Action needed on the number of children awaiting autism assessments - Yorkshire Post Letters

But the biggest tragedy is the wait that children face to undergo autism assessments. It not only prolongs the anxiety that parents face but also has damaging consequences on the child’s future. It hinders their education and is bad for their mental health.

The first report from Centre for Young Lives, founded by the former children’s commissioner Anne Longfield, in partnership with the Child of the North initiative, contains a series of recommendations on changes needed to support autistic children.

The Government must take this report and its recommendations seriously. The report calls for support to be provided in schools and nurseries before a child receives a formal diagnosis.

This would be a simple step that could be rolled out fairly quickly to ensure children are not left to fail while they wait. A formal diagnosis must not hold up a child getting the support that they need.

The report found the number of children waiting for an autism assessment had tripled since the pandemic.

As Professor Mark Mon-Williams, chair in cognitive psychology at the University of Leeds, says “Autistic children and their families are being failed by systems that are not fit for purpose.”

A sea change is needed in the way autism and neurodiversity is approached in this country.