Parents ask Think Autism what comes next when the classroom does not work

“I think what’s missing in your conversation today is what are the alternative pathways for kids?” The question came from a parent in the audience at Think Autism Melbourne in May 2026, the first that Kyriakos Gold, who hosted the session, took when he opened the floor, after a long exchange between Dr Siobhan Lamb and Professor John Munro about how teachers should meet autistic students in the classroom. The parent’s son did not attend a classroom at all. The parent told them that “my son has actually been doing school from a principal’s office now for 3 years”. The parent had an education background and worked in the sector, and said that if someone had said ten years earlier that this would be the family’s situation, they would not have believed it. Any learning environment, the parent said, would be very difficult for some neurodivergent children, and the parent wanted to know where the system acknowledged that a classroom with a teacher directing work does not suit every child.

The first answer from the stage began with a concession. There are alternative pathways, the panellist said, but every child is different, and the first task is to work out why a particular child is struggling to be at school and whether something can be done to make it work. The panellist agreed with Munro that school remains the gold standard, and gave a practical reason. Parents needed to work and earn money, and homeschooling and distance education put a huge strain on families. The panellist would ask whether there were too many children in the class or too much noise, whether the child was struggling to get into the work because of executive functioning or because of the academic work itself, and what was making the child feel unsafe.