Safeguarding Children and Young People with Autism
Safeguarding Children and Young People with Autistic Spectrum Disorder
The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of current provisions for safeguarding children and young people with Autism, whilst paying attention to proposed and current legislation and reports/ policy initiatives from a UK and Welsh perspectives. The rationale for this paper is because the writer has a nine year old autistic child. All children’s welfare is underpinned by legislation, leaving parents and adults with considerable flexibility in how to raise their child but the state will intervene when their safety and well being is under threat, settings and services are also accountable for their professional practice towards children and young people (Lindon, 2008). Legislation makes a very public statement about what is acceptable or unacceptable conduct towards children in today’s society (Lindon, 2008) however, a child with autism find the world a strange and difficult place, allowing them to become much more vulnerable to predators in society
Howlin (1997) describes autism as, “a life-long, often devastating, disorder that profoundly affects almost every aspect of an individuals functioning.” (p1) People with autism have difficulty with everyday social interactions, it also affects how they make sense of the world around them (National Autistic Society, 2012). The three main triads affecting a people with autism are, difficulty with social communication, difficulty with social interaction and difficulty with social imagination (National Autistic Society 2012) In the past few decades, there has also been a steady increase in the number of first hand accounts written by self-advocates who self-identify as individuals on the autism spectrum, (e.g., Grandin & Scariano, 1986; Newport & Newport, 2002; Prince-Hughes, 2002; Mukhopadhyay, 2008) this is largely due to society becoming more acceptable to listen to people with disabilities and the acknowledgement that a
The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of current provisions for safeguarding children and young people with Autism, whilst paying attention to proposed and current legislation and reports/ policy initiatives from a UK and Welsh perspectives. The rationale for this paper is because the writer has a nine year old autistic child. All children’s welfare is underpinned by legislation, leaving parents and adults with considerable flexibility in how to raise their child but the state will intervene when their safety and well being is under threat, settings and services are also accountable for their professional practice towards children and young people (Lindon, 2008). Legislation makes a very public statement about what is acceptable or unacceptable conduct towards children in today’s society (Lindon, 2008) however, a child with autism find the world a strange and difficult place, allowing them to become much more vulnerable to predators in society
Howlin (1997) describes autism as, “a life-long, often devastating, disorder that profoundly affects almost every aspect of an individuals functioning.” (p1) People with autism have difficulty with everyday social interactions, it also affects how they make sense of the world around them (National Autistic Society, 2012). The three main triads affecting a people with autism are, difficulty with social communication, difficulty with social interaction and difficulty with social imagination (National Autistic Society 2012) In the past few decades, there has also been a steady increase in the number of first hand accounts written by self-advocates who self-identify as individuals on the autism spectrum, (e.g., Grandin & Scariano, 1986; Newport & Newport, 2002; Prince-Hughes, 2002; Mukhopadhyay, 2008) this is largely due to society becoming more acceptable to listen to people with disabilities and the acknowledgement that a