ADHD & autism, DLA?

[redgum]

My child has been diagnosed with ADHD and autism. I was advised by the consultant to look at DLA, I'm a bit overwhelmed at everything online. I feel guilty tbh, it's hard trying to ascertain what is "normal" as we have just adapted our lives to our child's needs and lost sight of what is unusual. I suppose the main thing is that despite coming up to teenage he still requires a lot of supervision which stifles our earning potential (I am very reliant on my flexible employer and WFH, and the fact we changed his school some distance away as they were better equipped but not a special school, the school run is a bit of a killer) vs friends who have more freedom, but is that in the spirit of DLA? Does anyone have any guidance on this?

Look at Cerebra’s DLA guide. Extra supervision compared to typical peers the same age counts for DLA.

Thank you I will take a look

Hi, my 6 year old is in the ASD assessment pathway (a wait of over 2 years for us at this stage). Another mum at school whose child was diagnosed earlier in the year for autism applied for DLA and got it. She mentioned it to me too to look into. I haven’t yet done it but may do so if he gets diagnosed.

From my end, I can see the financial impact of caring for a potentially autistic child in our life:

• I have had to take so many annual leaves for appointments, school emergencies, holiday clubs not having my son that I had already used all my annual leave allowance and has had to resort to unpaid leave.
• I have had to book sessions with a private child therapist when things got too overwhelming and unmanageable.
• my son unfortunately refuses to use the toilet for poos. I have had to buy so many special padddd underwear (much more expensive then normal underwear) as he is self conscious of wearing pull ups.

I hope this helps you to skew extent to think about the impact on your life and where the additional assistance from DLA May be helpful

One more thing to add, the impact having a potentially neurodiverse sibling has had on my older son. We have had to get him referred to BICS and also sought help from a private therapist

@MonaRosa you don’t need to wait to wait for a diagnosis. DLA is based on needs, not diagnosis.

Contact your local MENCAP, they were excellent in helping me with the DLA forms.