Published on 12, July, 2020
In England, under English Law (Mental Health Capacity Act, Vunerable Adults Act, Disability Discrimination Act, Equalities Act, Autism Act, etc), are adults with an ASD considered to be disabled, mentally disabled, vulnerable adults, or similar?
And if so, what are the legal rights of such ASD suffers, what are they entitled to that differ from a non-ASD person, so on and so forth, etc?
(I have Asperger Syndrome and suffer badly from depression, anxiety, paranoia, fear for the future, difficulty coping with change, etc. So I am wondering whether I am considered as having a disablity, a mental disability, and/or considered a vulnerable adult.)
Well, ASD is such a huge spectrum that these terms are probably all individually specific: Some people with ASD suffer from learning disabilities and they would be classed as 'mentally disabled', but not people with asperger's, who are always of sound intelligence. All autistic people have a disability because we all struggle with areas of life that are natural to most people, but how severely disabled we are is very individual: Some people with ASD will be more disabled than others. The same applies to vulnerability: We are all potentially vulnerable, but clearly a severely autistic person is more vulnerable than an able person with asperger's, so again, it is a matter of degree. And some people with asperger's are very vulnerable, often because of complicating mental health issues and social naivety. I think how vulnerable we are depends on the context: In some situations we can be secure and safe (like when we are in a familiar environment and engaging in our routines), but we can be unsafe and therefore vulnerable in situations that we cannot manage and that might cause us to react in ways that are potentially dangerous.