Staging autism-friendly events risks segregating people with the condition.
That’s the claim of Rita Jordan, a retired professor in autism studies at Birmingham University. She worked in autism education for more than three decades.
Autism-friendly events are common in theatres, cinemas, supermarkets and other public places in order to widen access.
Professor Rita Jordan: she believes that autism-friendly events can cause segregation
But in a letter to The Guardian newspaper, Jordan suggests they cause greater segregation.
‘Setting up little ghettos’
Jordan, 76, told Autism Eye that campaigners for the events were “setting up little ghettos”.
She added: “So you’re actually saying to people on the spectrum, ‘If you want to go shopping you’ve got to go between 7 and 8 on a whatever’.”
Writer Sarah Ziegel has four sons with autism aged between nine and 19.
Autism-friendly events ‘a lifeline’
She says autism-friendly events provide a lifeline for families living with severe autism.
For years she has taken her boys to autism-friendly theatre events. But as the boys’ behaviour has improved she is starting to prefer mainstream performances.
Author of A Parent’s Guide to Coping with Autism, Ziegel said taking children with severe autism to mainstream performances would be difficult if they “make noises all the way through”.
‘Everybody else would not tolerate it’
Ziegel, from Richmond upon Thames in London, added that “everybody else that has paid a lot of money to be there would not tolerate it”.
Jordan accepts there needs to be a range of facilities. However, she insists that making everything autism-friendly will not resolve the issue.
She said part of the answer lies in helping those with autism learn to better tolerate their environment.
She believes that attempts to make environments uniformly soothing will not work because of autism’s diversity.
While some individuals with autism prefer low lighting, others are disturbed by the shadows it creates, she said.
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Published: 26 May 2018
