It is very common for autistic people to „disappear“ at school, and to then have daily meltdowns at home.

Lots of us use all our strength at school to suppress and mask to survive...and once we get home our bodies break down because this, of course, is not sustainable.

Yes, lots of us have meltdowns at school as well, are labeled „disruptive“ etc.

But today I want to highlight autistic people who put all their efforts into „behaving“ well at school and then break down at home because it creates very specific problems for the autistic person.

When an autistic person suppresses their autistic traits at school to survive and then only breaks down at home, parents often get blamed.

Because if it doesn‘t happen at school, but happens at home, the problem must be at home, right?

Wrong. School is the problem.

When autistic people are deemed „well behaved“ at school it‘s also common that their diagnosis gets questioned.

And often support gets denied because
„They don‘t need it! They‘re doing fine!“

Countless autistic people NEED support at school but don‘t get it because of this.

Unless an autistic person shows observable behavior like stimming, or has a meltdown, their distress is often invisible.

That doesn‘t mean it isn‘t there, or isn‘t doing damage!

For many autistics school is constant harmful overload (sensory, information, social, everything).

Most autistic people aren‘t taught to self-advocate.

Instead we are taught to „behave properly“, suppress our autistic traits, not bother anyone etc.

And many of us CAN‘T self-advocate effectively, or if we try we are silenced, ignored, punished etc.

To ensure autistics are safe and healthy at school, support must be INHERENTLY SYSTEMICALLY IMPLEMENTED and additional support must be FREELY OFFERED.

There mustn‘t be a requirement of having an observable crisis to qualify for support. Support is supposed to PREVENT crisis.

Educational professionals must receive autistic created, lead, and delivered autism training.

Only then will they be able to spot more subtle autistic traits, signs of distress, and offer adequate supports to their students.

Educational professionals need to understand autism.

We must switch from a culture of only reacting to crisis to a culture of proactively preventing crisis - and providing an educational environment safe and healthy for autistic students.

School needs to stop being hell for autistic people.

Education is a human right!

#autism

How can we achieve this? Listen to autistic people!

Hire autistic teachers and teaching assistants.
Hire autistic classroom aids for autistic students.

Hire autistic consultants when

- building schools
- setting up classrooms
- creating educational curriculum and content

Autistic people know what autistic people need.

And if we don‘t know, we are very good at figuring it out!

Autistic people have an insight into what being autistic at school is like, what helps and what hinders, that no non-autistic person will ever have.

Learn from us!

Learning is fundamental in life.

Autistic people have the same human right to education as non-autistic people do - but they currently do NOT have the same access to it and that needs to change.

#ActuallyAutistic #autism #AutismAwareness #AutismAcceptance #autistic #school