MIDDLE class parents who have offspring with special needs are using their professional connections and financial clout to secure better support than is given to children from poorer backgrounds, academics have warned.

A study by Professor Sheila Riddell, from Edinburgh University, also suggests schools are allowing the imbalance to occur because they are more likely to be influenced by professional parents.

The report shows pupils from less advantaged backgrounds are more likely to be identified as having additional support needs (ASN) such as mental, social and emotional difficulties or conditions such as autism.

In 2015, more than 28 per cent of disadvantaged pupils had ASN compared to 16 per cent from the richest backgrounds.

However, poorer families are less likely to have been given a Co-ordinated Support Plan (CSP) - a legal document which means councils must make sure the pupil receives the appropriate support. Just 1.3 per cent of pupils from the most deprived areas had a CSP compared to two per cent from the least deprived.

Professor Riddell suggested this was because middle class parents had the resources and resilience to pursue a CSP even when councils were resistant.

A briefing on the issue prepared for the Local Democracy Think Thank states: "Middle class parents may be able to engage more actively with educational professionals enabling them to secure better support for their children and challenge local authority decisions.

"Children with less assertive parents, often from less advantaged backgrounds, may have their difficulties ignored and parents may lack the social and economic resources to secure the type of legal redress associated with a CSP."

Professor Riddell explored the issue further in a separate paper highlighted a number of cases studies of parents' experiences.

She stated: "Middle class parents benefitted from their ability to adopt the same cultural register as professionals and to to deploy professional friends and associates to support their efforts.

"Parents from poorer backgrounds... lacked the social and cultural capital to engage with professionals on equal terms and their anger was often interpreted as aggression.

"Case study data illustrates the way in which the institutional architecture of Scottish schools and local authorities priorities the voices of professionals, but provides very little opportunities for the voices of parents to be heard."

Figures released last month by the Scottish Children's Services Coalition revealed that a quarter of schoolchildren in Scotland now required extra support amid a surge in diagnoses such as dyslexia and autism. Over the past four years, the number of pupils diagnosed with dyslexia rose by about 5,000 cases to 18,428.

Although definitions and recording practices are different across the country, a child in affluent East Renfrewshire is 14 times more likely to be diagnosed with dyslexia than a pupil in generally deprived North Lanarkshire.

In evidence to the Scottish Parliament's education committee earlier this month Professor Riddell suggested middle-class parents are paying to have their children labelled dyslexic so they get extra time in exams and lower entry requirements for university.

A recent survey of more than 800 primary and secondary school teachers in England found 57 per cent of tutors believed there was a misdiagnosis of special educational needs, including dyslexia, among children.

Just over half said "pressure from parents" had led to some youngsters at their schools being categorised unnecessarily. Almost 40 per cent thought parents wanted a label to help their child gain a "competitive advantage" during tests.

According to the British Dyslexia Association, the cost of a private assessment with an educational psychologist lasting up to three hours costs more than £700.

Children diagnosed with special educational needs can be granted 25 per cent extra time in their exams and supervised rest breaks. The benefits continue when school leavers progress into higher education.

Overall, the number of students classed as having additional support needs has risen by 73 per cent in five years, while specialist teachers trained to help them fell by 500 between 2009 and last year.