Today, January 24th, is celebrated International Day of Education and, for this reason, Autismo España reminds that, according to official data (IMSERSO, INE, Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, Education Councils of the Autonomous Communities...), Of the more than 200,000 students with specific educational support needs, nearly 40,000 have a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD)., a figure that could be higher if we consider the significant deficiencies in the detection and diagnostic systems in Spain.
Taking into account these data, as well as the sociodemographic registry being carried out by Autismo España (and which currently has an analyzed sample of 2,116 people with ASD), the Confederation has found a considerable increase in the number of students enrolled with identified ASD in the last five years (of more than 118% between the 2011-12 and 2017-2018 academic years), as well as dropout rates significant of these students at the end of Secondary Education, compared to the continuation rates of the rest of the students enrolled in non-university education.
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For all these reasons, at Autismo España we advocate for guaranteeing the right to education for students with ASD, making existing educational offerings more flexible and innovative so that they respond to individual needs and maximize educational success, personal development, and social inclusion, while ensuring the specialized support each individual requires based on their specific needs.
In this sense we also want to highlight that, as stated in the Report of the Investigation related to Spain under Article 6 of the Optional Protocol, “It was often misinterpreted, including in official statistics, that the inclusion of students with disabilities in mainstream schools, but without the required reasonable adjustments, constituted inclusive education..
Article extracted from Autism.org (click here to access the source)
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