Living Disability Allowance

[Bumblelion]

Thought I would bring this to your attention, if you are not already aware of it.

My beautiful DD (2 tomorrow) has severe delay development in all skills - gross motor skills, fine motor skills, language, etc.

She is under various specialist hospitals (eye, hearing, development) and has portage once a week (which is wonderful for her).

My portage lady mentioned to me that I could claim LDA for her development delay but I never followed this up. After speaking to the Inland Revenue about getting help for childcare costs - long story - they asked if I claimed LDA and when I said "no", they said they would send the forms through.

They are very long winded but my Portage Worker filled them in for me (took about 2 1/2 hours).

Apparently it is awarded at 3 levels of payment depending on "disability" (I use that word lightly) and doesn't take into account income/savings, etc.

Just for those of you with "special" children, thought you might need to know that perhaps you are entitled to this.

do u means DLA?

Know what you mean... nobody 'advertises' that you don't need a 'label' to have a child with a difficulty...just that they can't do things which are normal for a child of that age- the main thing that helps in getting it though is having someone 'offical' who can be contacted by the DLA for information to support the claim- the reason i write this is that my ds1 has ADHD and only when got Aspergers dx did anyone tell me about DLA (3 years later)- turns out we may have got the lower rate at least if we'd applied when he 'only' had ADHD- but the annoying bit is that his difficulties now are not alot different to then...so who knows we may have got the rate we now get- 2 or 3 years earlie- meaning that he could have had the 'better' quality of life we can now afford to give him sooner!!

Us too we only started getting DLA this easter. My dd had been having difficulties almost 2 years previous to this. I only found out because we were short of money and my Mum said ring your HV and ask her if you are entitled to Carers allowance or something. My HV was amazed I wasn't claiming DLA. But she was a star and helped me sort out all the forms and everything, but it is frustrating when you have been paying for nursery sessions and groups(as advised) when you could have had the benefit money to pay for them.