Help with applying for dla mobilty

Happydays3

Hello,

My son currently recieved dla high rate for autism and a learning disability. He has 2 years remaining on his award. We have been sent some forms to apply for mobilty when he is 3. Which can only apply for high rate as he is under 5. My question is if we applied would the whole claim be looked at again? So the care side also? I'm getting mixed information, a Facebook group I'm on say yes the whole claim could be assessed again and they could lower rate? Someone said they only look at whole claim if near renewal. Anyway I called dla and they said just put no change on the care side and they will only look at mobility. I'm in 2 minds now... I have been given wrong information before, so does anyone know for sure? Lol...we will be applying under the smi rules for my son. , what we dont want is our award being changed, but we would like to try and get mobility to apply for the mobility car which we could really use
many thanks

Alice_Holt

I would tend to work on the assumption that the whole award would be reviewed.
Slightly different circumstances, but I have certainly seen (in the last 6 months) an existing DLA childs award withdrawn by the DWP at MR stage (a decision upheld at tribunal on the grounds that the child did not require significantly more care than other children).

So before asking for a DLA supersession:
1) Make sure how your child would qualify for the higher mobility rate (particularly as the disability appears not to be physical).
2) Have relevant medical evidence to support your supersession, and if you intend to go on to appeal a negative decision make sure you can put a persuasive case before any tribunal panel.
3) Be sure that you can justify and defend the existing DLA award.

What is the current award?
Remember that high rate care (as does middle rate care) passports you to the possibility of increased child tax credits and carers allowance.
Don't do it just because a mobility car would be useful. Get some advice on the criteria for HR mobility and consider it very carefully.
Can you tell us why your son would qualify for an award of HR mob.

This is from the National Autistic Society:

"High rate mobility
High rate mobility is much more difficult to qualify for and most children with autism do not get high rate mobility.
The high rate mobility criteria is set out in social security law and is very specific. The Department for Work and Pensions and the appeal tribunals can only award the benefit if the child fits the criteria. They have no power to issue discretionary awards. Therefore it is important to identify how the criteria applies to your child.

There are seven possible ways to qualify for high rate mobility. The first five in the following list only relate to physical disability or visual impairment.These final two criteria; the 'severe mental impairment' criteria and the 'virtually unable to walk' criteria do sometimes apply to children with autism.

The ‘Severe Mental Impairment’ criteria
To get high rate mobility under the severe mental impairment rules you have to meet every one of the following points.
1. The child gets DLA high rate care. This means that if your child qualifies for none of the care component of DLA, or low or middle rate care, the ‘severe mental impairment’ criteria cannot be considered.

2. The child has a state of arrested development or incomplete physical development of the brain which results in severe impairment of intelligence and social functioning. We can split this rule into three parts to make it easier to consider:

(a) The child must have arrested or incomplete physical development of the brain. Where the child has a diagnosis of autism it should be accepted that they have arrested or incomplete physical development of the brain. If you are still going through the diagnostic process you might struggle to show that this point applies, however there are other diagnoses such as global development delay that could also be accepted as being arrested or incomplete development of the brain.

(b)The arrested development results in severe impairment of intelligence. This part of the criteria is the main reason that only a minority of children with autism qualify for high rate mobility, because many children with autism have average or near average intelligence and so do not meet this point. The impairment must be ‘severe’ and it must be the intelligence that is impaired. What sort of things are considered depends on the child’s age, but issues to consider are:

Does the child have a Learning Disability?
What sort of specialist educational provision does the child have?
Has the child been significantly delayed in meeting developmental milestones such as developing speech, feeding themselves, toileting etc?
Does the child understand danger (in a way appropriate to their age)?
What difficulty do they have applying the intelligence that they do have to the real world?


(c) The arrested development results in severe impairment of social functioning. This part of the criteria is usually straightforward to meet because it so obviously applies to autism. The child’s ability and interest in playing with other children is relevant to this.

3. The Severe Behavioural Problems Rule

(a) The child has disruptive behaviour which is extreme. For this part give examples about the extreme and disruptive behaviour. All behaviour is relevant, not just how the child is when outdoors.

(b) Due to the disruptive behaviour the child regularly requires another person to intervene and physically restrain the child in order to prevent the child causing physical injury to himself or others or damaging property.

For this part give examples of when and how you have to restrain the child. Again it is not just things that happen outdoors that count. Give examples from at home and school as well. Physical restraint means physically stopping the child from doing something, so holding a child’s hand to physically hold them back them from doing something that would cause injury could count, but holding a child’s hand to keep them calm would probably not count.

(c) The disruptive behaviour is so unpredictable that the child requires another person to be present and watching over them whenever they are awake. Explain why someone needs to be with the child all of the time, and explain what dangerous thing could happen if they were left in a room on their own.



Virtually Unable to Walk

This criteria is for children who have a physical disability which makes their ability to walk very limited. If behavioural issues are caused by something with a physical origin then these behavioural problems can be taken into account. It has been shown that autism is a disorder of brain development and so has a physical cause. If behaviour caused by autism means that a child’s practical, physical ability walk is so limited that they can be said to be ‘virtually unable to walk’ then they can qualify for high rate mobility under this rule.

Issues of safety, and the need for supervision and guidance, are not relevant to this part of the criteria. This criteria is not dependent on the child also being awarded high rate care.

Interruptions in walking, or refusing to walk, can be taken into account if it happens frequently enough to mean that on most days the child is very physically limited in how far they can walk. Although there is no set distance in the law below which you are considered ‘virtually unable to walk’, generally if the child is limited to less than approximately 50 metres they may qualify.

If you feel that the ‘virtually unable to walk’ criteria applies to your child then it is important to provide a high degree of very practical detail about their physical walking ability. It is not essential to answer the following questions, but we hope that they will help you to think about the sort of detail that would show whether a child qualified under this criteria:

Describe what happens when your child tries to walk.

How many paces do they normally manage?
How many seconds do they normally manage to walk for?
Do they walk in the right direction?
When they stop do they sit down or lie down?
What happens when they stop? Do you have to carry them? If they are too big to carry how long do you have to wait before they will get up again?
Are there any sensory issues that you think make them stop walking?
Do you usually have to carry the child or put them in a buggy or major buggy? How often does this happen?
How do they travel to school? If they go by car how far is it from your front door to where the car is? How far is it from where the car stops to the doors of the school? How to they get from the front door to the car? If they usually try to walk from the front door to the car how long does it take?


The reason that it is important to provide this level of detail is to show that the child is physically very limited in how far they can walk. "

Happydays3

having looked at the low and high, he ticks a lot of the boxes for low, but he also head butts a lot and hits himself and is unpredictable in behaviour and needs 24hour supervision. we have medical evidence from the paediatrician that she has witnessed the head butting of a china basin and she thinks he likes the thump to the head. he can not talk yet and communicate or point which obviously causes high distress and anxiety. he also has a brother of similar age with the same disability.
I'm in 2 minds, the car for our boys would be great, however loosing the award altogether would be awful.

lcgoodac

My son is Autistic, he is 5, he has had middle rate care component for the past 2 years we recently applied for mobility component . He was initially declined the mobility rate but I asked for a mandatory reassessment and he has been granted low rate mobility care as they basically stated that because he could physically walk he wouldn't be entitled to high rate mobility (which I wasn't expecting anyway). On both occasions his care component was reassessed even though there was no change and we didn't ask for it to be reassessed. So yes just take it into consideration if you do apply. Obviously I don't know your circumstances but if your child can physically walk be prepared for them to say no to the mobility component

Happydays3

thank you, I'm going to wait till he is due for renewal in 2 years, that way they can decide high or low, I'm not risking loosing our award. I'm grateful for what he gets now.

Alice_Holt

I would suggest that leading up to the renewal (the DWP tend to send renewal forms out some months before the actual date) you start to gather the evidence for a mobility award (and the continuing care award). This would include reports from consultants, GP's, nursery school, etc.
It's also a good idea to have lots of examples to include on the form that relate directly to the precise criteria, so start keeping a diary listing these.

From how you have described your son I would be writing the renewal form to hit the high care rate (I'm sure it's likely that your son needs attention / supervision during the night-time hours), and the high rate mobility (but make sure you also cover the LR mob criteria). I would anticipate an award of HR care and LR mob. Do paint the complete picture, and add additional pages as required. The important thing is to make it blindingly obvious to the DWP decision maker the constant attention / supervision your child requires.
As your child gets older, the easier it becomes to show that the attention required is significantly greater than other children of the same age.

The National Autistic Society is very good. I'm not sure if they have caseworkers who could help (or may know how to access that type of help). The criteria is quite complex, so if you get help with the form it will make the process easier. Your local CAB may have a benefits caseworker who could help.

It may be worth going to your CAB for a benefits check - are you getting the disabled element of CTC's? You could also discuss with them what help may be available at renewal time.

If you can't access a caseworker, then this site has a good guide to children's' DLA:
http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/help-for-claimants/dla

Best wishes.