Is nobody watching the Great ADHD Myth?

[ILikeTrains]

I was expecting to see lots of chatter about this. 1/2hr in - interesting!

It all feeds in to the political right wing ideology of less spent on SEN - very similar to the minority of refugees taking all of the jobs scarcity mindset.
As I say I haven't watched it yet, but there is a reason this programme was made and it will have political impact in sectors of society where a willingness to fund SEN is low and desire for that chunk of the budget is high.

And oh joy I've just been left feeling dismissed by a GP who obviously doesn't believe ADHD is a real thing.

Thanks Max, I'm sure he will love your "documentary".

I live perfectly well in my adult life I have rigorously arranged to let me do so. I live in a serene, ordered, quiet place with lots of trees and animals. I don't have a TV, phone etc in my house. I have a job that allows me to work in bursts instead of on a timetable. I don't have a car. I do have a cleaner and my shopping delivered and a lot of automations and sometimes I don't do or say or think all the things other people think I should. And so what.

I really thrive and am flourishing in this life I have built. I would describe myself as currently successful, as I earn good money in a specialist technical role and I can use that money to make my life work. When I was a child and trying to go to school, I appeared to be disabled -- I went to special school, PRUs, and was completely out of education by early teens. I was A Problem and I accepted this. I have no qualifications and didn't work until my thirties.

I now don't regard myself as disabled or as being or having a problem. I personally reject the medical framing as it was very unhelpful to me as a young person. I'm just a bit odd. I'm an odd person and I don't fit in with a lot of common things and that's ok, because I can live differently, so I do that. And it's fine! We can live differently so long as it's legal. People comment and object to my ways and don't understand me, and that's also fine. I understand me and I'm just fine.

Differences aren't a problem. Distress is the problem. Practical challenges are problems, and I think we can solve many and swerve more. I don't think these medicalised ideas of a self beyond the actual, of normal and disordered, etc, are very helpful. I know that view makes people very angry. People hold on very tightly to identity and neurodiversity has become one. I think that's probably an error, at least for me. So I guess as ever I disagree with both sides in the debate.

I think Pileoftrash was referring to the debates between 'nature' and 'nurture'. It used to be a right wing view that you were 'born that way' and a left wing view that 'society made you that way', across a whole range of behaviours and abilities.

We are running out of identical twins separated at birth to study, thanks to much more enlightened adoption policies, but they tend to show that it is 60/40 or 70/30 biological determinism vs upbringing.

I've had many a fight with people on this forum who insist that to have an ADHD diagnosis I must be disabled. I am not disabled. I am disadvantaged, but no more than many other people who are disadvantaged in other ways. For me, it also has advantages.

It's interesting and I think significant how many of us end up self employed and/or in roles that we can control.

Did they have ADHD or were they just badly behaved? What became of them?

Were they disciplined and given guidance to correct their behaviour and went on to complete their schooling and get a job and lead a normal life, or were they labelled with a condition, medicated and led down a path where they need special adaptions and benefits and view themselves as having special needs. Or did they end up in prison, homeless or worse?

I don’t know @BadBadCat what became of them. I do know they were told off often for chatting, messing around and not working and most of our teachers were kind and supportive (but not all this still being the era of board rubber throwing).

I am far more aware of the pupils I used to teach (in the last 8 years) and what happened to them. In fact working with children in education has really opened my eyes that things are very complex regarding behaviour and I spend a huge amount of time building relationships and trying to work out how best to support those who struggle.

(I’m confused by your binary of either discipline and job/normal life or labelled and medicated special adaptations with possible prison etc. Things are never so black and white.)

58%?? What the fuck.

just read this back! My opening line should be in NO doubt 🙄

I actually think these are two separate issues. The school curriculum as it stands and some of the ridiculous politics brought into teaching is simultaneously too rigid and lacking in clear boundaries. This causes uncertainty in children.

ADHD accounts for about 2-3% of the general population and has a very specific set of criteria for diagnosis

When I read this post I decided to take it with a pinch of salt but additional needs could also mean anything from ADHD to autism, dyspraxia, dyslexia, epilepsy, physical access needs, trauma, diabetes and practically any other disability.

I do feel sorry for teachers who are spread too thin and that's why I think it's everyone's business that we look after our teachers and advocate for it to be easier to access support for our children.

I was going to say, I have a family history of ADHD to counter mand that. I was diagnosed at 8, my sister in her teens, my dad as an adult (all the signs were there for decades, as he was born in 51, and stuggled his whole life). Even my cousins have it. It is a genetic trait, that once was useful for survival, but now just makes things hard due to the way humanity lives now. Coping mechanisms can only do so much.

What is now being classed as additional needs in school has got beyond a joke. I work in a very run of the mill primary where our additional needs are fewer than many other schools. However, in some classes we have a long list approaching 50% of children with varying needs identified. Some are those with actual diagnosed conditions, some are needs for learning and behaviour that school has identified, and some are things that parents want us to address. The latter is becoming increasingly common. Parents are actively seeking for their children to be listed as having things like ADHD, ASD, anxiety, etc. and insisting their children are treated differently. They are requesting input from teachers to support their private ADHD assessments which in some cases they can't do as they don't display those behaviours at school. We're at the point where teachers are using methods developed for SEN with the whole class now. Things like brain breaks, removing all displays from the walls and having everything beige, low lighting and the blinds down all day, a visual timetable, slowing the pace of lessons, breaking learning into small chunks, fidgets for everyone, etc.

I'm not a teacher, but I have worked with the general public so I do know some people can be quite entitled with their requests and they're not always rooted in reality, however, you say it's beyond a joke.

Most of the examples you've given are basically universal design teaching strategies: visual timetables, breaking instructions into manageable chunks, predictable routines, movement/brain breaks, reducing unnecessary sensory distraction, etc. A strategy being developed because it particularly helps disabled children doesn't mean it somehow becomes inappropriate when nondisabled children benefit from it too.

I still largely believe this is a political issue. The 1997 excellence for all children: meeting special educational needs paper made inclusion a central policy objective and argued that SEN children should be educated successfully in mainstream schools. Then in 2001 there was the SENDA as well as the revised SEN code of practice which gave the aforementioned paper more legal force. I know this was 25 years ago but what I think we're seeing is the butterfly effect in action.

In 2004 there was the Removing Barriers to Achievement: The Government's Strategy for SEN where they rather incorrectly assumed that the number of children requiring a SEND school placement should fall, and eventually the start of the snowballing of specialist schools being closed.

To now, we're seeing specialist schools still closing or purpose built schools being funded and sitting empty for years. An abundance of schools built for specific primary needs and not enough of other specific primary need schools being built all the while active specialist provisions being filled to the brim, meanwhile we bicker amongst ourselves about whether these children deserve the funding, whether the money would be better spent elsewhere, whether it can be afforded at all meanwhile the same children are struggling and disrupting the status quo in a previously homogeneous group of individual pupils.

It's sad all round. It shouldn't be this hard for our children to be able to access a reasonable education for their age, aptitude and wellbeing and the burden for providing this shouldn't be placed on the shoulders of mainstream teachers.
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My nephew is diagnosed as autistic/PDA. He's in a special school. His main problem is basically not doing as he's told. He has no verbal/physical issues, his main problem is he finds socialising/being told no very difficult. Academically he's capable.

He gets £340 a month DLA.

SIL now has it in her head that niece is autistic too. She's seems to be trying to get her diagnosed in order to get the money. There's nothing wrong with this kid, at all. SIL has insisted to the headteacher that she can't cope with a full day at primary school, she is anxious, has autism etc etc. The headteacher has basically given in and said, we can't meet her needs. So now she's on the wait list for an ECHP.

SIL just wants another £340 a month.

So yes, I do think there are a hell of a lot of parents who are jumptin the bandwagon to get their kid diagnosed.

Even though it's to the detriment of their child???

I don't get it.

My small city used to have at least six specialist schools, plus specialist bases in most schools, barely 20 years ago. There is now just one and the official bases have also gone. All the students who would previously have attended one of those specialist schools are now in mainstream schools (or not managing school at all).

It's a hell of a fight to get any child into a special school. Unless you live with your nephew I would stop judging your sister in law if I were you.

But, but, but, this child will not be diagnosed unless there is evidence to support what the parent says. It’s mad how people think children are diagnosed with autism and ADHD on the parents say so. Neurotypical children are not going to be given an autism diagnosis as they will not meet the criteria for that diagnosis regardless of ‘parents wanting money‘. I find it crazy people believe this happens so much.

Of course you would. I had one of those in my class and I vividly remember him. I suspect that a couple of others as well just had a different type. So you were just lucky.

It’s very hard to get into a special school. We know a non verbal wheelchair using 7 year old locally who was refused initially.

Wheelchairs means they need a wheelchair-accessible school - as all schools built this century should be. Not a specialist school.

They were also non verbal @Schoolshirtshopping and there were no spaces where they could eg do occupational therapy so they could get some movement etc.

In the end the local authority admitted this child to the local special school but it took several years of the mother fighting. The family were under so much pressure because he was awake for several hours in the night regularly too and there was a lot of crying out in the night.

I should also mention this was a Victorian village primary school @Schoolshirtshopping so not well adapted at all. Narrow door ways, steps up etc

100% agree with this.