4.2  Working together: diagnosing disability or identifying a need

As practitioners focusing on how best to provide support for each individual child, we may need to ask for advice and input from health professionals or social workers with specialist knowledge. We need to do this with care, knowing that the way we seek support has influence over how parents and children see themselves and construct their identity. Sometimes a diagnosis can be regarded as a label and can provoke negative emotions. However for some people, knowing that there is a cause or reason for certain behaviours, and that there is a condition that can be diagnosed, can be viewed as being positive. It is very important to be aware that ELC practitioners do not diagnose conditions, though.

Activity 4.2  Reflection on diagnosing disability or identifying a need

Timing: Allow 10 minutes

First listen to play worker Max Alexander, who has been diagnosed as having autism, as he discusses how he views his diagnosis as a tool.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 4.1

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Transcript: Video 4.1  Diagnosis as a tool

MAX ALEXANDER:

Well, a useful way to think about diagnosis for me is to think about it as a tool, so diagnosis is meant to be useful. That's why it's that why it exists. It's meant to be useful. Diagnosis, as a tool, I think, the initial thing people might think about is it, as a tool, has access to very practical things access to funding, access to the right or useful therapeutic interventions.

But that's not as far as it goes. I think it's also really important that, particularly as children get older, is that a diagnosis like autism, for example, can actually be really valuable to that individual in how they understand themselves and how they find community. It can give you language. Yeah, it gives you, like, language and ideas and models ways to navigate the world as you grow up and you have, you know, education, work, family relationships.

Well, I do actually often come across parents being very nervous or anxious about their child possibly getting a diagnosis or seeking a diagnosis. I often see it as a almost disrespecting their child's individuality. I hear a lot of, like, fear around kind of labelling children and seeing that as something, yeah, really, like, bad or even disrespectful to the child.

I guess my take on this is it definitely can be, but it doesn't have to be. It's all about how you view diagnosis. Or, if we're talking about autism, for example, often those anxieties come from having a negative view of autism in the first place, I guess. Because no one's reluctant to label their child with something that they see as positive.

And that can be quite difficult to understand and realise and think through. I guess, yeah, another, perhaps, question to ask is, if you're sort of someone struggling around the idea of diagnosing a child, or going through that process, is, like, whose comfort are you worrying about?

And I think it's often the adult's comfort they're actually worrying about and it's about how the adult is seeing the child, and not how the child is seeing themselves, or the child's experience of that.

End transcript: Video 4.1  Diagnosis as a tool

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Video 4.1  Diagnosis as a tool

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Now listen to a parent’s reaction to their son’s diagnosis of autism.

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Transcript: Video 4.2  Parents reaction to diagnosis

WOMAN:

I wasn't that horrified by the diagnosis and, in fact, in some ways quite relieved because I was thinking, well, he's four and he's still in nappies, and is this something I've done wrong?

End transcript: Video 4.2  Parents reaction to diagnosis

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Video 4.2  Parents reaction to diagnosis

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Consider your reactions to these two perspectives. Perhaps you have your own experiences of disability? Perhaps you have an additional learning need, such as dyslexia?

How might you feel about the diagnosis of a disability or identification of an ASN? Is your reaction neutral? Make a note in your learning journal of your reaction and how your reflection might influence your practice.

Discussion

Max viewed his diagnosis as something that was welcome; he called the diagnosis a tool. This can be interpreted as meaning that he could understand himself better. Also, the diagnosis meant that further support could be accessed.

The mum in the second clip was relieved that autism was the cause of her son’s difference. It appears that the diagnosis brought her a sense of relief because she had felt guilty that she had done something wrong.