was never hospitalised.

DS2 was under SLCN from 2, eventually diagnosed ASD and ADHD. Never had the same anxiety issues. Home schooled throughout secondary but went to 6th form (maths, further maths and physics) and on course for uni. Already has an offer from local uni for engineering so can remain living at home.

So in their generation both diagnosed and one non-speaking as selectively mute and one non-verbal and speech delayed/difficult to understand requiring years of SALT. (Different to non-verbal and then acquiring 'normal' speech or remaining non-verbal.)

It is concerning that existing special schools are increasing provision and seeing an increase in severity. At the same time that mainstream schools are seeing an increase in severity due to DC not getting specialist places. I think absolute numbers have to be considered over time. Forget individual schools - how many places? If the number of places has increased then we need to consider why the number of eligible DC has increased in such a short time.

Gosh and that first study was from 2016 before the steepest part of the curve. If 1 in 15 children were verbally delayed to the point of learning difficulty back then, I would be interested to see the rates now. It’s actually incredibly worrying - we could be looking at 10% of the adult population unable to work, and that’s on top of the ageing population issue. How we would sustain that while also providing support services I have no idea.

My parents in the 1960s both taught at (different) ESN schools. What was barbaric was the terminology

But you are looking at that language with 21st century eyes.
Language evolves.
The terminology wasn't 'barbaric' in the 1960s any more than the words we use today are now, although they will presumably seem so in 60 years time.

https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/u-s-study-charts-changing-prevalence-of-profound-and-non-profound-autism/

US study but covers sites in the UK, published in The Lancet

This also saying 1in 38 in US. Due to improving diagnosis.

‘Improved diagnosis’ doesn’t explain the massive increase healthcare staff and early years education staff are seeing in preverbal kids. It’s not as simple as we’re just picking up kids we would have missed previously. It’s that plus an increase at the more severe end as well.

Aaah it's time for the faux wide-eyed "I was just asking the question" disability bash thread of the week again is it?

In the 1980s they'd have had my fate:
Constantly being berated in school for "misbehaviour" I had absolutely no idea what the hell I'd done.
I had my playtimes taken away from me for an entire year because I struggled socially - all I needed in reality was someone to keep a bit of an eye out for me and talk me through how to manage the situations I'd buggered up a bit better.
Head constantly being kicked in by local youths because I was "odd" - I remember someone shoving worms down my neck on the school yard, cigarette butts forced into my mouth on a bus once, being dragged randomly into a classroom by the older kids to "you've got to get a look at this girl - she's so weird"... incidents like that were most of my childhood.
I had a year of being shoved around a corner in one classroom and hidden away behind a filing cabinet.
I was academically very bright (I'm apparently Mensa level IQ from various ed psychs who've assessed me over the years) but had the social skills of a particularly socially inept house brick - also massive difficulties with sensory processing and overload which led to me struggling throughout adult life.

I'm dyslexic, I'm autistic and quite possibly dyspraxia as well.

My youngest has similar diagnoses - whereas by the age of 10 I was getting scared to leave the house for the assaults, bullied to shit at school and it was the year of being parked behind the filing cabinet... she's happy, she's confident and she knows how her brain works so she can roll with it - rather than just being told she's crap at being a person like I was.

While neither of us claimed any adaptations or adjustments or concessions (she might get to do her SATs in a quieter room to help her focus - which is really small fry in the world of it all) and neither of us have had a penny from the state to fund anything linked with SEN... one of us has had the power of her diagnosis from a younger age to be able to support her to understand her way of functioning and accept it... one of us has had to learn, as an old dog, to forgive that younger self who she assumed was always just fucking it up.

I know which society I'd rather have so bog off OP.

Yep - there are clients I work with whom are now quite old in age - and you look at the diagnostic terminology used to describe them when they were younger and it's almost painful to see how things were described (I work with adults with Learning/Intellectual Disabilities). Language changes - and unfortunately whatever terminology is currently "acceptable" will invariably be picked up on by arseholes and turned into the next generation of "unacceptable" language to use ("autistic" and "aspie" seem to be becoming used like this by certain knobhead sections of the internet at the moment).

People can be shites.

Ah that’s interesting. So profound autism has increased slightly but not dramatically, whereas the rates of non-profound autism have sharply increased. I assume the latter would be better diagnosis - because these were children that would have flown under the radar years ago. As for profound autism, that says 4.6 per 1000 children fall into this category. So something like 0.5% of children. Which isn’t what is reflected in classrooms right now, particularly not reception classes. So, I suppose it’s either a case of the vast majority of more profoundly presenting children (non verbal) will catch up with support and fall into the non-profound group by 8 years old. Or there has been a very very sudden increase in the profound group (as in the last couple of years)?

First cousin marriage is also a factor

First cousin marriages used to be common in rural areas in Britain, quite a few in my family and DPs before the 1950s. The population pool was small.

Yes one off first cousin marriages probably wouldn't be problematic but generation after generation of first cousin marriage any genetic disorders will be passed on
Didn't Queen Victoria's Children /Grandchildren have a pre disposition to hemophilia?

In my infant school, the 'profound' children arrive with a diagnosis of global development delay

The really interesting part is that, despite what many parents of autistic kids will tell you, non-speaking autistic kids will often (but not always, obviously) suddenly start talking for no apparent reason - often in complete sentences like they've been talking for years, and as though they just decided that it's time. ABA organisations seem to liken this to some sort of victory, when it's actually entirely normal (if not for standard-issue humans) in those cases where "delay" means "delayed", not "stunted" or "limited" (sorry, couldn't think of a better word).

That could account for at least some of the disparity you're referring to.

It's one of the reasons that I don't like "non-speaking" (or "non-verbal", which isn't the same thing) being equated to "profound", given that the latter implies a permanent state.

The language around this could all be a lot more precise, of course.

That's not my experience my 13 year old is non verbal.as are most of the children in his school or very minimally l verbal.,
Some children will.of course have a speech delay and spontaneously. Star speaking
But many won't .

That is interesting. My friends son was totally non verbal and just started talking at 6 years old. She said it was nit uncommon, although I had never heard of this happening.

Hence the vagueness of "often" - which, in my mind, is less than "usually" and a bit more than "sometimes" ;)

There's almost no specific data out there on this, but the number of times I've heard of children spontaneously speaking vs never speaking are of the same order of magnitude. Totally anecdotal, but then...most of this discussion is, because of the lack of quantitative study.

My relative is maybe gifted (nearly 50) and spoke on late side straight to sentences.
Sleep issues etc.

Makes me wonder on impact of siblings on speech. Obviously kids have fewer in last 2 generations. (Above sibling gap almost 4years)

Speech
Fewer Siblings
Sibs play less due to below
Sibs start school at 4y and free hours at 3.
Nursery where grouped by age so some non verbal in together
Tv/ipads
Families further apart
Some parents putting kids to bed at say 6pm before other parent is home and so less background talking
Bilingual families

So during covid less interaction for some kids (extra for others)

But even now to younger sibs if the older ones got more addicted to tech in covid and play less together.

My eldest missed about 90% of one year during covid years. So got 6/7 or so of primary school. I would say friendships were declining anyway but declined further. Half her year had older sibs. And half went in during lockdown 2.

The starting speaking in sentences thing is usually gestalt language processors. It’s usually mainly learnt sentences at first (eg copied from others or from tv/ YouTube) but quickly become used in context.

it’s not quite as simple as they suddenly catch up though as typically understanding lags behind expressive language for these kids and therefore, despite others thinking they can talk well now now, they struggle to answer questions and access verbal learning. Often way into primary they will be good at rite learnt facts but really struggle with things such as generating stories.

The better diagnosis argument just doesn't cut it I'm afraid.
When I was at junior school in the late 80s, in a class of 35 children, there were 4 kids who couldn't keep up with the normal curriculum and either had to do something else, or have special help. I can remember their names because they were the only ones who were different. You knew who the kids were that were wired up a bit differently.
Less than twenty years later, when some of my friends became teachers, they were reporting that it was now half the class who couldn't do the work or needed special help and/or had behavioural problems.
Now it's more, and more of them seem to be profoundly autistic. And just generally, in the population, I can think of multiple people I know whose children show distinct signs of ASD. Again, I hardly knew any growing up. This is not better diagnosis. It is a large increase that is noticeable not just to teachers and doctors but easily noticeable to anyone who was alive 35 years ago.
The only thing I can think of that explains it is mobile devices and their effect on delicate developing brains of foetuses and young children. Possibly a combination of device radiation and how it affects the way substances in our environment behave inside our bodies. If your brain had already developed largely before this, your liklihood of problems was quite low. If after, much increased. There is obviously far too much money in mobile technology for this ever to be properly investigated or reported.

Lots of reasons, more extreme preemies survive but have health issues, more dc survive illness. Better recognition of problems not just due to being naughty but do think something else is amiss, there are definitely far more children with “issues”. I’ve read that older parents (yes dads as well) could be contributing as statistically older parents are more likely to have a neurodivergent child.