South Australian progress

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New policy announced! More autism-inclusive places in our schools

 

[Shamar]

I wish they had this 65 years ago when I was in school. I also wish they had teachers who could recognize autism back then. Maybe I could also wish to wake up one morning to discover unicorns grazing in my back yard.

Over here, I suspect the unicorns will come first.

 

[vergil96]

Awsome! What will the improvements involve? Sensory friendly, so they will get rid of the flickering lamps and loud bells? Sounds like a good idea.

 

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Awsome! What will the improvements involve? Sensory friendly, so they will get rid of the flickering lamps and loud bells?

The ultimate improvement is one they made a couple of years ago, what they labeled Autism Inclusion Teachers.

Those teachers don't teach kids, they don't have much interaction with the kids at all. What they do is teach the school staff how to deal with issues surrounding some of their students. These special teachers are all autistic themselves, and there's one in every public school permanently as a full time counsellor for the staff.

 

[vergil96]

It's good that they consult people who are actually autistic. Things like ABA and generally how autism is handled in medicine and psychology leaves a lot to be desired. The loophole is bahviourism and addressing "deficits" instead of actual causes of the problems. Actual experiences of autistic people can clarify that a lot.

 

[Outdated]

It came from the voices of autistic people, our government ran public seminars for several years asking autistic people to speak up, and many of us did. In fact some of us are impossible to shut up once we get started.

"Stop trying to fix children that aren't broken! Try fixing the teachers instead."

 

[Outdated]

Several years back now the Australian Federal Government spent millions of dollars on nation wide seminars to hear the voices of autistic people and they gathered a lot of very valuable information to start building what they call the National Autism Strategy. It all seemed very positive at first but like so many government social projects it doesn't seem to have gone anywhere since then.

Now I've been invited to attend seminars for discussions on how to evaluate this National Autism Strategy and I thought I'd share my acceptance letter here in case others are interested:

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Hi Susan,

I wish to participate in the Evidence and Evaluation Framework seminars.

We haven't really seen much from the National Autism Strategy yet so I'm curious to see what sort of responses we get. That's not to say nothing's happened, just that we don't hear about it or see it.

Also, I live in South Australia and the state government here has taken a very proactive role in dealing with autistic issues, so naturally in comparison it's difficult to see very much happening elsewhere. Examples:

AutismSA is a private company, a large group of psychologists and behavioral specialists focused on autism for people of all ages, but this company has been formally recognised by the state government and getting a diagnosis there is state subsidised. It was all very streamlined and easy, I self presented and asked for a diagnosis, no referral from a GP required. A couple of nice ladies chatted to me for about 15 minutes and they agreed I was probably on the spectrum and put my name on the waiting list.

There was a 12 month wait but when my turn came around that was very nicely done too. A face to face interview in front of a panel of three different behavioural specialists, that lasted over 3 hours and afterwards I waited around for another hour while they wrote up a 12 page report. The total cost of all that for me was $500. And because they're a government recognised institution when I applied for the pension my diagnosis was immediately accepted, I didn't have to go out looking for second and third opinions.

The current government also created an Office For Autism and appointed a Minister to oversee it and they've been very busy. One of the first things they did made a big change to our public primary schools and now three years later they're extending it to high schools.

This change has a misleading name - Autism Inclusion Teachers. There's one in almost every school now, someone with lived experience of autism, but they have little to no interaction with kids, that's not their job. Their job is to provide teachers with counseling on how to deal with issues when they arise instead of putting all the pressure on the kid. Responses from parents about this have been very positive. And there'll be follow on effects from this for years to come because all the other kids will grow up more autism aware and how to better deal with problems. A societal change.

Cheers,

Andrew.