'Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists (RCOG)'
Abstract
This paper reports on the findings of a BERA-funded
small-scale project that explores the impacts of
COVID-19 lockdowns on the educational experiences
of autistic children and young people who attend
mainstream schools and their parents/carers in
England. We observe that, unsurprisingly, lockdown
resulted in associated stresses for families. However,
our main argument is that for the participants, the
pandemic has not been experienced to the same
extent as is popularly understood; that is, causing
major disruption to children's schooling experiences
and/or unusual levels of social isolation. Using the
concept of stigma as a theoretical resource, we argue
that this is because the families with whom we spoke
were already experiencing, pre-COVID-19, disrupted
schooling and degrees of social isolation. Indeed,
for many of the young people, the break from school
occasioned by lockdown allowed them a release from
the more negative and stigmatising aspects of their
routine experiences within school. We therefore argue
that the disruption of the pandemic sheds light on how
stigma shapes students' daily school experiences.
autism, mainstream schools, pandemic, stigma, familie