Kemi badenoch now against autistic children

[Hunnymonster1]

What is wrong with her? Just read that the children commision is saying average wait like to get diagnosed as autistic is 4 years.
So kemi banging on about how parents are pushing gor diagnosis because they see how much extra money etc autistic children get at school is wrong.
The fact is I woukd think judging by lbc many kids are not getting the support that they need.
So js this about her saying the conservatives need to save tax by not helping people or children with autism and mental health issues.
Bare in mind she said similar about maternity pay last week makes me think she's like Liz truss wants to cut alot of stuff
How the hell can anyone support this?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/kemi-badenoch-autism-tory-leadership-buckland-b2628845.html

I do think especially for girls it seems autism is easy for teachers to miss. The children in my family are all boys who definitely need additional support but thats in the form of psychiatric interventions. Their mum however is clearly autistic, never diagnosed but an extremely well functioning person. So people do do well without diagnosis or intervention. But I’m not sure how many manage that.

I think she has no understanding of how society works. She didn't actually take maternity leave herself, she resigned instead because she didn't feel it was fair for her employer to fund it. Okay fine, if you want to do that and have a well paid partner. But it is fucking batshit to think that maternity leave is to generous and not to understand that if you don't fund it then women are even more vulnerable than they already are and the birthrate will fall even furhter

As a parent of a child with chronic severe anxiety and depression I feel very worried for her future. Just when I thought they couldn't get any worse. My dd didn't get any extra help or money but, believe me, if she did she would give it back if it meant her crippling anxiety disappeared. I am sure parents of children with autism feel the same. How can they confuse the 2 conditions, they can't even be bothered to care about being correct.

The point I was making is that mental health needs are not autism needs, they are separate. You can have autism without mental health needs and have mental health needs without autism.

Those who have classical/ profoud/ severe autism and not severe mental health needs with an autism dx are a completely different group of people with different needs and as pointed out previously this group are having their services/ adaptations/ funding etc cut as autism is increasingly seen as an identity rather than a disability and those who are able to advocate for themselves are naturally going to advocate for their needs rather than those of others which can be vastly different to those who can't advocate.

I do believe there is an increasing dislike/ resentment of children with autism/ other nd and their families where their needs aren't obvious and they're asking for accommodations just due to the amount of children that fall into this category.

I think the general public are usually accepting of people with obvious disabilities receiving help but when it isn't obvious and they see it as putting them at disadvantage/ costing them money that's when it becomes a problem. The Disney ride pass in America is a great example of this. Disney have changed it so only those with autism and learning needs (I can't remember the exact wording but google it if you want) qualify and even then some don't who feel they should. This has caused huge bad feeling among people with various disabilities.

Just to point out again I believe all children should get their needs met. I'm trying to pull apart the situation, understand it and discuss the reasoning. This isn't agreeing.

Totally agree.

Have you seen someone with autism advocating for themselves?

No she doesn't.

She didn't like being treated like everyone else when she was 16 and made to work for her pocket money.

If her children decide to slum it when they get to their older teenage/young adult years she's going to get a shock in how they are treated.

Yes there was that woman on Question Time wasn’t there? “I voted for the Tories because they said they’d slash benefits, but I didn’t think they meant MY benefits!”

You want low taxes. You get a Tory.

She's a Tory. What did everyone expect? They make a career out of demonising disabled people,whether it's a physical or mental disability.

The point I was making is that mental health needs are not autism needs, they are separate. You can have autism without mental health needs and have mental health needs without autism.

You may wish to read up on comorbitity of mental ill health in people with autism. Mental illness rates are far, far higher in people with autism than in the general population. Epilepsy rates are the same. Nobody knows exactly why this is, but it is a fact. Your view of how autism and mental health work is overly simplistic.

Which medical professionals do you think Prescribes medication for people with autism when needed?

100% this. And I'm ND and part of a ND family. I'm really concerned at lots of young people basically opting out of work 'because autism/ because ADHD.' It's creating a really unhelpful culture of victimhood and being used as a get out of jail free card.

I've said on other threads that I think the 'ND movement' is becoming really harmful to many ND people. It's becoming a grift that enables people rather than finding ways to help them live and function in the world.

There's a lot of autism self advocates who do incredibly well.

Right, and that's a valid reason to withdraw support from those who don't, of course.

The huge, huge problem with Badenoch's essay of rabid right wingery is her statement that by getting support, autistic people get an advantage.

They don't. What they get, if they get support, is a little levelling of the playing field. A little shot at equality of opportunity. Which is a thing Tories either don't understand, or don't want. Which begs the question: why don't Tories want everyone to get an equitable shot at success?

I do a small voluntary role with schools helping find work experience placements. I really worry about the lack of coping/self-management skills that are being taught to ND children. There's an element of the ND Movement that genuinely expects the adjustments made in an education setting to automatically roll-over to an employment setting.

Mind you, I'm constantly surprised by some of the ones I'm warned will be the 'difficult' kids that do amazingly well in work placements. Like kids learning to ride a bike once the stabilisers are taken off.

That could apply to any party!

Being a comorbid condition doesn't mean that they go hand in hand. They can exist separately. Someone can have severe mental health needs as well as autism while someone else can have severe autism and no mental health needs. I would guess having severe autism without mental health needs is more common than severe mh with autism.

There has been cases of children locally being refused camhs intervention because they had an autism dx with a campaign to separate the two to make sure they had their needs met. Conflating the two can be harmful for those who need the support and those who have autism and don't have mh. Autism isn't a mh condition.

She resigned from The Spectator. Wonder what the agreed settlement was there?

She also collected maternity pay of 100% as a politician and received nearly eight grand (before going back eight weeks later/two weeks after the cutoff for paying back) severance pay in 2022.

I'd resign every three months if that was what I was going to get out of it, too.

I always want to ask - what did ND people do BEFORE everyone was getting diagnosed? Lots of burnout and mental / physical health issues BUT we also showed extreme resilience and made lives for ourselves. Diagnosis is fantastic for learning adaptations and how to not fight against ourselves all the time but it was never designed to be a free pass at life. It should be about how to thrive instead of survive, for all but the small percentage who genuinely can't function even with adaptations.

It is estimated that rates of anxiety disorder amongst autistic people is around 40%. That is 2-3x higher than the NT population.

informationautism.org/issues/23/anxiety-and-autism/Statistics

I think KB is speaking to an increasing proportion of the population who are getting fed up of autism being used as a reason for adaptations when previously they wouldn't

Yep, and don’t forget wheelchair users and blind people! All these disabled people, requesting their legal rights to reasonable adjustments, when previously you could just shove them in an institution and leave them to rot. How very dare they.

Well no, that's the point School transport and adaptations that improve education outcomes don't equal a free pass at life.

That's very rose tinted of you. Sure, some people showed extreme resilience ( = having to work 10 times as hard to achieve the same thing as someone NT) and made lives for themselves. But what about the ones who couldn't, but who if they had had support from an early age could have achieved the same? What about the ones who would have succeeded without the struggle and the burnout if only they'd had support? Just because you were 'extremely resilient' and 'made a life for yourself', without support that does not mean that those who needed that support shouldn't get it. Again, levelling the playing field, equity for everyone. Kemi is basically saying that she does not want equality of opportunity.

And how is having some adaptations at work 'getting a free pass at life'?

Your position is basically 'well I did it, so everyone else should be able to do it too'. Life isn't like that.

I do see where she's coming from.
Does feel like nowadays, some parents (not all, and for you real SN parents Im not talking about you before you lose your hair) do push for a diagnosis for their child to have autism/adhd/whatever to deflect responsibility for being a soft parent when theyve raised their children to be little shits. Or trying to diagnose their children with autism because theyre shy or an introvert or dont like loud noises.

And its very harmful to the parents with children that DO actually have special needs and it delays help for them.