Trying to work out if this coud possibly be correct? It would mean he would have had to have had an EHCP in place by the age of 3? I know I am cynical but we have one of the country’s leading providers of SEN education near me, admittedly taking boys from 7-18, and so I know A LOT of families and individuals who have been down this process. Whilst its a large specialist boys school, many of those families have girls and less impacted boys who are ND that go to the progressive private co ed school that is literally 2miles up the road and which mine went to. The families drop at one and then the other and we talk a lot. [As I write I am aware this is at the very least a bit outing, in terms of identifying where I live/schools my kids went to. Eek.]
Getting an EHCP for most of those families was utterly unobtainable by the age of three. For may - most even - it took 2-3 years of extensive, multiagency clinical specialist input (which, due to waiting lists, also involved years’ long waiting lists), for more than half, it involved taking the LEA/LA to court, costing them £20-40K over several years because the school is technically a private one, even though 70% of the students (now) are funded by LAs all over the region.
The private speech therapist we used was recommended by contacts at this school because the waitlist under the NHS referral scheme, even with GP/HV and other supporting referrers involved, was months long and led to an mere 8 session course of 1 hour a fortnight and a load of ‘worksheets’ for things to do at home with mummy. I was eventually able to feed it into an IEP (Individual Education Plan) arranged in their states schools (they started in the state system), but even then they did not suggest or promote referral for an EHCP, or autism assessment, or any kind of ed psych review at all. Hence my kids not being diagnosed until their teens and only then because I coincidentally did an Open Uni degree in psychology and did a module and dissertation on autism to better understand a much younger half brother who had been diagnosed. Ie there was no help, no proactive support, no awareness that speech therapy could help, that intensive ed psych assessment was warranted, that all of this could be provided by the state - let alone expedited by the age of three. And I am in a wealthy, well funded (at the time) LA, and my kids started at the no 1 state primary school acc to the Times where the HT was best buddies with Gove and advising on national policy.
So I am unsure that I really believe this fairy tale. It bears no similarity with mine or, and no exaggeration, the dozens upon dozens of other families and parents I have known over the last 20 years, many of them quite intimately as we have held each other and cried together with frustration and heartbreak over the years. One of the issues I have with his story is the way it misrepresents the support that is available [SHOULD be available], sets an expectation of a prompt, responsive and extensive care and intervention package that I have never seen offered or had access to myself. For families at the start of the journey, who find that they do not get that support, it spins the narrative that their children too might have gone on to become Cambridge Dons, but for some extra speech therapy.
NB typos and SPAG errors all my own, but enhanced by early morning caffein deficit.