The reason behind our Autability profiles.

Now it may seem somewhat hypocritical for a company who believes that each autistic person should be treated as an individual, to then go and catagorise people into 5 different types of profile. We know, but we have a genuine reason for this.

Charlotte and I have been advising and supporting people in their role as parents for a long time and we often see the same issues arising. One of those issues is that people don't realise how vast the autistic spectrum is or how many different co-morbidities may occur alongside autism. What we have noticed is that people aren't always aware that each and every autistic child does not need exactly the same type or level of support. This causes parents and professionals a lot of unneceassary stress because they believe they are letting their child down if they don't fight for every single adaptation available.

People spend hours and hours fighting for things that actually their child may not even need. As someone who has done a lot of fighting believe me, if you don't need it then don't waste your time and energy fighting for it. If your friendship group doesn't include other families with autism or disabilities, how would you ever be able to see how different each autistic person is? If all you have to go on is your personal experience then for all you know, your child has the worst case of autism the world has ever seen.

I want to make it clear at this point that this is not a criticism of parents. Our profiles are a way to help you undertsand where your child sits within the spectrum, the kinds of things you should be looking for help with and the types of professionals you may want to ask for help from.

Our profiles are a way to help you narrow down the very large and confusing world of support services. Nothing more. Your child may not fit exactly into one of our profiles, that's fine! This is about them as an individual. BUT, just because another autistic child got a support service working for them, it doesn't mean you need it to. It doesn't make you a bad parent to say, "actually, I don't think it is relevant for my child right now". This does not make you neglectful if your child is managing OK.

Having said that, if a professional thinks you should access some support, don't blow it off straight away. Think about it. Think about what it would do for your child.

The profiles are a guide, to stop you as parents feeling overwhelmed in navigating support services. Autability is, and will always be, all about the individual.