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.

It's all those private clinics selling diagnoses.

The thing you are missing here us the 4.8% with an ehcp will be complex, but over half are in mainstream schools..

SEN support just means over and above the standard offer. Children can move in and out of it across their school carer. For instance an August child who isn't getting phonics, might be in an intervention group and be on sen support around the time of the phonics screen and then as they mature they move out of it.

Yes they win, legally at tribunal because the school the la name cannot provide them with an education. It is a tribunal not a charity, giving school places away to be nice and kind. They decide based on law and evidence.

Those evil parents enforcing their child's rights, even winning at court- the cheek of it.

I know that is different to my little nephew who is non-verbal. But he has been given a special school meaning he will be able to access his education unlike my DD who isn't able to access her education. So in that way she is more disabled than he is. This is where it is more complex than it may seem on the outside.

@SummerDays2020

No she's not. His disability is more severe, hence him being offered a special needs school place which are reserved for the most disabled children.

This is the problem I think, everyone fighting their way to the bottom. Why do you want your children to be more disabled than they are?

From 1983 (when the 1981 legislation came into operation) until 2001, there was a decrease in the percentage of children in special schools, from 1.87% to 1.30%. Since 2000 the percentage of pupils in special schools has remained fairly steady.
But teachers on MN who work in special schools say the needs of pupils attending their school has significantly increased. Far more non verbal children, doubly incontinent, who need a lot of social care as well as having educational needs.
At the same time we see the sharp decline in many of the physical disabilities that used to be more common amongst children such as spina bifida and downs syndrome.
The increase in more profoundly disabled children attending special schools means that children who would have previously been given a place, no longer meet the criteria and are offered only mainstream.

The increase in children with neurodiversity who are non verbal can not simply be down to better diagnosis. Even the worst schools in the past would not have noticed a child in their classroom who could not speak and was doubly incontinent.
So why has this happened? I think as a society we need to understand this increase and look at what we can do to tackle this.

@Rainbowsponge - re why do so many need help to start with - I think that's a very difficult question to answer and could definitely do with some investigation.

My personal feelings are that education is underfunded and there is less support in schools now, too much academic focus, exam stress, formal learning is too early in this country, too much worry about Ofsted instead of worrying about producing well rounded kids. Of course there is also more recognition of additional needs now too.

I also think it's partly due to the fast lane life we now live. Women expected to do it all, both parents often need to work full time just to survive, stressed parents, increasing child poverty, social media.
Not all of this means more children necessarily have Sen but probably more children who may need more support for some reason.

You are quoting me out of context. I posted my comment in response to someone complaining about the amount of money spent on private schools.

SEN schools are closing and there aren’t enough spaces, so kids with more severe disabilities are forced into mainstream with little support. This takes time away from teachers to help other kids in the classroom who just need a bit of extra help or slight modifications the way they’re being taught.
Classrooms are becoming noisier with worsening behaviour, those kids who previously would have coped in school can’t anymore. As a parent, watching your child’s mental health decline to a point where they are threatening to end their own life is one of the worst things imaginable. Of course parents are pushing for help, the current education system is broken.

More is being understood about neurodiversity and the number of people who recognise it themselves has increased. Therefore you have an increased demand for assessments.

If we want to live in a civilised society that enables everyone to make a contribution then we need to stop looking at those who require additional help as a drain on the country’s finances. It’s such a short term view.

But why is that classed as an SEN and not simply as DC hasn't quite grasped this so lets help him grasp it? Some children will always learn some things faster than others, just like adults. That is life.

My apologies, was meant for @Noras .

The Judges in the Tribunal look at all the evidence and make a decision accordingly. Are people now saying Judges and Tribunals aren't doing their jobs properly either?

Perhaps they're in cahoots with all the dodgy professionals diagnosing peoples fake asd/adhd.

Seriously where does this nonsense end.

You can get DLA, but it is done on need not diagnosis. My son gets it but I literally had to send everything and the kitchen sink to get what I get and I still have to go to a tribunal. My son has a whole load of things including ASD and severe GDD. It's not a case of saying 'I think my son is autistic' then the DWP throwing money at you.

I think the issue with the resentment is people don't understand the difficulties some 'high functioning' people have, that actually doesn't make them that high functioning. My son is very low functioning, but I still get raised eyebrows a lot when he is on reins because he "looks" physically normal and is pretty looking, even though he is flapping his hands and legs and shouting at the top of his voice and trying to eat stones.

I do think some people are self diagnosing though when they shouldn't be. I think it is just symptoms of anxiety. I think I goes down to diagnosing MH illnesses. You look at functioning as well as symptoms and signs. My mum is as mad as a cheese hat and would probably be diagnosed with an odd/eccentric cluster personality disorder, but she is very high functioning and needs no intervention.

The proportion of children in SEN schools has been pretty stable since 2000. So what else has changed since then? Because something must have.

My apologies, it was meant for @Noras

I agree we need to look at it more as a society and that at that level it's not down to better diagnosis. But it's also not down to over diagnosis or mainstream bad/lazy parenting.

I think the Ed Psychs that have a blanket rule about not diagnosing until secondary school are the main problem there.

SpLDs need to be diagnosed way before secondary transfer. Children need an understanding of their own challenges and strategies to manage them. For efficient learning and for the social aspect. Autism and ADHD still more so.

You can hardly blame parents for advocating for their children.

Unfortunately, until very recently, SEN(D)COs had no real training or expertise and were supposedly "just" administrators of SN in addition to teaching. It's made a real mess.

@Rainbowsponge 'We can’t have a country where 20% of schools are special needs schools, it’s unaffordable and begs some very serious questions.'

Mainstream schools are becoming less and less inclusive. This is partly why more SEND children are requiring specialist provision. Some schools refuse perfectly reasonable adjustments, some offroll, some unlawfully exclude. I've seen an academy recently announce no child can have an exit pass unless they have an EHCP.

LA's refuse to hold them to account, LAs state they can't do anything at all if it's an academy, the DfE are useless. There is virtually no accountability for schools when things are going wrong.

I don't think my DC is more 'worthy'. Do you think that about your DC? I would find that odd. All DC deserve a decent education. And are you saying you wouldn't fight for your DC to get the education they are entitled to? You'd just leave them with no education? Really?

There has to be a reason for the increase in SEN amongst children. My own gut feeling is that there will be a number of reasons interacting, as usually changes in society like this have complex causes interacting with one another.
Since someone else mentioned it, I do not think it is about lazy parenting. There have always been good parents and lazy parents, there is no reason I can see for that to have changed much over the last 20 years.

No they are not. Ed psychs employed by LAs and visiting schools cannot and do not make autism diagnoses and neither have I ever, in 30 years as an EP, ever heard of any "blanket rule of not diagnosing until secondary".
As an actual ed psych who knows what the job entails, I can tell you this post is inaccurate.

It's like being angry that your hairdresser hasn't diagnosed your brain tumour. Hairdressers do work on heads, but it's not the hairdresser who is allowed to diagnose a tumour.

Also to add if children were getting the early intervention/support required, health and social care costs would fall.

Exactly. If we as parents don't advocate for our DC who on earth will?

So what do I do as a parent? Just give up and say 'oh no, it's fine, my DC doesn't need an education!'

Early intervention support matters. But there was not lots 40 years ago either. It was only really under Blair that we saw early intervention support massively increase. And there is way more advice online than there ever was.

That's the chosen definition.

The government could redefine SEN tomorrow and say look we reduced SEN by 5%. They could say the issue had to be permanent for instance. But it won't make any difference as the child still needs support.

That's why I can't get het up about people saying 20% of our children have SEN because we are using a broad definition.

I think the numbers needing ehcps is more concerning but even some of those are because the mainstream offer isn't quite right in my opinion.