Are we setting autistic children up to fail?

[JandJay]

I say this as a mother with 2 autistic children.
my youngest is 8 but my eldest is 25.
Thinking about my eldest at school there was so much understanding and kindness, exceptions were made for him and he was accepted for his differences.
At work there is no such thing and life has been tough for him.
Our daughter is also autistic, she’s only at primary school but has the same understanding and supportive approach at school which makes her feel accepted right now but I can’t help thinking it’s only autistic children that have that support and understanding and once they are adults they are not seen as the vulnerable children they once were and have a very harsh reality when they held to the expectation of everyone else as adults.

I used to think it was good that we had SEN in schools now, especially as I was undiagnosed and had a terrible school experience, i’m not saying that was better but being an autistic adult is hard, are we not just shielding them from the reality of adulthood?

They absolutely do not!

You get nothing for a diagnosis, only need. You need to be high need for 121 support.Very few get 1:1 support, even with an EHCP.

I was an autistic child who received absolutely no support, adjustments, or understanding. As a result I have spent my life working way too hard to try and do without everything I need. It really hasn't set me up for success - to be honest, it just ran me into the ground before I'd even hit adulthood. I think the push to get kids with quite high support needs into mainstream hasn't really helped anyone and to be honest I think it's just a hamfisted way to shunt people with (realistically) very low capability for work into the workforce. The thing is, employers aren't understanding, and if you try to get them to do anything more human than feeding junior employees into a meat grinder to appease the shareholders they go apeshit and destroy the economy (I'm half-joking). By putting a child who should be in specialist provision in a mainstream classroom the government aims to make disability and limited capability for future study and work seem like a personal failing.

Then it will become even more difficult then it is now for nd people to get jobs

What do you thinks better tough love? Telling them to get on with it and it’s tough look if their brain isn’t designed to cope.
in theory you provide a nurturing inclusive environment for them to grow up in and ideally thrive. This helps prepare them for adulthood and then they find what they can cope with as adults
Had they been brought up being forced to conform it’s possible they may learn some things that would help them in adulthood but their mh/esteem/emotional regulation would be fucked

Some children in mainstream know that they can do what they like because mummy will phone up and blame the adults for allowing them to become dysregulated. The children know this and will shout "give me a movement break now". Not because they need one, but because they know if they kick off enough to get removed, the complaint will be towards the member of staff and the child gets no consequence. This pattern is replicated up and down the country in mainstream classes and no one really wants to talk about it.

TAs and teachers will over support to avoid any sort of complaint.

These entitled children would be far better served by developing regulation strategies to take into adulthood.

I teach one child who is so consistently rude to me "because ODD" that if I worked with the child I would have raised a grievance many times. Every single chat with mum is "he can't help it". He can help it, he's been enabled to get away with saying WTF he likes. SLT try to put consequences in place and mum submits a formal complaint the child's needs aren't being met. What about my need to go to work and not be abused daily?

This very much is dependent on the workplace. As an adult he should find a working environment that meets his needs. They’re not all the same. Some are awful but I’ve worked in several places where reasonable adjustments are the norm. He just needs to find the right field.

Hence the word SOME.

Most get one person trying their fucking best, day in, day out with a shit storm of parental complaints and nothing ever being good enough.

if adult life will be tough for them then I want to ensure their childhood is cushioned so that it's "just" adult life that is hard and not ALL of their life

Sounds terribly managed.

What an awful workplace for you..

Luckily my child has been taught how to regulate through carefully structured OT snd SaLT over a 4 year period.

@JandJay
It all boils down to how society interprets “work”. Is it considered a right to have a job, and who should enable this?
I don’t know how this works in the UK because I live and work abroad.
I know all children have a right to an education, but when it comes to work, we don’t have the right to do a job we like, only the chance to try to find one and the opportunity to change jobs should we not like it.
I suppose what I’m saying is that when it comes to earning a living we aren’t guaranteed somewhere that suits our needs, neither in terms of the work nor the people and environment. We can only try and find the best fit for us.

I agree that sometimes “accommodations” that are made at school, could confuse some children into thinking that these will be guaranteed in the workplace, and unless the workplace is specifically focused on doing so, it probably won’t be possible. However part of educating older teens is also helping them, if possible and according to their capabilities, see where best they can make a contribution to society and where they too will feel most accepted and happy.

I’m conflicted because we are a neurodivergent family and I think workplaces should make more adjustments. However, unfortunately AI tools ask for zero adjustments - you just press a button and the work comes out. So we have people asking for more adjustments than ever while at the same time there are new tools that can just do the work. I’m not saying this is wrong or right, it’s just something I’ve been musing on for the future

Nephew is autistic and ADHD. He's mildly autistic, mostly behavioural/social.

His parents have zero expectations, consequences or boundaries for him.

Example: he got kicked out of Scouts, twice, for punching other kids. Both times SIL persuaded the Scout leader to let him back in, because he's 'autistic'. And apparently punching people is part of his profile.

So the message she's sending her son is that, it's okay if you punch people, we'll pull some strings to allow you back in.

Zero consequences, you can do what you like.

Great recipe for life.

My nephew is the kid is happytayto's class.

It’s tricky.

i have an autistic nephew. His mum fought for SEN accommodation from year 1 up.

sometimes it did seem like getting him in SEN provision right from the start meant he was never challenged and no expectations were set. He wasn’t taught the curriculum, and school seemed to be more of a care setting than an education.

he’s an adult now and needs full time care. However he’s not daft, he can understand and if something benefits him he can learn how to do things. But generally he has everything done for him, he can’t hold down a job, his mum manages his money and his day to day life. He’s not a risk to himself and can be left alone, he can make simple meals and cups of tea etc but has never learned more than that.

conversely my friends son was also diagnosed autistic as a toddler. She fought for him to stay in mainstream school when the LEA tried to move him to SEN provision. He struggled initially but did end up doing GCSE’s, got a job, and now lives independently.

now every autistic child is different and of course each child may have ended up where they are regardless. I always got the impression though with my nephew that once he was diagnosed everyone stopped trying to teach him, and any issues were simply avoided rather than dealt with. If he didn’t want to do something he was not encouraged, until it got to the point where his life was school and playing his computer games. Now it’s adult day care and computer games. And yes I do get that as a parent a Sen child is exhausting and sometimes it’s just easier to let them sit in their rooms with a computer game- but I get the impression school or social services didn’t help push him to independence either, or help his mum with tools to help him.

like @Happytaytos said, it seems he was taught dependence. I don’t think he will ever live a life without needing near constant supervision.

Exactly. I don’t want my son (ASD, ADHD, SEN) to have a hard life and struggle as an adult in life and employment. I don’t want him to have special treatment or anything I just want things to be fair and for him to be appreciated for the wonderful person he is and the skill set he can bring to a job/career, whatever that might look like.

A loving and supportive childhood builds the resilience needed for adulthood. I'm a social worker, I've assessed multiple adults with serious mental health problems, sexual exploitation, addiction, domestic violence, many with autism or ADHD, some diagnosed in childhood some later. None of them had too much understanding in childhood, quite the opposite, they spent their childhood dealing with bullying, judgement from others, feeling like a failure, feeling like they never fit in etc.
On the other hand, I've assessed prospective adopters and other adults with autism receiving social care support but without serious mental health needs. They had positive childhood experiences that supported them in building resilience, good teachers who inspired them, good friends, an adult they could trust and depend on. Many of them still had struggles, but they were nothing compared to those leading very chaotic lives were I would worry for their lives. And those who were chaotic always had the worst childhoods.
Your DC may be struggling with work life now and that is tough, but without the understanding they had as a child maybe they would not be working at all, maybe they would be dead, suicidal, being exploited by others, addicted to drugs. I can't stress enough that the people living these types of life are definitely not lacking resilience because they had no struggles, they are in this position because they had too much struggle and not enough care and understanding.

Its an important question to raise OP.
I guess it all depends on the spectrum / presentation / profile... but we are preparing them for a neurotypical world aren't we? Not an ideal world. They will be expected to work hard (granted they will have to work hardER), grow and manage social situations.

It's interesting to read about the difference in support in primary v secondary!! This wasn't on our radar

It completely depends on the workplace and the severity of the ASD. I work in law and I'd say 80% of my office would be diagnosed (or are).
As children none of us would probably have been diagnosed in the 1980s. As adults we all have built in mechanisms to help cope with overwhelm and quite frankly, law is a career which lends itself to autistic individuals. Attention to detail, high performance culture and expectations, focus, rigidity of behaviour and isolated working (albeit part of a team).

I went to a small supportive Sen school for a lot of secondary, it was very much unlike normal life and I wouldn’t change it. It gave me skills I wouldn’t have been able to learn in mainstream, got me through exams that are essential for even the most basic of roles in the workplace.

no school even mainstream is like the realities of the workplace or “real life” we do this because we understand children need more support in their formative years, some will require more due to disabilities, I don’t think this is a bad thing.

1:1 support ends up leading to less independence not more in most cases

This is a line LAs like to use. It misrepresents the research, which is when LAs try to rely on it at Tribunals it doesn’t wash. A well trained 1:1 deployed correctly does not lead to dependence. Michael Charles, a well regarded SEN solicitor, once wrote a piece about it.

Not where I work.

YABU.

I was undiagnosed until my 30s. School was hell. Zero support, I ended up in a very bad place mentally and my self-esteem didn't properly recover until my late twenties. Yes, the workplace is hard as an autistic person, but what's worse is hating yourself so much that even the thought of trying to get a job seems impossible.

I do think that autistic children and young people need to be taught that certain things, like violence, are unacceptable, and I don't think a diagnosis is an excuse to do whatever you want. But adult life is going to be hard regardless. It's less hard if you know what strategies help you, you know how to advocate for yourself, and you've grown up in a supportive environment. With the 'sink or swim' approach, a whole lot of us are just going to sink.

Secondary is structured so differently to primary which is half the problem. Different rooms and teachers 5 times a day for a start, compared to the routine of the same teachers and students most of the week at primary.

You're lucky.

A well trained 1:1 deployed correctly

Therin lies the problem.