BC's Autism Funding Debate Needs a Lifespan Lens

British Columbia is currently debating major changes to funding for autistic children and families. The provincial government plans to shift away from diagnosis-based eligibility toward functioning-based criteria and needs-based assessment.

Under the previous model, eligible families could access up to $6,000 annually for school-aged autistic children and significantly more for children under six. The province argues the redesign is intended to better support children with more complex support needs across disabilities and expand access beyond diagnosis alone.

As a Level 1 autistic adult and founder of Neurodiversity Change Foundation, an organization focused on systems change led by neurodivergent adults, I want to offer another perspective on this discussion.

We cannot continue framing autistic difference and distress primarily as an individual problem to be corrected through public policy and therapy, while virtually ignoring the environments producing that distress, such as workplaces and healthcare.

For many Level 1 autistic adults, meaningful improvement does not come from trying to become less autistic. It often comes from reducing chronic mismatch between the person and their environment, demands, supports, and expectations.

The social model of disability recognizes that quality of life is shaped not only by an individual’s characteristics, but also by social attitudes, systems, policies, and environments. Accessibility, inclusion, and participation are public and systemic responsibilities that have their foundations in human rights.

There are thousands of autistic adults across British Columbia who do not qualify for developmental disability services, but who are also not participating safely or sustainably in society because of systemic barriers.

Level 1 autistic adults experience high rates of unemployment and underemployment, poverty, burnout, mental and physical health challenges, social exclusion, barriers to healthcare access, and premature mortality. Many spend years masking difficulties in order to survive professionally or socially, often at enormous personal cost. Others are repeatedly dismissed because their support needs do not match stereotypical assumptions about autism.

Fair inclusion for lower-support-needs autistic people is a lifespan issue. It is risky to frame challenges on autism so heavily as a childhood therapy funding issue when the reality is much more complex.

While childhood supports and therapies may benefit many autistic children, it is far less clear that childhood intervention alone is sufficient to produce long-term equity outcomes across adulthood in the absence of accessible systems, inclusive employment structures, healthcare reform, and meaningful adult supports. Yet, there is no concerted advocacy on the steps of provincial legislature for these issues. We remain focused on the autistic children conversation in ways which do not consider the lifespan.

Some autistic adults report meaningful benefit from childhood supports. Others report harm associated with interventions focused primarily on normalization, masking, or behavioral compliance. The issue is not simply whether therapy is accessible to families, but what its goals are, how it is implemented, and whether broader systems impacting our lives become more accessible across the lifespan.

In reality, individual therapies and learned coping strategies do not fix inaccessible workplaces, fragmented healthcare systems, precarious employment structures, stalled accountability mechanisms, cultures that reward masking while punishing difference, or systems that limit autistic leadership and participation. It is difficult to build shared advocacy across ages and life stages, but I believe this is necessary for the deep systemic change that is needed.

We cannot continue framing autism primarily as a childhood issue in public discourse when autistic adults themselves continue to experience substantial barriers across adulthood.

What has become increasingly clear for many autistic adults is that self-understanding, reduced chronic masking, neuroinclusive environments and relationships, burnout recovery, acceptance of communication and regulation differences, autonomy, nervous system regulation, community, and belonging matter. Our voices and experiences should be considered in policy-making as well, even if we are not parents to autistic children.

Personally, I do not believe the primary barriers I have faced in my life were caused by insufficient treatments or intervention. They came from environments that were exclusionary toward my neurodivergent differences: misunderstanding, stigma, inaccessible systems, pressure to mask, lack of accommodation, limited accessibility, and negative judgement that resulted in opportunities being withheld or withdrawn.

Advocacy focused on lower-support-needs autistic children has understandably emphasized ensuring that “no disabled child is left behind.” But what does that mean for those of us who never received special funding or therapies? Were we “left behind”? I would argue something different happened: we were left within inaccessible and exclusionary systems. And that is how we got hurt, and where we need to focus advocacy.

Autistic adults exist today. We are here today, not “unsaved” by therapies we may or may not have received as children, but navigating systems that still struggle to accommodate neurodivergent people safely, sustainably, and equitably.

Childhood therapies may support individual lower-support-needs autistic children who are struggling with family, friendships, or school at a particular point in time, but they will not resolve two-year wait times for Human Rights cases involving disability discrimination in British Columbia. They will not fix weak implementation and enforceability of the Accessible British Columbia Act. These therapies will certainly not resolve systemic exclusion across employment, healthcare, housing, leadership, and public life.

So can we use this moment to build momentum for autistic adult advocacy as well?

Many autistic adults exist in a policy blind spot: considered too “high functioning” to qualify for meaningful supports while still carrying substantial unmet needs related to employment, healthcare, housing, executive functioning, sensory accessibility, relationships, and daily life stability that result in inequitable health and employment outcomes.

This is part of why the Neurodiversity Change Foundation exists. Our work focuses on adults and moves beyond awareness toward implementation: facilitating neuroinclusive healthcare improvement, developing models for recognizing and advancing neurodivergent leadership, and supporting systems redesign grounded in lived experience and evidence-informed practice across healthcare, employment, leadership, and public life.

The goal is not symbolic inclusion. The goal is building systems that function better for neurodivergent adults across their lifespan.

If British Columbia is serious about inclusion, the conversation cannot end with childhood therapy funding, and must be balanced with a lifespan approach and perspective that addresses accessibility, employment, healthcare, accountability, and leadership.

If we want autistic people to thrive across the lifespan, the central question cannot only be how much therapy a child receives. It must also be whether the social and environmental conditions around autistic people become more inclusive, accessible, safe, and accountable. Therapy may support some individuals at times, but social and environmental inclusion is what determines whether autistic people can participate fully in school, work, healthcare, community, leadership, and public life.

Being autistic is not only a childhood issue. It is a lifespan reality.