To the optimist, it may appear that we are finally emerging from the dark ages when it comes to children with neurological and learning disabilities. After decades of tireless campaigning, the lives of people with ADHD, autism and dyslexia are getting better. We’ve come a long way from the playground insults of the 1990s or 1970s of the idea that emotionally withdrawn “refrigerator moms” cause autism.
In fact, the speed and scale of the change has some experts worried. A new concern has emerged: overdiagnosis. In the last 20 years, for example, there have been almost 800% growth in the number of children diagnosed with autism, and the diagnosis of ADHD has also exploded. The fear of labeling children with these labels once kept the numbers down, are we now applying them too liberally?
Meanwhile, a recent report has shown that almost a third of children are already entitled to extra time on exams – two out of five of those in private schools. This sparked a new discussion: is special treatment really justified in all these cases?
But amid these public conversations, which essentially ask whether advocacy has gone “too far,” you get stories like this one.
Footage emerged last week, via BBCfrom a school in north-east London showing autistic children shoved into padded rooms, thrown to the floor, held by the neck or left alone sitting in vomit.
Around 40 children with learning disabilities and severe mental disorders were locked in these “quiet rooms” for hours, often without food or drink. Left alone, many of them hurt themselves.
This story was not extraordinary. These scandals occur regularly. In 2022 defense review found evidence of “significant and varied” emotional abuse in three special schools in Doncaster – excessive force, physical neglect, taunts and “serious” breaching of “sexual boundaries with children and youth”, many of which were non-verbal. Vinegar was poured over open wounds and the children were locked outside in sub-zero temperatures.
How can we think that destigmatization has gone too far when the treatment of autistic children reflects the worst excesses of the Victorian era?
As we unravel the mystery, it’s helpful to think of our progress as two-way. For those with milder conditions, things have really improved. Schools have often become more inclusive over the decades, taking into account different abilities and anti-bullying efforts.
But this wave of progress left behind a large and important group. For children with severe learning disabilities, life does not improve as quickly.
why Progress is largely driven by advocacy. But since the late 1980s and 1990s, it has been heavily influenced by the neurodiversity movement, which seeks to reduce discrimination through connectivity.
He argues that each of our unique brains falls on a spectrum of neurological differences, and those with so-called disorders are simply at one end of the continuum. Therefore, people with autism or ADHD can relate – they have traits that we all share to some extent. The term “neurodiversity” has since expanded further to include people with many different atypical traits and personalities.
Positive portrayals of autism in pop culture have focused on high-functioning individuals whose condition can give them particular strengths, such as the character Dr. Sean Murphy in the television series The good doctor.
These efforts have been extremely successful. Encouraging us to relate to people with autism and respect them for their abilities seems to have reduced discrimination and bullying.
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But it also left a group out in the cold: children who don’t function well, who have limited communication and who struggle with everyday life.
A common symptom of severe autism, for example, is something called “intense vocalization,” but society has not been taught to associate it with autism or treat it with acceptance.
Here a mother interviewed by a psychiatric journal earlier this year. “Society has a misconception about autism,” she says. “They don’t think about severe autism [my son] there is. They think about, you know, The good doctor. And that really leaves my son out of the conversation.
Another mother of a son with “profound” autism explained that she often had to correct people. “He will often be asked if he has any kind of science or special talent.”
To compound the divide, policy change is increasingly being driven by high-functioning advocates from the autism community, which can tilt policies even more toward this group. Then, as the number of people diagnosed expands to include milder cases, those who struggle the most make up a smaller and smaller proportion of the cohort. A sample of those diagnosed in the 1990s in a group of Western countries showed that about 50% had severe autism. In the mid-2000s, it was around 11%.
As a result, perceptions and policies are skewed. The movement to include children with autism in schools has improved outcomes for those with average or high cognitive abilities. Meanwhile, funding of special schools and housing support collapsed, leaving families in crisis. Parents are repeatedly urged to take their children to schools that cannot safely manage their behavior, overbooked disability programs leave them as the sole caregivers.
How to deal with the gap? For starters, conversations about increased diversity and inclusion should not overshadow the plight of children with more serious illnesses. Last month, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said as much autistic allowances had gone too far: they are given “privileges and protection” and “may receive better treatment or equipment at school”. But talk of progress, or indeed of “too much” progress, misses a bigger, darker picture. For many, stigma and abuse are still at truly dangerous levels.
