Mandatory Reconsideration Daily Living Only?

Originally for PIP my wife had Enhanced Daily Living and had scored low on Mobility so had got no points for Mobility. Recently she had her PIP Review. This time around she had emphasised her communication difficulties which are processing problems that are more apparent if it's not a planned conversation. Previously she had got zero points for this area because back then she couldn't properly express her difficulties. However, as she was recently diagnosed with an Autism Condition and has been trying to get support from other services regarding communication adjustments she was able to put forward her struggles better and is also waiting for an Audio Processing Disorder Assessment. However, in the review she was still given zero and other points were deducted elsewhere that should not have been taken as there was no change (other than she wasn't able to use her Irlen filters so went from a 2 on the reading to a zero even though reading exhausts her because there's no suitable aids)

So, now her award for Daily Living has been reduced from Enhanced to Standard but has been given Enhanced Mobility which surprised us because a lot of the reasons why she struggles socially is because of her communication problems which was emphasised in the review application?

We were unsure whether to do a Mandatory Reconsideration.

My wife's Autism Worker was concerned that if we did a Mandatory Reconsideration due to my wife's disappointment regarding inaccuracies in the report which did not reflect properly her struggles that the PIP people will then look through the entire application again with a fine tooth comb and decide not to give my wife Enhanced Mobility?

The PIP lady on the phone today said we can in fact just challenge an aspect of Daily Living such as the communication and reading and that the assessors will ONLY look at those two components and not the whole thing?

This sounds too good to be true and so we just wondered after this long winded write up if you would be able to confirm for us whether what she has told us is true?

P.S. Because my wife is currently not using an aid for reading (Irlen filters on glasses) if we did a Mandatory Reconsideration for the Reading component to say basically that she still struggles with reading and finds the glare of the white paper, the print fuzzy edges, eyes jumping all over the place as she reads all still a problem for her would it not make a difference to the reconsideration because she MUST show she uses an aid? The Irlen assessor had found my wife's case unusual and so my wife has to cope with dimming the light and trying to create 'a shade' on the computer that acts like a filter. She's frustrated that just because she doesn't have Irlen glasses she's being penalised. Also, she showed in the Face to Face Assessment that she could read from a piece of paper but had to look for a pattern of a sentence to locate it and also showed that when trying to read a block of writing she struggled and so gave up but the assessor still classed being able to read and say who the letter was from enough to warrant zero points regardless of her overall struggles she had indicated in the application. She also showed she misreads things that lead to further miscommunication because part of her Autism Condition is that she will read vague sentences literally and this is what she was trying to convey to the assessor by showing the email because the misread email had led to a meltdown at a consultation.

Hi Gordon,

Sorry for the late reply to your comments and thank you for them.

Regarding my wife's Irlen filters, they were great for the first year but when her regular prescription changed and she needed to be retested for the filters the Irlen tester she originally had was now retired and so it was a new person. She was surprised how unusual my wife's case was in that she required different neutral filters rather than a specific colour pathway. When the filters were completed they made my wife ill. The tester tried again but there was no other alternative formation of filters and the change also meant my wife couldn't go back to her old filters so she had to make do without filters and try to dim the light where she could or create her own neutral shade on the computer.

Yes, we had a face to face assessment and my wife will have come across to the assessor as able to answer questions without a problem, after some prompts and interpretations from those supporting her. However, this is in no way a clear reflection of her reality. She has audio processing difficulties and this means that even though it appears on the surface that she has understood and answered the assessors question she has not been able to give context and detail due to her processing difficulties. She needs to have notes for every appointment and assessment and would have needed the assessor to let her read from her notes. Once she’s on the train, so to speak, she can’t get off and is like a deer in the headlights.

My wife can communicate in a controlled environment which misleads the assessor into believing she can do this at all times in every environment which is simply not the case. Her literal basic answers can be then misinterpreted as the final answers because of her struggles with memory recall and processing context. Therefore, my wife would have needed the DWP to assess her based primarily off of what she wrote in the written review application and not the face to face assessment for her to have a fair assessment of her difficulties.

We were trying to score points for the communicating but as you mentioned in your response this would be no go for us as my wife can speak and hear.

Thanks

Hi Gordon,

Thanks for your answer and sorry for another late reply.

My wife does have an Irlen report but she hasn't thought of giving that to the PIP, only to ESA.

Due to her late diagnoses, she's had an Audiologist acknowledge her difficulties and written a supporting letter but this doesn't seem to have made any difference.

She's due to have the official assessment for audio processing disorder and her current autism worker is a speech and language therapist and said she will do a report.

All the above will be handy for the next time my wife is requested for a review.

It's a shame that proof of all the reasonable adjustments she has had to ask the NHS to do aren't accepted by PIP as relevant evidence it seems?

My wife can come across articulate when talking generally but as soon as conversation requires processing or memory recall she's a totally different person and it's very evident that she struggles but this is difficult to display in a face to face PIP where she knows the topic on a basic level and can give basic answers.

Thanks for spelling out what is meant by 'Communication support', 'Basic verbal information' and 'complex verbal information'. It's quite surprising to see what it actually means legally speaking. All that I have mentioned above is what we have in support of these at present but we did not have the assistance of the speech and language therapist before or during the PIP review and face to face assessment so that may have made a difference and hopefully will in any future review.