to ask this without expecting a backlash?

[Fleurflowering]

I know that people will accuse me of being goady etc, but I would like to ask these questions without a tirade of hate being posted at me. I'm genuinely ignorant about this and want to understand it better.

I was born in 1978. When I was at school, there was a flicker of a mention of autism, but it didn't seem to be commonplace.

Did children have autism? Did ADHD exist then? Or are these new problems and why have they arisen?

Every school class seems to have children with SEND - autism being very common. But, when I was at school, there were "Remedial" classes, but behaviour was nowhere near as bad as it seems to be nowadays and teachers didn't need to differentiate lessons like they have to now. I hear so many people saying that their kids are on the spectrum, or that they themselves have autism.

I also don't remember any school refusers. Is this a new mental health symptom, or are children more autonomous and possibly less resilient nowadays?

I know I'll be flamed, but I'm not denying these conditions exist. I'm trying to learn whether they are new or not.

You just had 'weird kids' who suffered in silence. I know, I was one of them.

I was born in 88 and only diagnosed with autism last year 🤷‍♀️ looking back, it was obvious but at the time I masked (a lot), and was told I was just depressed and anxious - it was only when a GP actually sat and looked through my medical history of multiple periods of “depression” that he joined the dots and suggested autism (and burnout).

DH was one of those “naughty” kids who refused school and never got any exams - he has ADHD. Again, obvious in hindsight but nobody diagnosed it in those days.

OP, you say things like “teachers didn’t need to differentiate lessons”, but what you really mean is that they just didn’t differentiate lessons, and it was sink or swim. The bright NT kids coped, but those who struggled often simply fell out of education at a young age. There were school refusers, but we called them truants.

The same diagnostic criteria are being applied more broadly, so the ways that autistic girls and autistic people of colour present are being included. There are definitely people getting diagnosed today who would not have been diagnosed with autism 30 years ago. They would likely have developed mental health difficulties by being an autistic peg in an NT world.
School absence has a lot of causes but I think Covid made non attendance possible. Lots of schools are way more draconian than they used to be, so whereas "quirks" were tolerated, now they are disciplined. Also there are online alternatives to traditional schools and solutions to problems.

Also I think it was more common back then not to tell parents or teachers about issues like bullying, struggles in the classroom etc. my parents had no clue what I went through.

DH is 54, diagnosed adhd last year, used to hide in the barn all day to avoid going to school until he got caught and beaten. I remember a school refuser in my tiny village school - no idea if he was neurodivergent but he killed himself in his 20s so quite possibly.

My elderly great uncle writes and self publishes terrible poetry and stories about his holidays in which he enumerates at length everything he saw including what everyone ate at dinner. My elderly uncle got burnt out of his career in his 50s and lives in a house on his own 100 miles away from his wife who he visits about once a month.

autism and adhd always existed as did dyslexia, discalculia and other ND conditions. But kids were beaten, excluded and denigrated for being who they were rather than accepted as they are now. Masking is a thing and whilst it might be self preservation it takes a toll on people.

My dad is in his late 60s and I still regularly see some of his friends that I've known my whole life- I am 100% certain that at least 2 out of about 8 would have received a diagnosis if they were children now! Sadly one was simply labelled "naughty" and the other "odd".

Children with high levels of need were not in mainstream school when I was a child.. I vaguely remember a child with a learning disability when I first started school but he wasn't there long and I assume moved to specialist provision. I cringe when I think about how we used to refer to "the naughty boys school" up the road too, which now of course I recognise as being specialist provision itself.

I'm a TA now and we are supporting children with significant need (without adequate resources - they are being failed despite our best efforts at ground level), but there are also many children with diagnosis that don't require very much from us to make school accessible and comfortable. When I think back to particular classmates from my childhood those children very much existed in mainstream then. We just thought of them as sensitive, hyperactive, naughty or not very bright 😟. It makes me sad to think how much happier school would have been for them if we weren't all expected to tick all of the same boxes!

Tbf ‘quirks’ were fairly severely punished and there was no reasonable adjustment. And you would only be diagnosed with MH issues in extreme circumstances. We were left to make the best of things and try not to piss the teachers off.

now there is far more understanding and parents will kick off about teachers not treating their ND kid right

I was at school in early 1960s, there were about four boys and one girl who were just seen as slow. One boy was non verbal , two would get up and wandered around during lessons. They were sat at the back of class and
really just ignored, those who could nor read were just ignored. In secondary school, they were always in trouble and getting the cain almost daily. Most left school at aged 15 and got low level jobs or just lived on benefits.
School must have been sheer hell for a lot of children with SEN

They always existed, they just weren’t diagnosed. More and more people are being diagnosed now because it’s recognised. The numbers of people diagnosed ND will keep rising and rising. I am not sure if neurodivergent will be the correct term before long.

I was born in 1991 and diagnosed ADHD as a child, so 2002 ish. And OCD aged 7

So it's always been a thing.

I do think it's loosely used these days, people take the smallest personality traits and feel like they need a label for it, ie my sisters son aged 2 got a diagnosis of autism because he lined his cars up (what toddler didn't?) and had no road sense.

I'm not even taking the piss, she literally gets money for him (he is 5 now) because of those reasons alone - he's a normal child, I promise you.

My sister in law says her kid is absolutely on the spectrum because he's into comics.

There is less shame in it these days, I grew up hating and denying the labels and carried that hatred into my adulthood for myself.

I think it's great there is more information about it, and I think it's good for so many children and adults who do have issues and they can access help, but in the same breath I do think being different is the new normal, and people will chase anything just to be part of something.

Multiple older members of my family quite clearly have autism and would be diagnosed in a heartbeat these days, but flew under the radar back then

There were more children in special schools or even institutions. The more "high functioning" kids were in mainstream, undiagnosed, but often characterised as difficult/naughty/weird/quiet/stupid depending upon how their neurodiversity manifested.

I can think of a number of my classmates who would probably have a diagnosis now.

I’m a similar age and I can recall several kids who very obviously were ND so there will be many others who were less obviously ND.

I also recall some students being home schooled, not attending because they were bullied or just playing truant regularly.

Things were ignored, brushed under the carpet, kids were excluded for bad behaviour or just didn’t go with little consequence.

Just because things are more visible and recognised now it doesn’t mean they didn’t exist/weren’t prevalent before.

Autism was recognised as a neurological condition in medical practice before you were born. There are documentaries from the 60’s and it was first discovered in the 40’s. Only significant autism was diagnosed though, less profound autism was put down to behavioural problems.

The obviously autistic kids would not be in school back then (for me, this was 80s). But girls, and boys that would be classed as high functioning now... they would would have been in school with you and were under the radar. They would have just been seen as odd... probably bullied.
I do remember some boys that were very disruptive that would probably be diagnosed as ADHD now.
My DP is late diagnosed autistic, but was in remedial class when he was in school. It was not picked up for him even then.
My best friend in primary went on to be diagnosed with learning disabilities that was just not picked up when we were small.

Lots of people are neuro diverse but don't recognise it - esp females who are masters at masking issues mainly because the communication part of the brain in females is naturally more developed than it is in a male brain.

I have dyslexia, so am ND. I have a few friends who are likely ASD. I have other friends who have ADHD. Probably c50% of my friends are ND. Most don't have a diagnosis, but as a mother with 2 ND kids, I can def see it in them.

The issue isn't how many diagnoses now per se, it's how many fake diagnoses are there. This is why I believe PIP payments for neuro diversity where a person can work should not go to the person but should fund treatment/support only, that would include dietary requirements if food is a challenge and also clothing if textures are a challenge.

I started school in the 60s. There was very little bad behaviour, this was because their would be consequences, not only from.the teachers but also the parents, if they got wind of it.
Teachers being assaulted was unheard of. Never heard of school refusal. Kids either went of their own volition or they were frogmarched in
Kids assaulting their parents? No chance. You would be belted to Kingdom come and back again.
Problem is now that their arent any consequences fro bad behaviour. You reap what you sew unfortunately 😕

As a teacher, I can say it is far more prevalent now. It's not being over diagnosed either. There has been an increase in children with ASD/ADHD.

I remember the Reception class I taught in 2004 had 1 diagnosed lad with ASD. In the 3 classes preceding, I'd taught about 100 children. Only 2 of those 100 would have a diagnosis today.

There weren't more special schools around where pupils with these needs were attending. And thinking back to how society was in 90s/2000s, you didn't see so many needs in the community, as I don't believe they were there.

My friend set up a weekend club for primary age children with ASD in 2002. There were 15 places in the club. The team struggled to fill the places, despite being recommended by the LA SEN team to families. The city had 250000 residents.

It's been debated for a while as to the cause of the increase in numbers.

There's always one...🙄

Very much this.Younger members of my family being medically and formally diagnosed has led to older members of my family having huge lightbulb moments.

It's extremely prolific in my family yet only diagnosed in the generation behind me.

Those with higher needs wouldn't have been in the mainstream schools, and plenty of people were undiagnosed and just seen as behaving differently.

@GentleSheep
“Children at my school were polite, rarely acted up in class, some were obviously better at some subjects than others, but there weren't meltdowns or kids refusing to go to school.” you’ve nicely described masking.
There’s an element of social contagion, I’d not heard of school refusal but if I’d even conceived of the concept I’d have walked out of secondary school on the first day

I attended a small school in the 60s/70s and never knew of any school refusers. Looking back I can think of two or three kids who probably would have been diagnosed with something today, but everyone else seemed to cope okay. It certainly didn't seem as if the numbers of children affected now existed then - and everyone knew everyone in this small town, there was nothing "hidden behind closed doors".