How to disable iMessage Effects menu in IOS 11.2.6

First I know if you tap the send button short enough that the menu doesn't appear but some of us aren't as young as we once were or have some disability that limits our ability to perform the quick tap consistently thus the unwanted Effects Menu appears. There are many hits on the WWW regarding this and ways that folks have been able to disable it in some levels of IOS 10 and 11 but none work on my iPhone with IOS 11.2.6 upgrade and seems once you upgrade theres no way to to back you either find a used iPhone with an older level IOS or move from Apple to some Android phone. Seems that Apple may not care as it would be so simple to add an option to disable effects and from the hits on the Internet there is a fair amount of interest in disabling this 'feature'. So anyone found a way to disable effects in 11.2.6?