This is a finding shared by all associations and parents of young autistic people: Covid-19 has changed the daily lives of children with this neurodevelopmental disorder which causes difficulties in socializing, sensory hypersensitivity or even great attachment. to routine and rituals.

Sanitary restrictions have helped to worsen an already complicated situation.

The cause is the lack of reception facilities and staff trained in the care of 700,000 people with autism in France.

While Emmanuel Macron went to Isère, to a screening center near Grenoble, on the occasion of World Autism Awareness Day, Friday April 2, France 24 takes stock of this year of crisis health, but also on the objectives of the government “autism” plan launched in 2018, with Florent Chapel.

Father of an autistic child, he co-chairs Autism Info Service, a platform designed to guide families by providing them with information on autism spectrum disorder (ASD). 

France 24: What were the consequences of the Covid-19 crisis and the various confinements on the lives of young autistic people and their families

?  

Florent Chapel:

During the first confinement, the parents found themselves overnight with closed reception centers and departmental disability houses which no longer responded.

When you have autism and you no longer have your educator, it's a bit like having diabetes and running out of insulin.

During this period, we have had a tripling of the number of calls on our platform.

Parents asked, for example, if they had the right to go shopping with their child or if it was compulsory for him to wear a mask, when he could not stand it.

The question now is what will happen when this Covid tide recedes.

We will end up with the same problems, but worse, with probably, tomorrow, less money in the state coffers, very tired parents and some children who will undoubtedly have regressed.

Do you think the government is taking

 the mental health issue

seriously

enough

,

and in particular

 that 

of autism, during this pandemic period?

Efforts have been made, although there is a lot of disorganization.

For example, during the first confinement, many associations had asked to relax the grip on autistic people by allowing us to go out with our children to go to the park or to walk.

The government acceded to our request, because locking up children all day long with ASDs is not possible, they break everything.

Some associations criticize your platform for not being able to guide families

, for

lack of trained professionals or suitable structures ...

Autism Info Service is primarily used to listen because there is a lot of loneliness among parents of autistic children.

Then you have to inform, because people are lost.

To be the parent of an autistic child is to become an educator but also an administrative and legal expert.

It is extremely complicated.

Finally, we try to help them. 

With this platform, we don't have a magic wand, but we serve as a kind of barometer.

For example, we realize that the Alsace, Brittany and Nord-Pas-de-Calais regions are three times less well endowed with resources than the Île-de-France.

The problems of school living aids are still present, but are less glaring than before.

Today, on the subject of school, we can find solutions.

On the other hand, we note that the demands for young adults are more and more numerous and that few solutions exist concerning them.

We are able to feed this information back to the government.

>> To see: Asperger's syndrome, an asset in the world of work?

On the occasion of World Autism Awareness Day, Emmanuel Macron was in Isère to visit a screening center.

The Head of State recalled that autism was “a huge project in which France had historically fallen behind”.

Is this delay being made good?

Forty years of delay cannot be made up in three years.

It's a bit like a collapsing building: you have to tackle the foundations first.

In the United States, it is estimated that 4 in 5 children are properly cared for.

In France, it is 1 in 5. This is not normal for a modern country.

For years, we industrialized an abusive system.

We start from very far.

In my opinion, the government's “autism” plan is an ambitious plan, put in place by competent people, such as Claire Compagnon [interministerial delegate responsible for the implementation of the national autism strategy, Editor's note].

But we must change the paradigm and generalize behavioral methods which, as the Haute Autorité de santé writes, are the only effective methods.

We will have to continue training teachers and doctors.

The work is enormous.

Some people despair, but we have to look at the road traveled.

Ten years ago, in Larousse, autism was still described as “a disorder of the mother-child relationship”.

So are things moving forward?

Yes.

But not fast enough. 

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