Anyone else noticing the uptick in open hostility towards people with ASD?

[FFSakeDrinkSake]

As the title says. It feels like it's open season recently. In the last few weeks alone I've seen many threads questioning the validity of Asd, the credentials of those diagnosing the condition, the 'explosion' of diagnosis', the 'fact' that you qualify for extra benefits if you are autistic and/or have ADHD, the apparent drain on resources kids with ASD have on the educational sector depriving others and most recently the idea that someone (self diagnosed) can 'outgrow' autism. Most of which contain the worst misinformation about what we're trying to deal with on a daily basis and making it sound like we're just trying to .. i dont even know tbh.. scam our way through life?

Disclaimer NATAAT.

Clearly you know your own daughter, but in my experience some students with ASD really really do find it an awful lot more difficult to stay interested in something they aren't naturally drawn to. If she was as hindered by her dx as she claims she is, she would be hindered for everything. No one enjoys doing things they don't enjoy. When you say this, IMHO many autistic people/people with ADHD find it almost excruciatingly difficult to do something they aren't interested in. I know my DC does, as I home-schooled through COVID.

Maybe some people with ADHD aren't as fortunate as you to know about breaking things into smaller chunks, or don't have the support to show them how to do it. I've pretty severe ADHD, I really wish I didn't. I've never referred to it in professional situations, but believe me if it was as easy as you suggest my life would be far far far easier. As it is, I often find myself asking my DH how to tackle things as I find it almost physically painful to do some tasks. If not for him, I don't know how I'd survive.

The biggest issue is lack of supports, lack of training to help people overcome challenges. The education system is very much designed for NT people and often disables ND students further. I know for sure that in university I found some types of assessment almost impossible, and if I'd had options or more support I'd have saved myself years of self-loathing.

If schools made accomodations for everyone's needs regardless of diagnosis then diagnosis wouldn't be needed. But at the moment diagnoses is needed.

I hope that one day schools and work places will trust that if a student or employee says they need noise cancelling headphones or lights that aren't fluorescent then they will just have access to that. Why would people make up their needs.
It's ridiculous that people have to go to such extent to justify their needs.

Schools and workplaces should do this already. Diagnosis isn’t needed for reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act.

Some schools and workplaces already do.

@WaitingForMojo some, sadly not all. I've seen and experienced ridiculous discrimination in schools.

The lack of support at uni has contributed, for sure. But she hasn't helped herself either. I know how difficult some things are for her, and how she has felt overwhelmed at times. But her attitude has increasingly become 'I can't because dx' rather then 'because dx I need to do xyz'. And when I have tried to help by breaking down her work with her, working out timings etc she just closes me down as I 'don't understand'.

Her actions, or inaction causes serious consequences for her. For instance she has been adamant since March that she wants to attend our local university. Since March I have told her she needs to apply because it won't be straightforward with student finance etc.

Despite prompting her every week she only submitted her application 3 weeks ago. She's been offered a place but now we need to sort finance out. Student finance will take until at least August to decide. So now she is stressed about finding accommodation as she can't do that until she has finance. So now the anxiety of A. Not getting finance and B. Not getting accommodation is greater than it needed to be.

But instead of submitting her application she's had a lovely few months gallivanting around, visiting her friends at various unis and socialising.

Short of submitting the application for her, no one could have helped her anymore to understand the need for urgency. But she just kept saying "later, I'll do it later". Now she's ranting and raving how awful her life is because of her dx and situation.

I’m very sad to hear that your friend has been treated so badly by parents at the school she works at. There is no excuse for that.

Unfortunately though some of the language used in the above post reminds me of the senco we had at our village primary school. DS1 was born extremely prematurely so he’s been under Children’s Services and had a paediatrician pretty much since birth.

Our school senco insisted that my son doesn’t have autism. She once asked me “what is it you want with all of these diagnoses?!” like I was playing some sort of game for attention. Our paediatrician wanted to formally diagnose him with autism but said he couldn’t because the school had sent back questionnaires stating that there was nothing wrong at all. It took me four attempts to get them to fill in any questionnaires at all - on the first three attempts they either mysteriously ‘lost’ them or claimed I’d never handed them in.

My son’s class teacher accused me of lying and paranoia.

We left the county when the school and OT insisted that I was lying and paranoid and there was nothing wrong at all; and in complete contrast SALT was so concerned about my son’s needs and the effect he was having on his brother that she wanted to report us to social services.

My son was diagnosed with autism the following year. It is complex and severe enough that he then went to a special school. He will never have a career or live completely independently.

The final thing to say is that shortly after we left the infant school, the senco was promoted to deputy head. The class teacher who had accused me of lying and paranoia was made senco. This is just one school and we were just unlucky. But there are so many families out there whose children are desperately in need of diagnosing.

Everyone is different of course and in one way you could be describing one of my DCs who is autistic. The difference is I have had to do everything you describe for/with my child, despite it taking so much time and causing so much frustration. If I didn't, it wouldn't get done. Thankfully the university my dc wants to go to has a lot of supports, so I'm hoping it will help hugely.

This is absolutely typical adhd. It describes me fairly well. From the outside, it looks like not helping yourself, but the reality is just not having the executive function to do any of those things.

All the things you’re expecting of her require executive function to manage. And given the extremely traumatic experience you describe (I’m so sorry to hear), she is likely to be extremely overwhelmed just by the inward processing of that, reducing her ability to manage the rest of it.

If she’s anything like me, she’ll also be feeling that it’s all her own fault for making her own life difficult, which is just a massive shame spiral. But it really is the neurodivergence.

She’s also likely to take some time to process her diagnosis and be grieving for the things she finds so difficult and for the past experiences that would have been different had she known. So that would explain the anger and ranting. She is likely to come out of that as she assimilates the new info about herself and hopefully starts to learn how to manage her neurotype.

I don’t think it’s just autism and adhd I think it’s more like exception fatigue. It’s seems like every third person needs some sort of exception made for them because ‘whatever’ and the over use has reduced empathy for people.

Who has this endless pot of money to supply all this stuff? Schools are at breaking point already. There's no staff, no money for staff, no money for anything. Yet parents think by getting more and more kids with diagnoses, somehow we can fix it. We can't.

Many Councils are bankrupted with paying out for extra help-
Who is going to pay?
Council tax is already high enough.
More diagnoses means more money being asked for.

There just isn’t the cash to go around.

A diagnosis is not required for send support or adjustments under the EA

You've put this so wonderfully.
I have to agree that this person's experience sounds eerily similar to mine. It's easy to be derailed and end up in the cycle of hating yourself for not being able to stop executive dysfunction happening.

So the families should just give up and accept their child won't have their needs met, won't be able to reach their potential.
Pay the fines because their child can't attend school or if in school learns nothing

Would you be happy if that was your child ?

It may not be required but without a diagnosis you don't get support and even with a diagnosis you may not get support but you have a better chance

There is a huge crisis in funding and in SEN and this is a major issue in securing the right support and I have a lot of sympathy for teachers dealing with this.

but the diagnosis isn't cause of that. The issue is still there if the child is undiagnosed..

A diagnosis can reduce spend as you target the right support and prevent or reduce future spending.

Otherwise it's all fighting fires with the wrong tools.

But some reasonable adjustments don’t cost any money, things like uniform adaptions for kids with asd and sensory needs for example. Schools have become so much more rigid than when I was at school that kids that are even slightly outside “the norm” can no longer fit. I know of autistic kids that perhaps only needed slight adaptions that would have been minimal cost, instead these adjustments weren’t allowed child has deteriorated wand can I longer attend school and is now either in eotas or in an independent specialist school both of which cost the taxpayer around £80,000 a year so it’s false economy in the long run

Correct and a diagnosis does not mean support will be given either, the two are mutually exclusive

Completely and usually ironically I have found towards those who work in schools who have ASD. It is those who have a child with a new diagnosis who eff and jeff at schools and shout that the staff do not understand when the staff sitting there have it themselves. They do not think kids with ASD can grow up to have successful jobs and that is why they NEVER apply what they are asking for their own children to the staff of the school. Never!

waiting lists are long.... pushing at people who have absolutely no control over that isnt going to get anyone anywhere...

Your daughter has an executive dysfunction issue due to her condition and likely demand avoidance also as a result of her condition.

It isn't that she "isn't helping herself" it's that she can't and she might not even understand why she can't.

I am your daughter in most of my life situation. I am really disabled by my poor executive function and no attempt at "helping myself" ever works.

It's sad for your daughter that their parent isn't understanding her disability and is talking on Mumsnet about how she isn't trying enough or helping herself 😔

Love how, in the time since I saw this thread last night and the time I got home from work just now, so many replies proved the OP right by demonstrating a startling amount of hostility towards autistic people. Oh, sorry, hostility towards all the "made up" autistic people, a hostility people don't seem to realise will primarily affect what they'd consider "real" autistic people.

Most of the autistic people I know are accepting of anyone with a diagnosis, be it private or NHS, or even self-diagnosis. We know how hard it can be to get assessed and diagnosed. So all those "made up" autistic people facing this hostility, that's our autistic friends and family. And no matter how confident you are in the doctors who diagnosed you, it makes it very easy ti doubt yourself when people constantly talks about how "everyone" has unnecessary labels these days. Sense of self is not our strong point, as autistic people, and diagnosis is a lifeline of understanding.

Perhaps consider, when you talk about "made up" cases, how that makes autistic people feel. Because yes, even the autistic people you consider genuine are affected by this rhetoric.

It's very well known in the SEN community that sitting back and waiting for the system to take its time means your child's needs just get ignored and your child gets pushed further down the list.
The loudest voices get heard first. Everyone advised parents to push and insist and not take no for an answer.

Non of us want to be that parent but sitting back and waiting does bugger all to get the support in place. Most of the time trying to get support is like bang your head against a brick wall and still slower than a snail but hopefully not going backwards

True, but it is required for entry to SEN schools or SEN centres within mainstream school.

Ultimately we all have to live within the limitations of what is affordable in different ways. Many of us would benefit from treatments not available on the nhs for instance. Sometimes to a lifechangong extent. None of us are entitled to anything.

So yes - children with additional learning challenges can't have everything tailored to them anymore than any other child can.

We all have to be pragmatic and realistic. I would personally advocated for a greater variety of schools and learning styles being available with less focus on measurables. Some schools that could focus on traditional learning so that the children who benefit from that can be efficiently taught without the impossible being asked of teachers and support staff. Some montessori type schools, some classes geared towards providing asd friendly learning environments etc.
Far more access to vocational subjects, early access to work experience. Holistic education.

But less emphasis on individual accommodations and personalised support. It's just a utopia and creates all kinds of inequalities, if only between those who can access the help and those down the waiting list. Not to mention its limited efficiency anyway ..