DLA, Mobility and Blue badge!!

[Dingle]

Can I have some advice please. My DD is just 9 and has Down Syndrome. In the past she has qualified for high rate mobility but we have just got her DLA claim back and they have reduced her down to low rate mobility.

Yes, she can walk, when she wants to, with constant physical restraint, guidance and prompting. She has low muscle tome, loose limbs, sensory issues and poor body awareness etc, etc in addition to a complete lack of saftey, stranger, danger awareness.

I am absolutely gutted, not necessarily because of the financial impact but thinking ahead of how I will manage without qualifying for a blue badge. I struggle getting her in and out of the car as it is and TBH I feel so, so drained by her constant needs, I just feel it's the last straw.
How many children on the Autistic spectrum, or Down Syndrome or other learning disabilities as opposed to purely physical difficulties have blue badges please.

Do I appeal or just give up completely? I feel I haven't the energy left any more.Please help. x

You can apply for a blue badge without HRM DLA, just get a supporting letter from your GP. Ive seen that many other MN Mums have been successful this way....if you want to avoid the appeal process if you cant face it.

HTH

I haven't appealed BUT there are people on here who have had these type of decisions overturned at appeal and can give you some help. Good luck and do start the appeal process because there are time restrictions.

At the very least you can ask for a reconsideration. If she has received HRM in the past, and her condition hasn't improved, then you can argue that there were no grounds to reduce her award.

WRT the blue badge, my DD has a brain malformation, which is responsible for her symptoms that are very similar to your DD. We were turned down on first App, because they decided that her difficulties weren't physical. However, I appealed on the basis that her brain malformation is physical, and it is the brain malformation which causes her difficulties, ergo her difficulties are physical in origin.

I would use the same argument here. Your DD has an extra copy of a chromosome, which is physical. It is the extra chromosome which causes her to have the difficulties she has, therefore her difficulties are physical, so she qualifies.

Pure Learning difficulties with no known physical cause don't qualify for a Blue Badge, so you have to pin it all (rightly) on the physical presence of additional genetic material.