In the UK, the average age of an autism diagnosis is four years old. There are many factors that affect when someone is given a diagnosis one of which is gender. Females – on average – are diagnosed later than males. This is not taking into account the emerging realisation that autistic people are more likely to be transgender as is becoming clear.
Language acquisition is at the heart of children’s psychological development. Learning words underpins children’s ability to communicate with others and navigate the social world. However, word learning can be severely impacted by autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
As parents we want everything for our children. We want them to be creative and original thinkers, but, although we may know it’s not the be-all and end-all, we also want our children to make linear progress across the board and have no bumps in their life’s road.
In classrooms up and down the land *we have all seen young children working hard to express themselves, we have seen them working hard to understand what is being asked of them and we have seen them working hard to maintain their attention on the task at hand, we see children in the playground working hard to make and maintain friendships and we know how hard this work is for some children.
With an ever-growing body of evidence suggesting high and increasing levels of mental health difficulties in children, alongside the significant majority of children with clinical levels of mental health need not being seen by mental health services, schools are under increasing pressure to provide mental health support themselves.
I started working at Market Field School as an LSA when I was 17 with no awareness of what I was walking in to. I had no knowledge of SEND and the only experience I had of ‘mental health difficulties’ were my own.
Evidence shows that across the UK, mental health issues in children are increasing while child wellbeing is deteriorating as children today are having to navigate a complex and ever-changing world, facing challenges and pressures in numerous aspects of their life.
Jules Whicher, winner of the Communication Champion of the Year Award and the overall winner of the Pearson Outstanding Achievement Award at the 2019 Shine a Light Awards, outlines what communication means to her.
Being an autistic student in mainstream education is not for the faint hearted. Setting aside the sensory overloads that come from being in a loud and bustling school environment, most autistic students spend their school lives being misunderstood.
