Autism Acceptance Week

This week is World Autism Acceptance Week, highlighting the challenges faced within our society by neurodivergent people, the impact upon those with autism and how we can work together to build a neuroinclusive society.

With the rapid growth of autistic spectrum diagnoses over recent decades, it is vital that society adapts to remove the barriers which sometimes prevent those with autism from fully engaging in society.

Key to this is understanding the social model of disability, which challenges us to see how ‘disability’ can be created as a consequence of society’s interactions with a person rather than it being inherent. For instance, with sufficient adaptations to the public realm, mobility impairment would lose much of its significance.

In the case of those with autism, it’s a recognition that rather than looking at those with a neurodiversity as having something ‘wrong’ with them, they simply have brains which work differently, and with reasonable adaptations there is no reason why that difference need in any way hold them back.

Fortunately, progress is being made on changing attitudes towards autism, with the Buckland Review published last February being seen as a landmark report in engaging government to think about how those with autism can be helped into work and to flourish through employment.

However, it is hard to see how that can happen without first building the support in at earlier stages, particularly in the Educational environment. It is here that the system experiences some of its greatest challenges, with the national system for supporting children with special educational needs in school being close to collapse.

This is not only a tragedy for every child failed, but we cannot afford to lose the talents that these children have to offer our society both inside and outside of work. That’s why Labour is committing to ensuring teachers have the skills they need to better engage those children with special educational needs and removing the barriers to inclusivity within mainstream schools.

Together we can create a neuroinclusive world, a world where every child has the opportunity to thrive.