Ms Fiona Earley:

It is not about universities such as DCU doing favours for autistic students or staff. The university has become more people-friendly. Anything we have done in the project has benefited every student and staff member of DCU. We need to encourage people with different brain types and communication styles to be part of policymaking and to become students, because we really need different types of thinkers in the education system. We in DCU have seen that when the principles are applied, they encourage inclusive and different styles of thinking, which benefits the whole of society. It is not about favours. We as a university are benefiting from having more autistic students and staff feeding into our policies.