Talitha
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Talitha’s sons are autistic and have attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD).
‘They're both also identified as gifted and that's not some kind of humble brag,’ Talitha told the Royal Commission. ‘That means that there's a high IQ which is identified through testing.’
Doctors diagnosed Talitha’s sons with autism only after they developed anxiety and struggled at school.
‘My eldest son was about 10 by the time he was diagnosed … If something had happened sooner perhaps we would've been better able to handle this. Perhaps better accommodations would've been made. Perhaps a lot of things.’
Talitha said a number of doctors told her not to worry as she struggled to cope with her eldest son’s behaviour.
‘We had a family GP who dismissed my taking him [for a diagnosis] and [me] saying I wasn't coping for a seven-year period … We had already seen a specialist developmental paediatrician at two points over a 12-month period [who] dismissed it as, “Oh he's just a bright, sensory child.”’
Talitha said her eldest son started primary school as a ‘beautiful, bright inquirer and he was gifted’, but had his love of school ‘knocked out through years of unmet needs.’
Her youngest son, who is advanced in reading and has a high IQ, also developed anxiety.
‘He had a teacher who … focused on red lining everything he had written and that's because [he] couldn't spell well … And I would say to her, “Are you sure there's not some kind of hidden disability here? You know, what is going on? Why, if he's having trouble picking up spelling, is his reading so advanced?”’
When he failed a couple of subjects he was ‘forced out’ of his private school.
‘It's so terrible because he thinks he is dumb and he won't to go school … He reads many years above his age level. His understanding of concepts is profound. But he's failing.’
Talitha said gifted children with autism who have no visible intellectual disability are ‘slipping through the diagnosis system’.
‘They might get labelled instead as the ADHD, autistic, dyslexic child and that masks their giftedness. So you might think, “Oh well that's not a big deal because, you know, they're coping. Obviously that bright intellect is helping them cope.” But it's masking, actually, trauma.’
Talitha said the education system can’t meet her sons’ needs and to prevent more trauma she is homeschooling them.
‘The number of women who are hidden with children at home because they cannot attend school, [women] who are so highly qualified, have so much they desperately want to do and can't.’
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.