Is Autism too inclusive?!

Before I learned about autism, I thought that I felt different because I was a bit sensitive and creative. Learning what autism was still didn't give me the whole picture, as I had always held the belief that everyone is different. That is true, but reading a book called "A field guide to earthlings" gave me an insight into how neurotypical people filter out unnecessary stimuli, and their patterns of thought and behaviour such as social constructs, indirect communication, social cues, and small talk. I then realised that I wasn't "typical", and I identified more with people in this community.

In the same way that I didn't realise how my brain was working differently in some ways to the majority of people, it seems to me that Uta Frith doesn't understand how autistic anxiety really affects people, because she's never experienced it herself - the old "double empathy" problem.

I agree that some autistic children with high support needs benefit from special schools, while others will be fine in mainstream education. But due to the issue of funding support in mainstream and possibly alienating children due to a label, I feel it might be better to give more training to teachers and teaching assistants in identifying individual needs and supporting them in the classroom, without having EHCPs. Every child is different, autistic or not, and every child who needs support deserves to have it.

Before I learned about autism, I thought that I felt different because I was a bit sensitive and creative. Learning what autism was still didn't give me the whole picture, as I had always held the belief that everyone is different. That is true, but reading a book called "A field guide to earthlings" gave me an insight into how neurotypical people filter out unnecessary stimuli, and their patterns of thought and behaviour such as social constructs, indirect communication, social cues, and small talk. I then realised that I wasn't "typical", and I identified more with people in this community.

In the same way that I didn't realise how my brain was working differently in some ways to the majority of people, it seems to me that Uta Frith doesn't understand how autistic anxiety really affects people, because she's never experienced it herself - the old "double empathy" problem.

I agree that some autistic children with high support needs benefit from special schools, while others will be fine in mainstream education. But due to the issue of funding support in mainstream and possibly alienating children due to a label, I feel it might be better to give more training to teachers and teaching assistants in identifying individual needs and supporting them in the classroom, without having EHCPs. Every child is different, autistic or not, and every child who needs support deserves to have it.

Lotus said:

it seems to me that Uta Frith doesn't understand how autistic anxiety really affects people, because she's never experienced it herself - the old "double empathy" problem.

I think you've hit upon the biggest issue. Here is a supposed autistic expert, who seems to be skeptical of what autistic people are saying. I mean she said she was skeptical of letting kids wear ear defenders in class -she said they might claim they help but there is not scientific evidence to prove it's true. I mean, I don't know what to say to that.

If the expert show no empathy, where do we go from there?