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Autistic In School: A Brief Practical Guide For Educators

Concepts You Need To Know To Help You Autistic Students

David Gray-Hammond

Jun 2

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Education systems, particularly in the UK, remain structurally unfit for purpose when it comes to supporting Autistic and ADHD learners. Despite the existence of SEN frameworks and the EHCP process, support is often shallow— built on outdated, pathologising models that reduce neurodivergent experience to a checklist of deficits. Educators are expected to meet complex needs with little more than a paragraph of training and a few borrowed strategies, most of which are rooted in a non-Autistic worldview.
This article takes a different approach.
I’ll be breaking down the UK’s SEN areas of need—but not through a clinical lens. Instead, I’ll be drawing on lived Autistic experience, monotropism, the double empathy problem, and the social realities of neuronormativity, minority stress, and intersectionality. This is a deep dive into what those categories actually mean for Autistic learners—beneath the surface of bureaucratic labels—and how educators can begin to unlearn the deficit narrative that still dominates most conversations about us.
If you’re an educator, a parent, or simply someone trying to do better by Autistic people, the full piece offers a radical reframing of how we think about learning, behaviour, communication, and support. And while the framework may be rooted in the UK system, the insights are relevant anywhere schools exist.
To access the full, paywalled section—including detailed breakdowns of each area of need through a neuro-affirming lens—consider subscribing. The work of building better futures for Autistic learners starts with unlearning everything we were taught about them.
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