We need to talk about neurodiversity
We republish Battle speaker Dave Clements's thoughts on the expansion of mental-health diagnoses, and what it's doing - or not doing - for young people.
We hope that at the Battle of Ideas festival, the conversations we kick off keep on going long after the festival is done for the year. The speakers we invite are people who are constantly thinking, writing and revising their thoughts about the issues they come to debate. A prolific example of this is writer and policy adviser Dave Clements, who took part in our 2024 discussion Neurodiversity to gender dysphoria: a problem of over-diagnosis?
This can be an area of controversy; criticising the expansion of mental-health terms can get you into hot water. I found this out when giving a speech in parliament last week on ADHD and mental-health provision.
Mental health is an issue we’ve covered at the Battle almost every year. In the past, we’ve had debates like The politics of neurodiversity: fashion or affliction? and Escaping the straitjacket of mental health. Back in 2015, we discussed Community Treatment Orders: the psychiatric ASBO? We asked What does it mean to be normal? in November 2019, just months before normality went out the window during Covid. And in 2016 we discussed: Young people and mental illness: a growing problem?
We’ve started uploading all our Battle of Ideas debates and discussions on our new Battle Archive - a treasure trove of material to explore.
Or, if video is your thing, you can watch our debates on our newly re-vamped YouTube channel.
In the following re-stack, Dave shares some of his recent writing on the issue of mental health and neurodiversity, often arguing that an increase in diagnoses in young people is not necessarily the fix-all it’s made out to be.
Follow Dave on Substack, and let us know your thoughts on this ongoing issue.
I’m delighted to see that my contribution to the debate Neurodiversity to gender dysphoria: a problem of over-diagnosis? at the Battle of Ideas festival is now available online. I encourage you to watch the whole discussion on YouTube, not just my bit. It was great and I learned a lot. It reinforced my view that there is too much of an emphasis on difference. Both with regards to the over-labelling of often normal children with various conditions (whether diagnosed, self-diagnosed or not), and a tendency to retreat into ideological tribes so fixed in their diverseness they have rendered themselves unable (and unwilling?) to converse with each other.
In this spirit of commonality and conversation, might I also direct you to my other writing (and speaking) on this subject. I’ve written all over the place on this and related topics, but here on Substack you’ll find:
Why are schools excluding so many vulnerable kids?
27 February 2023
Perhaps one of the most striking things about the experience of the pandemic was how, despite an apparent concern for ‘the vulnerable’, it was the youngest, the oldest and those with the highest levels of need who suffered the most during lockdown. When it came to the young, it wasn’t just that their schools were closed for long periods, denying them an education. It was also that some of the most vulnerable were put at greater risk of neglect, abuse or worse, as a consequence (as I explored in a previous Substack).
This same dynamic, of those already suffering some kind of unavoidable ill-fortune being further disadvantaged by ‘the system’, continues to this day. Young people with special educational needs (SENs) - whether that be a learning disability, autism, ADHD or a variety of other conditions - can often experience difficulties that can impact on their behaviour or their ability to cope with the school day.
Beyond the culture war on autism
31 March 2023
We’re nearing the end of World Autism Acceptance Week (27 March to 2 April). At the end of which it will be World Autism Awareness Day. Sorry, you’ve already missed Neurodiversity Celebration Week (13 to 19 March). So much ‘awareness’. So little time.
A celebrity – Ireland international footballer James McClean – announced he is ‘on the spectrum’. And there was an engaging documentary - Unmasking My Autism - featuring former model Christine McGuinness. Both of which, interestingly enough, were about parents being diagnosed after discovering their children were autistic.
This is a recurring theme - adults, particularly parents and especially celebrities, in search of a condition like autism spectrum disorder (or, failing that, ADHD), on which to very publicly hang their sense of feeling different. As is the sense of recognition and relief for those who get the diagnosis they crave.
SENDing mixed messages on excluded kids
30 July 2023
I recently wrote a guest column for Teachwire and Teach Secondary magazine on the large numbers of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) being excluded from school. I’ve written sceptically about the rise of mental-health problems in schools before and how normal childhood experiences are being turned into mental-health problems. But this time around, alongside the usual analysis of the figures, I sought to reflect on my personal experience as a parent and a school governor, too. A little nuance can’t hurt. Or so I thought.
In the piece, I explain how official figures show that children with special educational needs are more likely than most children to be suspended or permanently excluded from school. The reason given is, more often than not, that they are displaying disruptive behaviour.
Is every child a SEND child now?
23 October 2023
Is it just me, or are there are more children walking around wearing ear defenders these days? Why does every other child seem to be ‘on the spectrum’ or to have ‘sensory issues’? I exaggerate, of course. But only a little. At a time when everybody – from teachers to football coaches – claims to be ‘SEND aware’ (because they went on a course once) it is striking how poorly understood these children - including my own - still are. Indeed, the more apparently aware we become of the needs of children with special educational needs, the less able we seem to be at actually addressing those needs.
Would it not be understandable if those of us with children with special educational needs began to question if our kids’ needs are really all that special anymore? Or if public-service leaders began to wonder whether spending on children’s services - one of the two largest budgets currently bankrupting local authorities - is a response to growing needs, or a consequence of a cultural affliction whereby a minority of children’s genuine needs are being defined out of existence?
Exclusions: We shouldn't be SENDing kids home
30 October 2023
As a school governor, I don’t underestimate the challenges schools face with behaviour problems in the classroom.
According to the latest National Behaviour Survey, around two thirds of children said they had been affected by classroom disruptions over the course of a week. About the same proportion of teachers reported losing between one and 10 minutes for every half hour of lesson time as a consequence. In the 2021/22 academic year, there were 6,500 permanent exclusions and 578,300 suspensions. In nearly half of cases, these were a response to what is described as ‘permanent disruptive behaviour’.
As a parent, I’m in what can feel like a permanent state of quiet rage that a child like mine - my son has autism and ADHD - is at constant risk of being excluded from school. Children with special educational needs are disproportionately likely to be permanently excluded from school; and around four times more likely than their peers to be suspended.
The cult of neurodiversity is making us sick
30 April 2024
It’s that time of year again - actually it’s that time of the night again (with less than an hour to go!) - when I realise, belatedly, that not only have I missed Autism Acceptance Month and World Autism Acceptance Week; but that I have also mislaid Neurodiversity Celebration Week. Perhaps I’m not aware enough. Maybe I need to go on awareness training. Or maybe I’m just not feeling very accepting or especially celebratory. Those of us with children ‘on the spectrum’ are more likely busy battling various institutional expressions - be it schools, local authorities, etc. - of the failure of society to give them the additional support they so desperately need.
Or perhaps we’re all, whether or not we’re personally affected, much more concerned about the horrors allegedly inflicted on children attending some special schools. Like the one a few hundred yards from where I am sitting right now that is the subject of a breaking BBC investigation. Or about the more everyday injustices faced by children with special educational needs or disabilities - like the boy with Down’s syndrome fortunate enough to have a none-too-accepting mother in the public eye, but unfortunate enough to be bounced out of a trampoline park. Not much to celebrate there either.
Dear Stella (and Bridget) - press SEND
31 July 2024
Thank you, Stella, for writing to me, and your other constituents with children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). I have, as you say, ‘been in touch with [your] office about special educational needs provision’. And many have, indeed, ‘struggled to navigate the support available for their children, often ending up in tribunals or combative battles with the local authority over resources’. You have kindly invited us to contribute to a ‘dossier’ for consideration by the new education secretary, Bridget Phillipson. You tell us she ‘has stated in her first week that addressing SEND provision in this country is a priority for her and she’s asking for input from MPs’. Like you, I welcome her interest in this failing area of policy which continues to impact on many children and families, and agree it is long overdue.
We don't know what normal is anymore
21 October 2024
My son has ASD (autism spectrum disorder). He also has ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder). ‘Doesn’t everybody?’ you might ask. It’s ADHD Awareness Month at the moment. I’m not sure if that means we are ‘aware’ or that we’re not ‘aware’ enough, but it’s certainly very in vogue. Then again, it’s also Black History Month, LGBT History Month and Menopause Awareness Month. There was a World Mental Health Day, World Homeless Day, and World Coming Out Day last week. And it was World Vegetarian Day the week before. To name but a few. If you look hard enough, we all have a day or a month we can identify with - whatever our affliction might be.
Sadly, we missed Neurodiversity Awareness Month, which was in April, but those who were there for it were keen to ‘celebrate the differences in the brain as strengths’. As a headline in Psychology Today put it: ‘Neurodiversity is an Identity, Not a Disorder’. While I have all sorts of doubts about ADHD (one of the neurodivergent identities), there’s one thing I can be sure of. My son doesn’t identify with autism. He is autistic. It isn’t something that he puts on like a new pair of shoes. It is a part of him - it runs through him like a stick of rock - whether he likes it or not.
Some barriers shouldn't be broken down
23 October 2024
As you might have seen from my last but one piece on Substack - I spoke at the weekend at a debate about neurodiversity and gender dysphoria, and the problem of over-diagnosis. I also, by coincidence, fell into another debate happening in another room on the topic of the ‘Queering of Society’ shortly after. A fascinating discussion that raised very similar questions, both about the topic at hand and about the nature of the discussions we were having. Both were at the wonderful annual festival of free speech that is the Battle of ideas. And we had a lot to get our heads around.
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