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Autism

My Lords, in introducing the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Hever, has put before the House an individual and particular set of problems, but the pattern of the problems is one which is incredibly familiar to anyone who has dealt with special educational needs and disability rights issues, especially in their initial stages. To someone who was in the right place at the right time for the mainstream acceptance of dyslexia when it was diagnosed, much of what has been said here about many of the problems sounds incredibly familiar to what was said then. The references to the discovery and magnitude of the problem are a replay of what happened before. I was scanning my eye over a list of myths that I had taken from the National Autistic Society website when I came across a reference to Asperger’s syndrome—which is a part of the autistic spectrum disorder—affecting only middle-class parents. I can guarantee that the reason for that myth is that, at the moment, the middle class is vastly over-represented because middle-class parents have the education, money and time to make a thoroughgoing nuisance of themselves and get some help. Effectively, we politicians have not applied enough pressure to gear-up the system—and all parties must share equal blame for this—to make it accessible to people without education, money and a background of dealing with bureaucracy and realising that if you kick it hard enough in the right places it usually does what you want in the end. I am afraid that is rather the experience here. Such people are not being assessed early enough. Effectively, we have got to carry on rattling the system until we get people in the right places to recognise the early symptoms and to give assessment and support. The fact of the matter is that if we do not do this we will have far greater ongoing costs further down the system. A failing child will become a failing adult and end up in institutional care, having first probably broken the health of a parent. As has been referred to, even respite care is not there at the moment. If we do not get support to them early enough, some people will become institutionalised and spend their lifetime not being able to support themselves. If we carry on as we are, it will take a very long time to put this right. We must apply pressure to make sure that the existing support structures are greatly expanded. The only good thing that can be said about this is that other people have been down this path and so we have a rough idea of what should happen next. Diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorder—not the easiest thing to say in a hurry—should be seen asan integral part of the training and awareness programmes. In the course of the education Bill there has been much talk about making sure that in the school system there is sufficient training in special educational needs awareness. I have always felt that awareness throughout the system is probably much more beneficial than having a few well-trained specialists because in that way you can see things coming and get the intervention in quickly. If there is only a fairly low-level but early enough intervention to provide social skills, for instance, it may well allow a person to function within the mainstream of society, albeit with help, for the rest of his or her life. If you do not get in that early intervention, you are not going to be able to do that. When the Minister replies, can he tell the House what the Government think are the actual numbers of people who fall within the spectrum? Do the Government think that the number is rising in frequency in the population, or is it merely that we are only now spotting it? The noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, shakes his head but the question is not for him; I want to know the Government’s attitude. Are the Government taking up the issue? Where is the argument going? If the Minister does not know, I look forward to receiving a letter from him, as will the rest of the House. We have to find out what the Government are thinking in order to provide the support necessary to make sure that government works and that the structure comes through. Returning to the issue of myths, what is the Government’s attitude towards telling people how to deal with autism and explaining it to parents? What advice is being given? The website page referred to the ““Rain Man”” genius—I think ““savant”” is the correct expression. Are the Government trying to deal with all the myths? Again, this is very typical of what happened with dyslexia. For example, the myth was that all dyslexics are brilliant because Leonardo da Vinci was. I have never followed the reasoning myself, but there we are. Can the Government say what sort of training they are giving to enable people to explain autism? What are they doing, particularly, for nursery school teachers, who seem to have the biggest chance of spotting it earlier? What type of advice are they giving? Can the Minister give an indication of the kind of advice they are giving to people who develop training facilities? What is the state of planning for greater numbers of specialists to deal with this? I look forward to the Minister’s answer but I am afraid that we will have to come back frequently—and bring our friends with us—in order to get Governments of all shapes and sizes in the future to act further on this. The Minister should take this issue away, talk to his friends in other departments and let them know that we are all going to watch—and that we are not going to go away until we get a little bit more action.