I applied for child disability for my daughter who has autism and is non verbal. I took a chance with applying as we are almost 18 months into the waiting list to start the diagnosis but I’m fully aware it’s such a long wait time right now. I applied when she was 2 years and 9 months and it has taken 18 months for them to review her application and undertake a re-determination, finally with an outcome of low rate care, no mobility. She is 100% entitled to either middle or high rate care due to her needs and she meets all the criteria but my issue is, they are basing the evidence given off her age at the time of application. So her speech therapy, health visitor, nursery and childminder reports written when she was 4 years old have been looked at but based off her age on application at 2.9 years.
Basically they are saying it’s normal for a 2.9 year old to not speak, need 10-12 nappy changes, refuse to walk and need to go in a pushchair, sensory issues etc etc (all the tick box autism traits), which I get but she is now 4 which is not “normal”.
Has anyone had experience in appealing something like this? I want them to take her current age into consideration when looking at the evidence I have provided over the last 18 months, not her age on application. It wasn’t her fault that it’s take them so long to look at her case and she is potentially missing out on thousands of pounds of back dated award which could really support her. I have given updated reports to them over the 18 months, and submitted extra documents when requesting the redetermination, it just seem as so unfair.
Any advice is appreciated, I am phoning CAS in the morning for support too.