Published on 12, July, 2020
Context - I want to study abroad in Australia for a semester. I have a NHS diagnosis of ASD and have low support needs (I have a mentor and reasonable adjustments at uni) (mentor is not government funded, it's provided with my university and I would not have a mentor in Australia) . I don't have any other health problems and don't take any medications.
Has anyone here studied abroad in Australia before and did you have any problems with a visa because of autism?
I was reading online about people getting denied entry for having an autistic child ... But when it comes to the visa forms etc there's no way I'd ever disclose to any government I'm autistic anyway so maybe I'd be fine. I never disclose autism for travel insurance for example because I don't need to.
Thoughts?
Thank you! TBF most of the horror stories I've seen are where an autistic child in a family needs a lot of help with daily life and as I don't need any help from the healthcare system hopefully I'll be fine. I'll probs talk to my uni as well, I can't surely be the only autistic student who's gone to Australia?
You have to prove that you will cost them less than a set amount due to an existing condition. But the stories you hear about people being refused is usually for permanent residency. Student visas only last as long as your course so they may be a bit more lenient especially as you need to have a uni place or agreement from them to go for part of the course before you apply for a student visa. If you don’t declare to immigration you’ll have to hide it from absolutely everyone. My experience with Australian immigration is they’re cool if you’re honest with them (although we didn’t have a diagnosis back then but had other reasons to deal with them).
Matcha said:when it comes to the visa forms etc there's no way I'd ever disclose to any government I'm autistic anyway
If you have a registered disability and fail to disclose it and they find out - they will kick you out. Even if it is not a big issue for you to be autistic, you would have lied on an official visa request and that would give you a criminal record and permanent barring from the country.
Matcha said:I was reading online about people getting denied entry for having an autistic child ..
I think that is more because of the support overhead for bringing in an autistic child - this will place more of a load on their educational system so is undesirable from a purely practical point of view.
I would recomend honesty in the application as the consequences are quite severe when it comes to visas.