This account is not just me moaning. It’s a case study in discrimination. An example of how seemingly common sense arrangements can end up unfairly disadvantaging autistic people. The purpose in collecting such case studies is to make the case for change and reform. And my purpose in putting this here is as much to illustrate the value of case studies and how they can be formulated as to make a point about one issue.
I was homeschooled for most of my childhood and one consequence of that was I wasn’t diagnosed with autism until well after I’d finished my degree. Another was that when it came time for me to do my GCSEs and A levels my parents didn’t really know how to get me those qualifications. So at the age of 15 my mother sweet talked me into an adult college to do a maths GCSE. It was only even allowed because she also agreed to take the GCSE alongside me as a form of chaperone if you will. This combined with dyslexia was probably the reason it was only the one GCSE I was originally enrolled on at that time.
At 16 having passed my maths GCSE my mother was able to get me on a maths A level and GCSE physics course, followed by an AS physics course the next year. She was also able to persuade the college to take me on an A level computing course without first doing an IT GCSE (which would have bored me to tears).
I did well in most of my courses but my A level computing course presented an issue. The marking scheme split the marks 3 ways between 2 exams and 1 piece of coursework. The 1st a technical exam, not only did I do well on this exam I’m told I got the best result in the college that year. The second exam was more about the theory of computer system design and had as much to do with customer service as a developer as it did with computer science proper. Nevertheless I got an OK grade in this exam. The coursework however had disproportionately the largest share of the marks.
In previous years the coursework had required the student to formulate their project in terms of a ‘real world user’ with a technical problem that could be addressed with either a database or computer program. However the ‘real world user’ didn’t actually have to be a real person with an actual problem. Until my year when this became a new requirement.
I couldn’t find anybody interested in letting me write computer programs for them. Begrudgingly after the project period had already started the college agreed to put me in touch with someone to act as my real world user. As it turned out this was the head of the local university’s computer department and what he wanted was a virtual tour of his university department built in the half life game engine which his students had figured out how to hook up to a ‘VR’ headset. I was aware the engeon had a scripting language built in and if I built enough interactivity into the tour it would count as a computer program.
However I had issues recreating the department geometry in the game editor and the time involved in doing so would probably have bust my deadline. So instead I renegotiated the project to be a website containing 360 degree interactive panoramas. The university would provide the software to make the panoramas from conventional digital photos taken with the collages camera and tripod. However when they discovered the requested software would only run on a mac (which is what I had at home) the university reneged on the agreement and the head of department promptly went on holiday for 3 weeks making it impossible for me to progress the project.
Finally we agreed to use a different piece of software that worked on PC and mac but a lot of time had been lost by this point. Reviewing the marking criteria it became clear that the project as it stood did not tick enough boxes and so to add additional scripting I learnt java programing in about a week and a half to add a java applet that would function as an interactive overhead map for the tour. Unfortunately I couldn’t check this code without hosting the website on an external network and in the end the college itself was not willing / able to host the website to check this.
Last but not least, despite my emphasising the importance to the department head the feedback on my performance didn’t come back until after my assessment.
The principal point here is that what was being tested in this project was not just my technical skills but my communication and people skills. The very things that autism inhibits.
It may seem rational to want to teach those things to prepare students for the world of work but a great many students who take a level computing will not work in people facing roles. A levels are supposed to be general overviews of a particular subject not preparation for a particular type of job.
Asking an autistic person to demonstrate their competence in computer science using people skills makes as much sense as asking someone with cerebral palsy to take their conversational French exam while running on a treadmill.
So what went wrong? What should have been done differently?
- The only real guidance I was given on what the project should contain was being handed a copy of the marking scheme which was needlessly unclear. A clearer structure specifying what elements the project should contain should have been provided.
- There should have been no requirement to work with an actual rather than hypothetical user of the software. This condition was new and as I understand was dropped not long after this.
- The college was unaware that these things might be issues because I had not been formally diagnosed with autism. Autism assessment was harder for home schooled children to access then and to the best of my knowledge still is.
So who was at fault?
- It’s not clear to me if public sector equality duty existed at the time as a legal concept but by current standards you could argue Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency failed it’s PSED by approving a course syllabus and marking scheme that put autistic people at a disadvantage needlessly. (Under the equality act exam bodies are also subject to the requirement to make reasonable adjustments)
- The failure to provide a clear pathway for diagnosis of homeschooled students was also a contributing factor. A particular concern since many parents may prefer to home educate than constantly battle schools over their autistic child’s behaviour.
- The college should have realised that a busy head of a university department was not an appropriate person to play the role of real world user and instead considered other alternatives.
How could this have been rectified? Well at the time the equality act (2010) was not in force and the disability discrimination act didn’t go quite as far but lets assume it had been in force. What would it have taken to get my A level?
I’d have had to sue the exam board in the county court effectively accusing them of failing to make reasonable adjustments when they set up the course. In order to pursue this case I’d probably have had to pay for a private diagnosis which I didn’t have at the time. Assuming I won, it's very likely the exam board would appeal because the result of losing would bring the grade of every autistic person taking the same course into question.
After all of that, even if I’d have won, the court might decide just to give me money instead of ordering the exam board to change my grade.
Effectively the harm in my case was that it delayed my journey to university and court cases take a long time. Unless the court had been willing to grant an interim injunction forcing the exam board to issue a new grade on a temporary basis, taking the exam board to court wouldn’t have got me into university any faster.
What could be changed to rectify these issues in the future?
- autism is an under diagnosed condition that only a few experts are qualified to diagnosis which is why many autistic people wishing to bring disability discrimination claims to court won’t have a formal diagnosis. However the equality act requires that in cases brought under the act the court must appoint assessors, an independent expert who can advise the court. If the law further stated that in cases involving autistic people the assessor must be qualified to diagnose autism the need for a previous diagnosis is alleviated.
- The civil procedure rules could be modified to explicitly provide guidance on interim injunctions by the county court in equality act cases.