We’re failing Neurodivergent Children – Occupational Therapy Week 2024.

‘We’re failing neurodivergent children,’ says Adjoa Andoh

Best known for her role as Lady Danbury in Bridgerton, actor Adjoa Andoh is open about living with dyspraxia. She realised she had the condition when her eldest daughter, Jesse, was diagnosed as a toddler, in the late 1980s. She and Jesse are joining the Royal College of Occupational Therapists’ (RCOT) calls for an occupational therapist in every school over concerns the support for neurodivergent children is worse than it used to be. They have shared their story with RCOT to support Occupational Therapy Week 2024. The week aims to raise awareness of the life-changing power of occupational therapy and runs from 4-10 November.

Adjoa says, ‘When Jesse was assessed for dyspraxia, her results were off the charts. I was baffled because, to me, Jesse was developing in a perfectly normal way. She was developing much as I had developed. This diagnosis was a revelation to me. There was an actual name for it. There were interventions that could support my child with this new condition I was hearing of for the first time.

‘I’ve never been officially diagnosed, so I never had any support. Jesse was lucky: she had occupational therapy and physiotherapy through the NHS for 13 years. It helped her immensely.’

There is now less support available for neurodivergent children than there was when Jesse was a child.

Adjoa says, ‘Things have gone backwards – severely backwards – since Jesse’s time. In many ways, the support that’s available for neurodivergent children now is not as good as it was in 1988.

‘I recently spoke to two girls with dyspraxia for a segment for The One Show. One girl waited eight years for a diagnosis and then got six weeks’ support. The other girl is still waiting for a formal diagnosis.

‘When Jesse was little, I had a lot of communication with her occupational therapist and her school so that, when she needed it, teachers could adjust lessons, give her more support or give her extra time for exams. This is the absolute minimum of what schools should be doing for children with dyspraxia or other neurodivergences.’

Jesse adds, ‘Living with dyspraxia feels like walking up a steep hill with loads of obstacles in the way. Everyone else sees a flat road, but it’s different for us. We can do most things, but we need support and understanding to be able to do it.

‘I had moments when I was at school where I really struggled and others when I was very successful. I’d like to think we’ve moved on now – we don’t want students to struggle in the same way. But in some regards, we’re kind of going backwards in terms of the support services that are available in the state system in the UK.’

Jesse now works as a learning support teacher and special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO) in Cambodia. A role she partly took on because of her own experience with dyspraxia and dyslexia.

She says, ‘There are certain tasks that take me longer. For example, I’ve had to ask for extensions to deadlines. People have been surprised that I was able to do certain things when they found out I was dyspraxic. There’s a bias. But I don’t have an alternative. I need to make my life work for me. I have to be good at my job. And so you just get on with it.

‘I became a SENCO because I don’t want people to struggle. I want them to see their differences as a superpower and a strength and not as something holding them back. Being neurodivergent is like being a superhero in some ways, especially if you don’t get the support that you should have got. I wish that for generations after me children won’t need to hope that they get the support they need. It will just be built into the system.’

Royal College of Occupational Therapists’ calls to have an occupational therapist in every school.

Adjoa continues, ‘Early intervention is key. It can help pupils, as well as their parents or carers and teachers understand what their children need, and how to support them so they can achieve what they want to.

‘We should have occupational therapists in every school. So there is someone available to look at each child’s challenges and say, “we can solve this.” They would be able to make suggestions about the layout of the classroom, or where a child needs to sit, or what additional support or equipment they might need to give them a chance of success.

‘We’re letting children fall through the net left, right and centre, because they’re not getting the early interventions they need. There are whole swathes of children who are being failed at a really early stage. Children who could be fulfilled, happy, productive, contributing members of society are falling by the wayside because nobody is getting to them early enough.

‘The system needs to change. It needs to be easier to get support and diagnosis. Teachers need more training so they’re able to highlight and identify the children who may need extra support. Ideally, there should be an occupational therapist on site or, at a minimum, covering a bunch of schools.

‘We need parents and carers to be better informed. We need both local and national government to look at funding for occupational therapists in schools.’

‘I’ve seen kids who were not engaging at all at school, who are now coming to school with big smiles on their faces, wanting to be at school. And that’s all thanks to having someone who sees them and who understands what adjustments need to be made.’

Adjoa concludes, ‘I’m unbelievably grateful to the NHS for the intervention because it made such a difference to Jesse. It helped us understand why things were happening, and we had people asking us, “What do we need to put in place in your daily life to try and make things more straightforward for you?” Children don’t always get that now and it can impact them for the rest of their lives.’

The Royal College of Occupational Therapists is calling for every school to have an occupational therapist. Occupational therapists need to be involved in the training of teachers, teaching assistants, and others who work with children, to help them better understand and support all areas of children’s development. Every school mental health team should include an occupational therapist because the unique ability of occupational therapists to address both physical and mental health allows for all children to get the support they need. There also needs to be more investment in, and a more streamlined approach to, providing equipment and adaptations at home, school, and elsewhere, to help minimise delays.

For more information about occupational therapy in schools, visit rcot.co.uk/ot-schools.

To find out more about what occupational therapy is, visit rcot.co.uk/about-occupational-therapy/what-is-occupational-therapy.