Tougher accessibility legislation is needed to prevent discrimination against neurodiverse schoolchildren, says Dyslexia Foundation of New Zealand (DFNZ).

Submissions on the Government’s new Accessibility for New Zealanders Bill closed yesterday, with critics saying it lacks teeth. More than 35 organisations and 200 individuals made submissions seeking changes to the Bill via submission forms produced by Access Matters Aotearoa, representing a range of organisations and individuals from the disability and neurodiversity sectors.

DFNZ agrees the Bill needs an overhaul. Guy Pope-Mayell, DFNZ Chair of Trustees, says neurodiverse children remain at risk for discrimination and exclusion from classroom activities.

“In a nutshell, accessibility should mean equal access to education. However, for many neurodiverse children this is not the case. People often equate accessibility with making adjustments for physical impairment. But equally barriers exist for a great range of neurodiversities, and this legislation needs to address that head on,” he says.

“Discrimination is the dark side of the accessibility debate – the elephant in the room and something that occurs every time a person cannot access the physical environment, transportation, and facilities and services open or provided to the public. Accessibility also applies to products, services, information and communications, including technology and systems right down to being able to shop online or navigate a website,” Pope-Mayell says.

Official Information Act data shows that, in the five years to 2021, more than 50 complaints of alleged unlawful discrimination where children have been removed from school were received by the Human Rights Commission. In the same period, some 38 complaints related to ADHD, dyslexia, or a combination of both. Themes from the complaints data included neurodiverse children who couldn’t remain in education due to the failure of schools to make reasonable accommodations, who were excluded or stood down based on behavioural challenges.

“Given the amount of time and effort required to make a Human Rights Commission complaint, this is a tiny tip of the iceberg. Neurodiversities such as dyslexia and autism spectrum impact upwards of 20% of the population – and neurodiverse tendencies such as being uncomfortable with eye contact, hypersensitive in stressful situations and difficulties processing information can often be misunderstood as ‘behaving badly’,” says Pope-Mayell.

“In that situation, excluding a student because you jumped to the wrong conclusion, misunderstood their behaviour or couldn’t be bothered to get to the bottom of it amounts to discrimination.”

Pope-Mayell says failure to recognise and properly support neurodiverse students with interventions from structured literacy programmes through to adjustments in teaching style and classroom layout can lead to disengagement and exclusion, or self-exclusion in the form of truancy.

“Discrimination is a broad, and costly, societal issue. From the early school years, discrimination can cause disengagement and disenfranchisement – leading to alienation, mental health issues, acting out, truancy and crime. Recent media stories are a potent proof point for this.

“We should be doing everything we can to ensure that education is accessible; importantly through ensuring this new legislation is proactive in identifying and removing barriers and provides an effective disputes resolution process and penalties if barriers remain,” he says.

DFNZ, which has made a 10-page submission on the Bill, says it must be toughened up to include:

- an inclusive definition of disability

- an extended scope to include persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBUs)

- greater Committee powers

- a three-yearly review and timely accountability to the House of Representatives

- accessibility standards

- a regulator

- a barrier notification system

- a dispute resolution process to remove access barriers

Guy Pope-Mayell says traditional definitions and common understandings of disability are too narrow. Creating a truly accessible New Zealand doesn't only impact the blind or those in a wheelchair, it impacts us all as we get older, those who have an accident, those with neurodiversity, or those with dementia. It impacts young parents who can’t get the pram through a doorway, or people with English as a second language.

Current legislation, for example the Human Rights Act 1993, is simply inadequate, he says.

“While the Human Rights Act ‘prohibits’ discrimination on the basis of disability, it does little to practically address discrimination. It does not set clear and specific expectations for organisations or businesses on becoming fully accessible as employers and service providers. There are no standards and no penalties.”

Overall, he believes the Human Rights Commission and Human Rights Tribunal process is reactive, expensive, under-resourced and incredibly slow.

“It can take three to five years from the behaviour/incident to go through the process from the Commission to Tribunal decision. This not accessible to the average person, and it places the responsibility for change with the person who is the victim of discrimination, not the organisation that facilitated it,” Pope-Mayell says.

In contrast, the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 provides a much better model for effective legislation, as it promotes proactive behaviours and is able to compel change and deliver penalties, he says.

ABOUT DFNZ

DFNZ, established in 2006, is the country’s foremost lobby group for dyslexia and neurodiversity. DFNZ has built its reputation on successful advocacy and action and has become the foremost lobby group in this area. From lobbying the Government for dyslexia to be officially recognised, achieved in 2007, through to working closely with the Government on the inclusive education agenda and raising the Youth Court age, the landscape for neurodiversities has been fundamentally changed.

In 2016, DFNZ convened a landmark Neurodisabilities Forum to explore vulnerability in the justice system. In 2020, it hosted the Neurodiversity Leadership Forum focused on recognising the strengths of diverse brains in the workplace. And in 2021, DFNZ activated a further piece of the advocacy landscape – wellbeing, with the family journey at the heart of this.

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