10 year olds more likely to be on disability benefits than 50 year olds

[AgeingMillennial]

AIBU to think this is absolutely baffling? And at some point we really have to investigate why so many young children are non verbal, have severe emotional regulation problems etc?

We starting claiming DLA for our daughter because I cannot work as I am her carer.
I receive Carers Allowance but it's actually a very small amount and doesn't replace a lost wage of a two wage household.
We are not entitled to UC but cannot live on one wage.
I mean technically I could work but I would be an exhausted wreck and unreliable employee which wouldn't help anything or anybody.

I’m a carer for one of my children. He has learning disabilities, autism, adhd.
He is verbal but his is quite violent and displays lots of self injurious behaviour. Goes to a specialist school, he is what’s known as an eloper so he runs away/into traffic.
I could genuinely write paragraphs of what his struggles are.
It really wasn’t easy to get the high rate DLA. We needed so much proof, schools, outside agencies, paediatrician reports.
I don’t understand how people can get the benefits for children who don’t need them. Of course you could lie, but wouldn’t you need the schools and other services to lie also?
I don’t get it.

Is this a parody account taking the piss out of benefit bashing idiots, or are you actually being serious?

How cruel.

The numbers are increasing because the parents are becoming more aware of their rights and what they can claim. Lots of children and young people with adhd and mild autism are claiming benefits now because they can. I don’t think they warrant benefits tbh unless very severe.
Too many babies with huge life limiting / medical needs are being saved to live a life I wouldn’t want for myself or my child.

I’ve had a similar incident. I coach a child and I’d say that out of everyone I work with (about 35 DC) they are the most well behaved, outgoing, friendly, hard working, engaged DC.

Then I was told they have autism.

I’ve also got a niece who has been diagnosed as autistic. I too was shocked as she is the most outgoing kid I’ve ever met. Obviously I’m not an expert on the subject and there’s more to it than this, but I don’t understand why she’s been labelled when she seems no different or individual compared to any other kid I’ve met.

I don’t get it.

Ok.

so looking for actual data on this.

non verbal covers a wide range of situations.

firstly there are about 10.3 million under 16s. So that’s 343,333 classes.

Deaf children may be non verbal at least in the early years (although cochlear implants and hearing aids are having a big impact). There’s 45,000 of them in England

https://www.ndcs.org.uk/about-us/news-and-media/deaf-statistics

but 89% communicate with spoken language only ie they are verbal so that’s down to just 4,500 children.

that’s not even 1 per school much less 1 per class.

Autism - there are 166,041 autistic children under 16 in school. 30% go to special school so are not in mainstream. So 116,228 are in mainstream.

Just over a quarter of children with autism are non verbal or minimally verbal. In practice I suspect that this group is much more likely to be in special school but let’s assume for the moment they are equally likely to be in mainstream.

a quarter of 116,228 is 29,057.

England has 24,500 schools.

so on average that is just over one non verbal autistic child per school.

If this were true, they would not be able to claim the benefits. You can’t just write ADHD on a form and receive money.

It’s called masking.

Absolutley. The criteria for children and adults are very different.

I have two ND children. One on mid rate care, one low rate care. They both have huge challenges as children, but I don't necessarily assume they will need disability benefits as adults. In fact if anything I think the one on low rate care might be more likely to need support than the mid rate one just due to their specific needs.

You think we are saving too many babies who become disabled children? What do you suggest we do?

And? You seem to have a fixed idea of how a child with Autism should behave, which seems strange as you purport to work with children.

No, I don’t see that.

can you explain how?

preferably in simple words and with diagrams.

This is a real issue.
If screens are what a child uses to ‘self-regulate’… I’m pretty certain it’s actually screen time in their early years that is causing ADHD/ Autism-like symptoms. It’s a growing issue, and it’s a parenting issue. Early years are very important and formative.

Nope...people (children) were shut away as they are beginning to be again...countless news reports and scandals about it

Asylums aka LD villas were being closed only @20 years ago in my career. So many people were hidden (still are).

There are studies showing how little time people with LD spend in the general community..its a huge scandal in part explaining how people with LD die 19 years earlier on average

The op herself says she has not looked at the stats so does not know if there are more or less disabled children than previously.

there are loads and loads of stats.

she just hasn’t bothered to look at them.

the government is very interested in how many disabled people and how many disabled children there are and collects reasonably detailed stats and has done for decades. The op just can’t be bothered/doesn’t want to look them up.

No they don’t. They haven’t, for instance, recorded how many children in reception are unable to speak any functional language. Unless you can enlighten me?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnv949z75jmo

They'll be faking it for the benefits...😔🤦‍♀️

I know numerous children who wouldn't be alive just 10-15 years ago. One with cancer that wasn't previously treatable until 5 years ago. Thankfully in remission now but with numerous physical health issies caused by strong chemotherapy. One with Down's syndrome who needed major heart surgery that again wasn't previously available. Premature twins who survived with a lot of medical intervention.

When I was fighting to try and get my ND hugely anxious school refusing child into specialist education I was told the criteria for special schools is constantly increasing. This is because more children now survive with life limiting conditions or severe disabilities that would previously have died. Which means more children who would previously have been in specialist education are in mainstream. Of course there are also fewer specialist schools now too.

Exactly. My dad worked in an asylum that closed in the 80s some of the people who where in there were pretty much abandoned there. Sadly many where then failed by “care in the community” which followed it.

Also, non verbal does not mean that a child will need 24/7 care as an adult.

i’m currently doing a bsl (British sign language) class which is being taught by a non verbal bloke. He is deaf. He’s also very bright, a great teacher, and “speaks” bsl very well.

he needs no care whatsoever and is married with two kids.

non verbal doesn’t mean stupid. Nor does it mean not intelligent.

No diagnosis is needed to be able to claim disability benefits - that’s for adults as well as children. It’s not the condition itself that qualifies you, it’s how it affects your day to day life. Some conditions are complex and can take years to diagnose, so if diagnosis were a condition many people wouldn’t get the support they need.

I don’t understand what you mean by no disability benefits for any child under 18. If you’re 18 you’re not a child are you ? For many children with severe disabilities childhood is one of the most expensive times for their parents for various reasons. What would be the point of saying no child qualifies for them ?

Where did you get your PhD in Neuro-disabilities?

I would very much like to know where some of these figures come from. As a teacher who has been in schools for over 15 years, I have never experienced the numbers quoted here. I have come across a total of 4 mute children in total in all my time so completely different to the figure here. I am also a parent of children (now adults)with SEN. In years gone by, many children were not cared for at home but put in institutions and would therefore not have been 'seen'. Due to the lack of funding and investment in schools there are also less specialist places for those that need them and less adults to support on mainstream too. You may well find there are more children on part time timetables and parents who can't get wraparound care for children with SEN and have no choice but to leave employment to care for them. They would then potentially need the extra money to cover the deficit. There are also services, therapies etc that would have been far more readily available but parents are now paying for these due to them ceasing to exist or unreasonable waiting times. The increase in benefit claims may well say more about a system that is struggling than the amount of children that actually require support.

This thread and countless others are to massage an acceptance of abandoning people with disabilities...of making them suspect and unbelievable.

Our society faces huge challenges...some people are desperate to jump to cruel solutions that divide us. Suggesting that people are faking or exaggerating

Yet the same people being attacked here die decades before the general population....strange that when they are living the high life on benefits 😔 and making up their disabilities.