Celebrate autism inclusion in April

Take part in activities for World Autism Acceptance Month, to support and show acceptance for autistic students in the classroom.

Published:
Wednesday, 29 March 2023 at 2:42 am

April is World Autism Acceptance Month (WAAM), and we're encouraging teachers to run activities to raise understanding and acceptance of autistic people.

The United Nations' World Autism Awareness Day (WAAD) on Sunday 2 April 2023 will kickstart a month of events to celebrate autism inclusion.

Here's some ideas on how schools can show their support for autistic students, create awareness of autism and foster understanding and acceptance to celebrate WAAM.

Get your hoodie on for autism

Hoodie Up for autism on Tuesday 4 April 2023. It's an annual campaign to show understanding, acceptance and support for the autistic community.

Students and staff can wear hoodies to school and raise funds for Amaze, a peak body for people with autism.

Support the I CAN approach

Invite an autistic speaker from I CAN Network to share their aspirations and experience of school life or play one of the I CAN talks on YouTube to your students.

Go Yellow

Go Yellow on Sunday 2 April 2023 to amplify autistic voices and shine the light on the internalised presentation often experienced by autistic girls, women and gender-diverse people. Go Yellow is an autistic-led initiative from Yellow Ladybugs.

More autism celebration ideas

Other ways your school might like to celebrate are to:

New resources to support autistic students

To support students with autism, you can also refer to resources including:

  • information for schools and families on how the Autism Education Strategy will be delivered in schools
  • the Diverse Learners Hub, a centre of excellence for teaching and supporting students with diverse learning needs, with a focus on autism
  • a new suite of online resources on Learning Difficulties in literacy and numeracy.

These resources are part of the Victorian Government's $1.6 billion investment into Disability Inclusion.

Disability Inclusion is also delivering the new Disability Inclusion Profile (profile) – a strengths-based process, completed by key people who understand a student best, including the student themselves. It helps to identify a student's strengths and needs at school, as well as the educational adjustments schools can make to help students with disability participate and learn at school.

To support autistic students to take part in this process, the department has partnered with Amaze, to produce social scripts explaining the profile to primary (docx - 926 KB) and secondary (docx - 5.82 MB) school students in easy English and photos.

Social scripts use storytelling techniques to explain new experiences and environments to students, using simple language and images.

Find out more

For more information, refer to:

For further enquiries, contact Grant McKell, manager, Diverse Learners Hub, Inclusive Education Division:

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