Health
Autism specialist to govt: Policies not enough, create jobs for PWDs
Iyanuoluwa Abiola
The Founder and Director of Patrick’s Speech and Language Centre and Pure Souls Learning Foundation, Dotun Akande, has urged the federal and state governments to move beyond policy formulation and create jobs and expand social support for people with autism and intellectual disabilities.
Akande made the call at the centre’s 20th anniversary RISE Summit in Lagos, themed ‘From Cradle to Contribution’.
She also called for respite care and improved access to education for PWDs.
The autism specialist said effective implementation of disability policies was essential to promoting the inclusion of people with neurodevelopmental and intellectual disabilities.
She said the centre was shifting its focus from early intervention for children to preparing young adults and adults with disabilities for meaningful participation in society.
According to her, the anniversary theme reflects the centre’s vision of ensuring that children who have benefited from its interventions grow into adults who can contribute meaningfully to their communities.
“Many of them are part of the community. Some of them are still not part of the community because, one, parents are hiding; two, they don’t have financial support; and three, the government is not helping,” she said.
Akande expressed concern that despite progress in early intervention, including increased access to mainstream education for children with disabilities and the emergence of more organisations working in neurodiversity and intellectual disability, significant challenges remained, particularly for adults.
“We have done well with early intervention. Many children are now in mainstream schools. Many organisations have sprung up since we started to do things in the field of neurodiversity and intellectual disability. So now we are moving to the next stage, as our children are now turning 20. We are now looking at adults,” she said.
She urged the government to develop policies that would facilitate the establishment of respite care centres across the country, enabling parents and caregivers to leave their children in safe, supportive environments temporarily when they need to travel or attend to other responsibilities.
Akande said the centres could be run through partnerships between the government and private organisations, with appropriate arrangements to ensure that parents remained accountable for their children.
“Our quest now is to have a policy where they can partner with private organisations. We have ways of knowing the people and ways in which we make them come back to pick their children,” she stated.
Beyond respite care, she called for government support through housing assistance, subsidies and educational assistance for families raising children with disabilities.
Akande also urged the authorities to review existing disability legislation and prioritise enforcement, stressing that the existence of laws alone could not guarantee inclusion.
“We have a lot of special people’s laws. Are they being practised? We need to look at it. Are they being implemented? Implementation is one of the challenges we have in this country,” she stressed.
She further advocated legislation requiring private organisations to employ people with intellectual disabilities, arguing that employment decisions should be based on individuals’ abilities rather than assumptions about their limitations.
According to her, people with intellectual disabilities can perform various roles depending on their skills and capabilities, including administrative support, mail handling and other workplace responsibilities.
In her keynote address, titled ‘Building Strong Foundations’, Rear Admiral Itunu Hotonu (retd.) called for greater understanding, acceptance and family support for autistic children.
She urged families to move beyond stigma and misconceptions and recognise the individual needs and abilities of children on the autism spectrum.
Recounting her experience as the grandmother of an autistic child, Hotonu said her personal journey, which began with her grandson’s diagnosis, eventually led her to undertake doctoral research into the experiences of families with autistic children classified as Level 1 in mainstream private schools in Lagos.
She said the initial diagnosis plunged her family into a period of disbelief, confusion and fear, compounded by concerns about stigma. Her greatest challenge, she noted, was not autism itself but the gap between what the family thought it knew about the condition and the reality it encountered.
According to her, the experience forced her to question long-held assumptions about autism and disability and unlearn misconceptions that had shaped her understanding of autistic people.
“I wanted to understand that wilderness. I wanted to look past the medical charts, the medical language, and explore the actual human experience of families like mine with level one autistic children,” she said.
Other speakers at the summit urged parents of neurodivergent children to seek support and speak openly about their experiences, noting that stigma continued to discourage many families from seeking help.
“Stigma is keeping families away. We might call the children neurodivergent, but they are differently able. Don’t keep quiet. Tell your story and own your truth,” one of the speakers said.
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