DLA mobility component

[Stressed199401]

Hello, my daughter is 4 and has quite severe autism. She can only speak words and phrases from Ben and holly, she has extreme meltdowns and is totally danger unaware, we've been getting middle rate DLA for her since last October, as she turns 5 in May we've received her Mobility component forms, I've filled them out and said that she has to wear reins when out and about because she has no second thought about running into the road, and has on numerous occasions thrown herself on the floor in a meltdown half way across a busy road while we're trying to cross making it massively dangerous for everyone, we narrowly missed being hit by a car recently, she's so unpredictable.

does anyone have a similar experience and if so did you get the mobility component? I'm not relying on it I'm just curious, as it'll be a long wait to find out if she qualifies or not and it'd be nice to have a clue.

This is what I mean by reins, I don't leave the house without it

At 4, only high rate mobility is possible. Some DC with ASD qualify for high rate mobility. This can be in two ways - Severe Mental Impairment (SMI) and Virtually Unable to Walk (VUW). Alone, using reins wouldn’t be enough to qualify for either of those, but in some cases, as part of a wider picture, some who use reins qualify for high rate mobility.

The SMI and VUW criteria flowcharts are in this document. It is also worth looking at Contact’s leaflet.

I don't expect her to get high rate, if at all it'll be low rate

Low rate mobility isn’t available until 5.

That what I mean, they've sent the forms now she turns 5 in just over 15 weeks, so bY the time it's been decided she will be 5

Apologies. I completely missed that sentence in your OP. Ever so sorry. In that case, yes, it sounds like DD would be eligible for LRM.

My sons’ DLA was renewed last year when he was 5 and we were awarded low rate mobility due to similar things you’ve listed here.

He has absolutely zero danger awareness whatsoever, none at all. He would walk in to any road, in to a river, canal, the sea and just have no fear or understanding that it’s dangerous.

He is coming up to 6 now but for the longest time he had to be strapped in to a buggy or if we didn’t have it with us he would claw up
our legs to be picked up. If it wasn’t possible
to pick him up he would bolt off and have a complete meltdown.

I think in the renewal forms I also mentioned his obsessions with stairs. He goes through phases of playing on the stairs or just constantly wanting to walk up and down them 24/7. He has also had phases of spinning, running up and down the landing or hallway for hours, one time resulted in his falling over and he required stitches on his head after hitting it off the wardrobe. Still needs to be sat inside the trolley when shopping etc.

We also had one near miss when he was almost 4. I was heavily pregnant with his little brother at the time and he out of nowhere managed to just loose my hand and he dropped to the floor in the middle of a road.

sounds very similar to my daughter, she drops the floor on busy roads, I had to pick her up by her coat and carry her across like that just to avoid being hit 🥴