The Invisible Evidence Problem: Why SEND Law Misunderstands Neurodivergent Children
Parents often come to me saying the same thing:
“School says they’re fine. But at home, everything falls apart!”
They say this with guilt, confusion, exhaustion — and fear.
Because the truth is devastating:
The SEND system only recognises the struggles it can see.
And neurodivergent children often can’t show their struggles in school.
This isn’t a misunderstanding.
It’s a structural flaw — and it harms families every single day.
This is the invisible evidence problem.
1. The SEND system only recognises what is visible
Every step of the SEND process — from SEN Support to EHCPs to Tribunal — relies heavily on what adults can observe in classrooms:
behaviour
compliance
participation
eye contact
apparent calmness
apparent sociability
attendance
teacher impressions
These are treated as objective facts.
But they are only visible facts.
They tell us what the child can show under pressure.
They do not tell us what the child is experiencing.
For neurodivergent children, this difference is enormous.
2. Neurodivergent struggle is often internal, not outwardly visible
Many neurodivergent children — autistic, ADHD, PDA, AuDHD, dyslexic, dyspraxic — survive school by:
masking
fawning
camouflaging
holding everything in
complying from fear or overwhelm
mimicking peers
suppressing stims
avoiding attention
They spend the day monitoring themselves, not learning easily.
They:
freeze instead of disrupt
smile instead of cry
comply instead of communicate
endure instead of resist
Then, once they’re home and safe, the cost spills out:
explosive meltdowns
deep shutdowns
withdrawal
irritability
tears
collapse
exhaustion
sensory overwhelm
suicidal ideation
“I can’t go back there.”
This is not a contradiction.
This is context.
The child’s internal experience is real.
But the system doesn’t recognise internal experience as evidence.
3. “Fine in school” is the most dangerous phrase in SEND
“Fine in school” is often treated as:
proof that nothing is wrong
evidence of resilience
evidence of parenting problems
grounds to refuse assessment
grounds to deny support
In reality:
“Fine in school” often means fighting to survive in school.
It means:
sensory overload endured in silence
masking until the child breaks
compliance misread as coping
shutdown mistaken for calmness
social mimicry mistaken for confidence
internal distress never seen
It means the child is drowning quietly.
And the quieter they are at school, the bigger the storm at home.
4. Why SEND law gets this wrong
SEND law — including case law — still treats evidence as:
adult observation
professional testimony
visible behaviours
written records
school reports
This law was not built with neurodivergent profiles in mind.
The legal framework implicitly assumes:
needs are consistent
distress is obvious
problems show up in the classroom
parental accounts are subjective
professionals see the truth
compliance = capacity
attendance = accessibility
But neurodivergent children break every one of those assumptions.
The law is built for external presentations.
Neurodivergent children often live internal experiences.
No wonder so many families feel gaslit by the system.
5. The home–school split is NOT a contradiction — it is a diagnostic clue
Professionals often say:
“We don’t see any of this in school.”
Parents hear that as accusation.
But actually, it is a sign.
A home–school split is one of the clearest indicators that:
the child is masking
the environment is inaccessible
the child’s needs are going unmet
the demands are overwhelming
the child feels unsafe expressing distress
their nervous system is under prolonged stress
the school environment is misattuned
The child isn’t “fine in school.”
They are simply less safe to fall apart there.
They hold everything in until they reach safety.
Parents are safety.
6. Case law still misinterprets neurodivergent presentation
Across multiple Upper Tribunal decisions, we see patterns:
parental accounts dismissed as subjective
school presentation privileged as objective
masking rarely mentioned
internal distress treated as “unproven”
behaviour = the primary metric of need
home distress = parenting/environment issue
inconsistent presentations treated as lack of credibility
This is not malice.
It is the limitation of a system built decades before masking was widely understood.
But it means:
The law only “sees” neurodivergent children when they break.
This is unacceptable.
7. So how do we fix it?
We translate invisible needs into legal language.
This is where my work lives.
I bridge the gap between:
lived experience
neurodivergent internal reality
school presentation
professional observation
legal frameworks
evidential thresholds
I help families:
document internal distress
reframe behaviour through a neuroaffirming lens
evidence masking and burnout
articulate need functionally
show the causal chain from need → barrier → provision
anticipate LA pushback
I use the law strategically:
working with its strengths (specification, quantification, needs-led provision)
and around its limitations (its reliance on visibility and professional observation)
This is not about exaggerating.
It’s about describing reality in terms the law must recognise.
8. What this means for your family
When we work together, I ensure that:
✔ Your child’s internal world is represented
Even if school doesn’t see it.
✔ Your parental insight carries legal weight
Because lived experience is expertise.
✔ Your evidence is structured, not emotional
So it meets legal and evidential thresholds.
✔ Your child’s struggles translate into specific, lawful provision
Not vague statements that go nowhere.
✔ You stop feeling like you’re “proving” something
And start feeling like the system is finally listening.
9. Closing: Your child is not invisible. The system just wasn’t built to see them.
The invisible evidence problem is not your fault.
It is not your child’s fault.
It is not a failure of your parenting.
It is a failure of a system designed for a different kind of mind.
But there is a way to make your child visible — with language, clarity, strategy, and law that reflect who they truly are.
I can help you bridge that gap.
