Key takeaways

Neurodiversity is no longer rare. Evidence collated by the ANU Tax and Transfer Policy Institute has shown that autism is becoming much more prevalent in Australia, even outpacing upward global trends.

Roughly 1 in 70 Australians identify as a person with autism. More than 1 in 25 children aged 7 to 14 are being diagnosed. The drivers of this aren’t yet perfectly understood, but growing public awareness of autism is likely to be leading Australians to identify symptoms they wouldn’t notice in the past.

Similarly, health professionals are likely substituting diagnoses – reconsidering those who have been previously diagnosed with a different condition and diagnosing them more accurately with autism. And those who may not have sought a diagnosis in decades past have seen a growing need to be diagnosed in Australia to access government supports.

This is placing pressure on the NDIS.

The scheme is facing rising costs, from higher-than-expected numbers of children accessing the scheme, fewer than expected participants leaving the scheme after early intervention, and a rapidly growing proportion of participants with autism.

The scheme was built on the principle of insuring Australians against the economic cost of significant and permanent disability, so rising autism diagnoses mean that it is now insuring events that are significantly higher in frequency than expected.

Policymakers should consider how existing strategies – the National Autism Strategy, the National Early Childhood Strategy, the National Early Childhood Program, the NDIS Review, etc – can be adjusted to account for growing prevalence.

As autism prevalence rises, adaptation is also needed in mainstream institutions outside the disability sector. Health, education and workplaces are all impacted.

Embracing the ‘social model’ in Australian society would ease the pressure.

In the last few decades, breakthroughs in thinking about disability have led governments to apply a so-called ‘social model’ that acknowledges that a person is disabled not by their biology alone, but also by how their biology functions in their environment, whether it be a workplace, school, or home.

People with autism engage daily with the whole of Australian society, not just the disability sector. Employers, educational institutions and healthcare environments could be equipped with better tools – staff, education, or policies that encourage more accepting social environments – to make Australia more enabling for its neurodiverse population.

Ultimately, a society-wide effort to make Australia more enabling for people with autism would alleviate pressure on the NDIS. This would allow providers to deliver a better standard of care while making the scheme more sustainable.