Work still needed to challenge stigmas around autism - Autism NZ

"People would say that we have a lack of empathy, but I wouldn't say that we have a lack of empathy as much as we suck at it."

That's the honest assessment of Kieran Timms, one of the thousands of Kiwis who is on the autism spectrum.

"A lack of empathy means that people think we don't care about our friends and family and that's wrong. We do care," says Kieran, who was diagnosed as a young child.

His parents initially thought he was deaf, but it turned out that he had perfect hearing - it was the way he understood the world that was different.

It's lived experiences like Kieran's that are the focus of World Autism Awareness Day, an annual event that seeks to improve people's understanding of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and highlight the everyday challenges that people living with the neurological condition face.

"It can be sort of a blessing and a curse," Kieran says about the condition.

"There are some things that are easy to understand, some things that are difficult. Dating, for example, it can be very, very difficult."

Dane Dougan, who is the Chief Executive of Autism NZ, says a common myth about people who have ASD is that they're not creative or that they don't want to socialise.

"There are times that they don't know how to be social and that's part of what we need to do, provide them with the tools to be able to go and interact with people in a way that's accepted in society."

Kieran agrees, saying he's made more of an effort recently to attend events that are important to his friends and family.

But that's taken time and Kieran says his message to other people who are on the spectrum is that it's never too late to try new things.

"Who cares if it takes a long time? It's kind of like me learning chess – good things just take time."

Autism is thought to effect 1 in every 100 Kiwis but it's difficult to quantify this because New Zealand doesn't collect the relevant data and has to rely on statistics from overseas.

"We think that's a pretty big issue actually," says Dougan. "We'll keep advocating for that moving forward."

"It's hard to know the size of the population if you don't collect the data. And then if you don't know the size of the population, you don't know how many resources to put into it."

Improvements in diagnoses, including an understanding of the genetic link that leads to a lot of what Dougan describes as "two-for-one" diagnoses within families, means that the autism community is growing all the time.

"We hear a lot of these stories that a lot of the time someone will go and get their child diagnosed and they'll look at other people in their family and say 'Uncle Billy is possibly autistic as well'."

Dougan has been in his role at Autism NZ for nine years and says in that time he has seen a big positive shift in awareness, especially when it comes to employment.

"We're getting more and more requests from large, small and medium organisations around how they can set up processes to be more neurodivergent-friendly and autistic friendly, which I think is really positive."

Autism NZ has placed dozens of adults with autism in employment in recent years and says they have a high "stickability" rate because the focus is on the individual and making sure they're passionate about what they do.

This strength-based focused is also being applied to education.

However, Dougan believes that while there is often a lot of government support for people who require intensive and long-term care, more can be done for those with low or medium needs.

"We're trying to advocate strongly for those who need that light touch support and empowering them to live the lives they want to live."

An issue that has recently highlighted the need for more understanding about autism in society is the mask mandates.

"The sensory issues around wearing masks can be quite strong for a lot of the community," says Dougan.

"It's not that they [those on the autism spectrum] don't want to wear the masks, it's that they actually physically can't."

Dougan believes ongoing work is needed to eradicate the stigmas and false perceptions about people with ASD that still exist in society and there needs to be a greater appreciation of the many benefits neurodiverse people bring to our society.

"For us neurotypical people, it's a lot easier for us to change than for autistic people so let's change the way that we operate and we interact with them to make it happy and successful."

World Autism Awareness Day kicks off a whole month of events Autism NZ and other support networks are participating in.