The latest in the harms of Prevent training is that it links children with autism to extremism, using high numbers of referrals to ‘evidence’ this mistaken assumption. While many of these cases are not pursued further, the harms to neurodiverse children are multiplying.
World Autism Awareness Day took place just last month, and we know Prevent has unjustly impacted children with autism.
We have supported many parents whose children were referred to Prevent because of a behaviour linked to their autism.
In other cases, schools have said that the child’s autism has been the main reason for the referral, or that they have been referred because their autism allegedly made them “more vulnerable to radicalisation or extremism”.
In one case, a mother was shocked because her son who had autism had been referred for having a reaction to a situation which made him very uncomfortable.
There was nothing violent in his reaction, but the act of simply removing himself from an uncomfortable situation was enough for the school to want to question him about it – while being fully aware of his neurodiversity.
Not only were his parents not informed of this, but he was then questioned alone by staff members who kept pushing him to the point of further upset. As he became agitated, he made comments which were used as a basis for a Prevent referral.
While the referral was not pursued as these comments did not meet any Prevent threshold, it was very upsetting for the child and his family, and there was a complete loss of trust; they felt the school failed to consider how their actions had caused the child to react from a place of distress as part of his neurodiversity.
Why are more autistic children referred to Prevent?
This is something that many parents of children with autism have experienced – despite their attempts to explain their child’s neurodiversity to the schools and how they may react in certain situations.
In other cases, we have seen children referred for remembering minute details or being fixated on a topic. Children have also been referred for making inappropriate jokes or for having ‘black and white’ thinking.
All these traits that are supposed to indicate a risk of vulnerability to radicalisation under Prevent’s flawed logic and assumptions, are also symptoms of autism.
When questioned about the referrals, schools have cited Prevent training. This training specifically states that children with autism are ‘’more vulnerable to extremism’’.
Through combining these vague behavioural indicators with the fear of possible violence, staff are more likely to jump to a Prevent referral without considering mitigating circumstances specific to autistic children.
Prevent self-enforcing nature means that the government may claim that the increase in autism referrals supports the link between autism and extremism, but the real question is why is yet another vulnerable group being disproportionately targeted by Prevent?
This would direct us again to the inherent harm in the assumptions underlying this toxic policy.
All the while, any research to support such assertions around the perceived link between autism and extremism remains unclear and limited at the very best.
Instead, researchers have suggested that while there is no evidence to suggest that autistic people are more likely to be radicalised, there is evidence to suggest that they are disproportionately likely to be referred, inappropriately and unfairly, to prevention programmes.
Lack of support a key factor for children with autism
It is also significant that many parents have reported ongoing issues with schools failing to support their children with their neurodiversity – this becomes more apparent following a Prevent referral.
This is because the mechanism of Prevent takes the case from the school and staff can do nothing but leave families to navigate the devastating impact.
While some education staff may be dismayed at this, in some cases, schools have insisted on further involvement from Prevent even when the case was closed.
Schools that are under-resourced have also admitted they have referred an autistic child to Prevent as there were no other organisations they could think of to provide support.
These instances speak volumes about the already confused and unnecessary place of Prevent within the education sector; its latest harm is to enable the securitisation of autism.
It also indicates a deeper systemic issue. The National Autistic Society has warned that some autistic children are being referred to Prevent due to a lack of adequate healthcare provision to support their condition.
Evidence shows harms of Prevent are felt intensely by autistic children
Our cases show how Prevent referrals deeply harm children with autism. Parents have reported how the referrals have made their children more isolated and more anxious.
Children have become fearful of being monitored and worried about their future and some have refused to go back to school.
As one parent said, the referral made her realise just how vulnerable her child was and she now worries how her child will manage in the future.
In other cases, parents have withdrawn their children from their schools as a result of the damage caused by the referral.
While each child and their story is unique, there is something which many of the parents we have spoken to share – a strong sense of injustice in having their child penalised and targeted for behaviours which are inherently part of their neurodiversity.
As countries are encouraged to take measures to raise awareness about autism around the world, we speak from the experiences of many of these families as we continue to call on the UK government to recognise the harms caused by Prevent on children with autism.
In line with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’s recommendations to stop targeting groups of children and to suspend Prevent respectively, we call on the government to withdraw Prevent from education.
Photo by Peter Burdon on Unsplash.
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