Good intentions are not enough: Autistic perspectives on structural ableism within the walls of our classrooms.

This is a qualitative study with 19 participants. It describes what these people experienced and does not measure how common those experiences are. The sample did not include autistic people with a known intellectual disability, nor people who use AAC as their main way of communicating, so the findings mostly represent autistic people who speak and do not have an intellectual disability. Most participants had attended public schools, so private schools, therapeutic day schools and home schooling are barely represented. Only 4 of the nine participants approached completed the member-checking survey that rated the themes. The recommendations for schools come from the research team's professional and lived experience. No school tried them and no outcomes were measured. Interviews ask people to recall school, sometimes many years later, so the accounts are retrospective for the adult participants.

The study was funded by University of Massachusetts Boston grants (a Public Service Grant, a Proposal Development Grant and a College of Liberal Arts Dean's Research Grant) awarded to one of the authors. The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The research team, which was mostly autistic and neurodivergent, designed the study, set the questions, analysed the data and wrote the paper.

Do not read the recommendations in the paper's final table as evidence that any of these changes work. They were written by the research team from their own professional and lived experience; no school tried them and no outcomes were measured. The participants' accounts describe what went wrong for them, not what fixes it. Equally, do not read this as evidence that self-advocacy training for autistic students is useless. The authors' point is that it is unlikely to be enough on its own while the school environment stays as it is.