Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Adult services, including diagnosis and supports, for autistic people were not mentioned. The Minister of State talked about school settings and having therapists in schools, especially in special schools or special classes. Parents say to me that in many cases, because the CDNTs are based on a community where a child lives, children have to travel out of their community to attend an appropriate school. It ends up with children being taken out of school to attend community supports. That does not make sense. Better interaction is needed. As well as that, parents sometimes say to me that a speech and language therapist might come into the school and not actually engage with the children, but instead talks to the teacher and gets information. One parent said that a therapist came in to talk about six children and did not engage with any children or leave a programme of work, but noted that as having dealt with six appointments. There are a couple of issues that could be dealt with.