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Does autism get pushed to one side by learning disabilities?

longman

I've asked this question about employment specifically. I think we can see a pattern in local authority response to autism whereby autism provision has long been tagged on to learning disability, only if someone has both.

However in 2010 the Office for Disability Issues started a project "Jobs for people with learning disabilities" which set out with good intentions, including such typical headliners like "Getting a Life" (I wonder which learning able wise guy came up with that novel title).

What was striking about the Jobs for people with learning disabilities project is that it came with the statistic that only 6.4% of moderate to severe learning disabled find emplyment.

Sound familiar? With autism its 15%. Any wonder the group with 6.4% got to be the Government Project?

I don't know what happened to "Jobs for people with learning disabilities".

But there doesn't seem to be anything like the level of government initiative towards "Jobs for people with autuism". Have we been sidelined again? 

Parents

  • I was repeatedly addressed by someone in Healthwatch (of all places) as having a learning disability, even though it was quite apparent that I was eloquent and above average intelligence.  The word autism spectrum, and yes, even Asperger's, brings forth assumptions of being learning disabled.  I guess technically we are, in the arena of communication, but if they can't even get their facts right on what is a learning disability no wonder us high-functioning persons get left behind.  We are not viewed as a specific disabled group, therefore they don't meet our needs.

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  • I was repeatedly addressed by someone in Healthwatch (of all places) as having a learning disability, even though it was quite apparent that I was eloquent and above average intelligence.  The word autism spectrum, and yes, even Asperger's, brings forth assumptions of being learning disabled.  I guess technically we are, in the arena of communication, but if they can't even get their facts right on what is a learning disability no wonder us high-functioning persons get left behind.  We are not viewed as a specific disabled group, therefore they don't meet our needs.

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