Page 46 - SEN115 - November/December 2021

Autism
Siblings and special
educational needs
Judy Gordon highlights the challenges and rewards of having a sibling with SEN.
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Sibling relationships are generally viewed by relatives and friends as characterised by long-term reciprocity and rivalry. But life alongside a sibling with special educational needs entails a somewhat broader range
of experiences. Around 2.3 million children in the UK have a sibling with disabilities, yet there is a chronic shortage of research or discussion about these children. My own sister has special educational needs. I grew up with a very limited understanding of those needs, and from a more mature perspective, I was only able to expand my knowledge by initiating my own research into available information and resources.
Personal experience
I grew up with a sister who has autism. Autistic individuals are conventionally categorised by a ‘triad of impairments’, broadly centred on their difficulties with social communication skills, social interactions, and rigid, often repetitive behaviour patterns. The latter difficulty is particularly characteristic of my sister, who must have watched The Little Mermaid a
“There is a chronic shortage of research or discussion about these children”
thousand times, and who always wanted her hair styled in a precise and very particular way before school (a style only I could create to her satisfaction, and which frequently made us both late for school).
When I was young and ill-informed about autism, I assumed that my sister was simply misbehaving, either to get my mother’s attention or to get her own way. This was not a major issue in my early life, because as one of six children I never seemed
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