Special Needs, what's going on?

[Section_31]

Touchy subject this and I don't want to offend anyone, I have friends and family with children who have problems, but I'm genuinely curious as to what people think is going on.

 

The number of SEN kids has absolutely gone through the roof it seems in the last couple of decades. We know loads of people who have a kid with some kind of issue. But I also know teachers who say that some parents are self informed through Facebook etc and can be very pushy.

 

Parents are angry at councils and schools, but schools claim they can't cope with the numbers.

 

Is it all genuine or is there an element of over (self) diagnosing? I know the yanks are knee deep in all this shit and they'll fucking monetize anything.

 

Or is some of it to do with early years development, not playing out? Too many screens etc?

 

Interested to hear people's thoughts.

[John102]

Worlds gone mad. Cant just call a kid thick anymore.

[Section_31]

I keep reading the thread title in the voice of Four Non Blondes. Apologies.

[Jairzinho]

Marvin Gaye's cunt brother over here.

[VladimirIlyich]

It's a difficult one. There will be a greater diagnosing compared to previous decades but the argument could be it has had more exlosure now through publicity and campaigns about it?

[Captain Turdseye]

Interesting thread. 
 

A few of my childhood friends have got serious non-verbal autistic kids. I don’t remember that really being a thing when I was growing up. The rise in conditions such as those has surely got something to do with the way we as a society live our lives differently than we used to. Which part exactly is up for debate. 
 

It’s a tough draw, having a kid like that, especially if you’re juggling other kids as well. Massive respect to the parents. 

[Bjornebye]

My niece has got Williams Syndrome. It’s heartbreaking but she’s the happiest kid I’ve ever met. I just think there’s more eyes on it these days and parents/teachers/nurses are more aware of the signs.
 

Hate using the word but even when I was a kid it was “oh he’s just a mong” while some poor kid who clearly needed extra help was fighting his way through existing. I definitely think other factors like processed food and the lifestyle their parents might have led (drugs etc) contributes. 

 

Plus didn’t they just used to throw them in the river years ago if they were born disabled? 

[Creator Supreme]

Two of my kids (eldest and youngest) have confirmed autism diagnoses and my son (eldest) also has adhd.

 

He's gone from being a normal kid (seemingly) until he was about 12 or 13 to retreating into his shell, refused school until provision was found for him in an alternative needs school, but once that was over his life has stopped. He barely leaves the house, has to have control over everything, won't engage with the help he clearly needs and basically spends a lot of his time angry at the world. He won't let us walk the dog without him even.

 

My youngest daughter got diagnosed earlier than my son as we started to recognise the signs so got her assessed earlier. She's better off than my son, but recently we've had to remove her from school and start homeschooling her as her anxiety levels were off the charts.

 

My middle child (eldest daughter) has escaped the autism and adhd but still has anxiety issues, and bless her she can't seem to find a job.

 

Like section, I've noticed a massive increase in SEN diagnoses since I was a kid (same with different forms of dementia too at the other end of the life cycle) and I too am at a loss to explain it.

 

Is it that it's easier to make these diagnoses? Are we more wiling to put labels on these issues? Is it environmental and / or diet related?

 

I'm genuinely stymied.

[Section_31]

Outstanding use of the word stymied.

[Creator Supreme]

2 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

Outstanding use of the word stymied.

Much underused word.

[Mook]

My ex wife has a degree in child psychology and is always trying to label our pair with some form of autism or whatever.

 

Most of it just seems like OCD or them being wee bastards to me.

 

On the other hand, my Dad is 100% autistic & was never diagnosed, back in the 60/70s, he would've just been called a fucking oddball.

[YorkshireRed]

Liz Kendall was on with Laura this morning. She was asked a question  seemed to imply that ‘self diagnosis’ was part of the problem. 
 

Whilst our current society and, in particular, social media has undoubtedly fuelled this to a degree, I’m inclined to try and look at the positives of this and say that the reduction of the stigma and the increase in self awareness is a good thing. 
 

My youngest son was diagnosed with autism aged about fifteen. We probably should have done this much earlier as the signs were there. He shares some of the challenges CS refers to. He is at college doing A Levels, but is finding it a struggle. To be honest, I couldn’t give a fuck what grades he gets as long as he can find some happiness. 
 

I remember trying to get help, more than once, for my brother. Whilst it was possible to get treatment for the results of his addictions, it was extremely difficult to get anyone to offer any support to understand root causes, which may well (at least in part) have been SEN related. 
 

We’re probably at a point where the pendulum has swung away from stigmatising these issues, a little too far in the other direction. These issues are series, they aren’t a badge of honour.
 

Hopefully over the next few years the right balance of understanding, acceptance and treatment can be found within a society that has built better foundations for dealing with the root causes.

 

We can but hope. 

[littletedwest]

I think its definitely being diagnosed and recognised more now.

 

That said I have noticed a lot of the kids diagnosed with ADHD tend to have parents who like class A drugs, fighting and Staffordshire bull terriers.

 

[TheHowieLama]

I think the lines have been blurred for a couple reasons but it is the same with mental health tbh.

[Carvalho Diablo]

13 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

I think the lines have been blurred for a couple reasons but it is the same with mental health tbh.

 

Completely agree. Valid and emotive illnesses, hijacked by thick bastards.

[Creator Supreme]

30 minutes ago, YorkshireRed said:

To be honest, I couldn’t give a fuck what grades he gets as long as he can find some happiness. 

This is the crux of it for me.

 

I just want all my kids to be happy, healthy and living life to the full. Basically everything I don't do.

 

My missus is amazing, she has many joint issues which cause her unending pain, and yet she still manages to be positive most of the time about how the kids will turn out. I'm, as you're all well aware from the FF and the Depression thread on here, a miserable negative bastard.

 

Maybe my attitude to life has caused some of the kids issues, I don't know. I hope not.

[Creator Supreme]

31 minutes ago, littletedwest said:

I think its definitely being diagnosed and recognised more now.

 

That said I have noticed a lot of the kids diagnosed with ADHD tend to have parents who like class A drugs, fighting and Staffordshire bull terriers.

 

I wasn't aware we'd met.

[TheSire]

1 hour ago, Section_31 said:

Touchy subject this and I don't want to offend anyone, I have friends and family with children who have problems, but I'm genuinely curious as to what people think is going on.

 

The number of SEN kids has absolutely gone through the roof it seems in the last couple of decades. We know loads of people who have a kid with some kind of issue. But I also know teachers who say that some parents are self informed through Facebook etc and can be very pushy.

 

Parents are angry at councils and schools, but schools claim they can't cope with the numbers.

 

Is it all genuine or is there an element of over (self) diagnosing? I know the yanks are knee deep in all this shit and they'll fucking monetize anything.

 

Or is some of it to do with early years development, not playing out? Too many screens etc?

 

Interested to hear people's thoughts.

Honestly depends on the context really, hard to say without specifics, ie which conditions are we talking about?

 

If we're talking about things such as ADHD and autism etc, schools are much better at picking up on early signs and starting the process for referral and assessment by a psychiatrist so the numbers will be higher than what we're used to but this is more due to better awareness.

 

When we were in school none of these things were known about or accepted medically so you have millions of adults undiagnosed who were failed by the system leading to poor outcomes in terms of education, health, finances, crime etc.

 

In the context of ADHD, the global prevalence is 4%, the rate diagnosis here is about 0.1% of the population so there are huge amounts of untreated people struggling unnecessarily.

 

Because of the surge in awareness some people feel that 'everyone has it these days' when in reality some of these conditions are actually very common and it might feel like too much diagnosis is going on, when in reality we're actually way, way behind and need to play catch up.

 

If we don't do this, it costs huge sums in health care, prisons etc because those who go under the radar are much more likely to develop health problems, drug addictions and other risky behaviour that can cost the country money in policing, prisons, strain on the NHS etc, not to mention increased risk of suicide etc.

 

BTW I know you aren't one of those deniers but just wanted to spew a bit of information and context that may help some understand. 

[TheSire]

1 hour ago, Section_31 said:

Touchy subject this and I don't want to offend anyone, I have friends and family with children who have problems, but I'm genuinely curious as to what people think is going on.

 

The number of SEN kids has absolutely gone through the roof it seems in the last couple of decades. We know loads of people who have a kid with some kind of issue. But I also know teachers who say that some parents are self informed through Facebook etc and can be very pushy.

 

Parents are angry at councils and schools, but schools claim they can't cope with the numbers.

 

Is it all genuine or is there an element of over (self) diagnosing? I know the yanks are knee deep in all this shit and they'll fucking monetize anything.

 

Or is some of it to do with early years development, not playing out? Too many screens etc?

 

Interested to hear people's thoughts.

In terms of the screen time etc, obviously that's bad for us all but there is no link to the likes of ADHD as its a physical brain condition that has a strong genetic component as it runs in families, the risk factor goes up MASSIVELY from parent to child. It isn't something you can get or develop.

 

It's certainly not easy to get a diagnosis either, it can only be diagnosed by a specialist and not only are there a lot of symptoms to factor in, these have to be persistent from about the age of 12 and other things like depression etc have to be ruled out.

 

In Europe we don't just diagnose if the above criteria are met, it has to have had a significant impact in several domains such as work, finances, relationships, health etc. Because of online misinformation by idiot sceptics, people think it's easy to get a diagnosis, the reality is it's both expensive and a LOT is taken into consideration during assessment.

 

In America it IS literally diagnosed (the impact only needs to be about 50% vs how Europe assess the condition) too liberally and this is where the pushback comes from. People watch a Netflix documentary about bad pharma or something and presume doctors are giving dodgy diagnoses for £££.

[TheSire]

1 hour ago, Captain Turdseye said:

Interesting thread. 
 

A few of my childhood friends have got serious non-verbal autistic kids. I don’t remember that really being a thing when I was growing up. The rise in conditions such as those has surely got something to do with the way we as a society live our lives differently than we used to. Which part exactly is up for debate. 
 

It’s a tough draw, having a kid like that, especially if you’re juggling other kids as well. Massive respect to the parents. 

It's just down to these being recognised in the UK, better awareness etc. In the past you'd be locked in a mental asylum for these things so it wasn't spoken about. It was something to hide and be ashamed of sadly.

[TheSire]

You bunch of spazzes

[lifetime fan]

1 hour ago, Creator Supreme said:

Same with different forms of dementia too at the other end of the life cycle and I too am at a loss to explain it.

 

Is it that it's easier to make these diagnoses? Are we more wiling to put labels on these issues? Is it environmental and / or diet related?

 

I'm genuinely stymied.

I reckon that’s from people living longer. Previous generations would have just died younger before developing dementia. 

[TheSire]

1 hour ago, Creator Supreme said:

Two of my kids (eldest and youngest) have confirmed autism diagnoses and my son (eldest) also has adhd.

 

He's gone from being a normal kid (seemingly) until he was about 12 or 13 to retreating into his shell, refused school until provision was found for him in an alternative needs school, but once that was over his life has stopped. He barely leaves the house, has to have control over everything, won't engage with the help he clearly needs and basically spends a lot of his time angry at the world. He won't let us walk the dog without him even.

 

My youngest daughter got diagnosed earlier than my son as we started to recognise the signs so got her assessed earlier. She's better off than my son, but recently we've had to remove her from school and start homeschooling her as her anxiety levels were off the charts.

 

My middle child (eldest daughter) has escaped the autism and adhd but still has anxiety issues, and bless her she can't seem to find a job.

 

Like section, I've noticed a massive increase in SEN diagnoses since I was a kid (same with different forms of dementia too at the other end of the life cycle) and I too am at a loss to explain it.

 

Is it that it's easier to make these diagnoses? Are we more wiling to put labels on these issues? Is it environmental and / or diet related?

 

I'm genuinely stymied.

Has he had any therapy or coaching to try to find ways to cope and live a decent life but which are more suited to those with autism etc? The need for control is a common one but you can always learn new skills to function and remove that stress.

 

I think with autism the brain doesn't process some of the subtle things via those automatic brain processes but it's still possible to adapt techniques that help with the overwhelm and constant stress etc.

 

With two kids having it, do you see any traits yourself? What about the Mrs? Issues with mood etc are very, very common secondary symptoms of ADHD and autism.

 

X

[TheSire]

1 hour ago, Creator Supreme said:

Two of my kids (eldest and youngest) have confirmed autism diagnoses and my son (eldest) also has adhd.

 

He's gone from being a normal kid (seemingly) until he was about 12 or 13 to retreating into his shell, refused school until provision was found for him in an alternative needs school, but once that was over his life has stopped. He barely leaves the house, has to have control over everything, won't engage with the help he clearly needs and basically spends a lot of his time angry at the world. He won't let us walk the dog without him even.

 

My youngest daughter got diagnosed earlier than my son as we started to recognise the signs so got her assessed earlier. She's better off than my son, but recently we've had to remove her from school and start homeschooling her as her anxiety levels were off the charts.

 

My middle child (eldest daughter) has escaped the autism and adhd but still has anxiety issues, and bless her she can't seem to find a job.

 

Like section, I've noticed a massive increase in SEN diagnoses since I was a kid (same with different forms of dementia too at the other end of the life cycle) and I too am at a loss to explain it.

 

Is it that it's easier to make these diagnoses? Are we more wiling to put labels on these issues? Is it environmental and / or diet related?

 

I'm genuinely stymied.

We didn't recognise ADHD until about 2004 over here, it's pretty much rooted in that. It wasn't even recognised in adults until about 2014. There are about 4 million people with ADHD in the UK, only a tiny fraction are diagnosed and treated.

 

The saddest thing is it's a very easy condition to treat and the secondary depression etc disappear from day one of treatment. There must be so much money wasted in incorrect diagnoses of anxiety, depression, bipolar etc because we have no screening by primary care. Ie a GP should ideally be noticing a person with decades of different diagnoses and failed medications, when all along its common to be ADHD with the depressive symptoms etc because caused by the underlying ADHD.

[TheHowieLama]

2 hours ago, John102 said:

Worlds gone mad. Cant just call a kid thick anymore.

And they can't just be odd any longer. Just old fashioned odd.

 

There has to be a reason and that reason needs to be something that can be fixed.