As someone who spent the vast majority of their education in the special educational needs system, I’d like to share my thoughts on the matter through my memories of a boy I’ll call Morten. That isn’t his real name.
The Diagnosis
Jason Arday claimed to have been diagnosed with autism in 1988 at three years of age. As someone who wasn’t diagnosed until 2012, when I was almost 14, this was the first thing that personally raised my eyebrows.
Knowledge of autism was still relatively limited in 1988. A diagnosis at three wouldn’t have been impossible, but it would’ve been unusual enough for me to question it. He also claimed to have been non-verbal until the age of 11.
Personally, I was also largely non-verbal until around the age of four. According to my mother, my speech was very delayed. I had various forms of therapy from as early as 2003, when I was four or five.
When I read Arday’s claim, I immediately thought of Morten.
Morten
I met Morten in the post-16 part of a special school for children with severe disabilities, where I was also a student.
Morten had constant one-to-one support from a male member of staff. He didn’t have lessons with the other children. He studied on his own, ate on his own and didn’t really interact with many other pupils. Some children seemed uncomfortable around him owing to the severity of his condition. In fairness, that was understandable because of how his condition affected him.
Morten was non-verbal. He couldn’t speak words, so he communicated through his own form of BSL with people he knew. His one-to-one would then explain what he was trying to say to other people.
Morten didn’t seem very outgoing with people he wasn’t familiar with, but for some reason he took a liking to me. His one-to-one said as much. He would normally come over specifically to say hello to me before leaving again. Sometimes he might ask what I’d done at the weekend, but that was about it. Even so, it honestly felt like a huge compliment.
I can remember him having a job every morning as part of his routine. I believe it was either handing the registers out or taking them back to the office. I can’t remember exactly which. It was his way of interacting with people when he was able to do so. This tailored-to-the-person approach is what makes good SEND schools so effective.
When Jason Arday talked about being non-verbal, Morten was my instant thought. I started pondering how life might’ve gone for him since I last saw him in 2016. I wondered whether someone was taking good care of him and how his condition affects him now.
There are conflicting accounts of whether Arday spoke as a child, so Morten’s experience can’t prove what Arday could or couldn’t do. If his claims were proven to be false or substantially exaggerated, however, the consequences would reach beyond Arday himself.
People with autism already have to explain experiences that other people may struggle to understand. False claims by a prominent autistic person could give people another reason to doubt those who speak honestly about delayed speech or being non-verbal. They could also create unfair expectations about what somebody with substantial communication difficulties should be able to achieve without recognising the support that person may need.
The effect on families could be just as serious. Parents often have to explain their child’s needs to schools, medical professionals and public bodies. If a widely promoted account of severe childhood disability was shown to be untrue, it could make some people more suspicious of families describing similar experiences. Those families shouldn’t have to carry the consequences of somebody else’s claims.
That is why I find the allegations so difficult to stomach. The experiences being discussed have a severe effect on real people. They also affect the relatives who care for them and fight to get them appropriate support. For me, one of those people will always be Morten.
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