> The Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) is a [USA] Federal advisory committee that coordinates Federal efforts and provides advice to the Secretary of Health and Human Services on issues related to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Through its inclusion of both Federal and public members, the IACC helps to ensure that a wide range of ideas and perspectives are represented and discussed in a public forum.
I have read the recent report from the Surgeon General on "Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation", and was disappointed that the focus was on so-called "normal" people who are lonely because of circumstance or breakdown of social infrastructure. Autistic people are arguably far more affected by isolation and loneliness than most people, but somehow are entirely omitted from the report. This seems outrageous. We are so easy to exclude that we are left out from the report about people getting left out.
We know that applying Universal Design concepts to accessibility creates environments and systems that work better for everyone. Curb cuts allow wheelchair users access to sidewalks, but also improve things for people with baby strollers. We know that making things better for the most vulnerable and most impacted often makes things better for everyone. If we work to reduce loneliness specifically for Autistic people, it's quite likely that will help lonely people of all sorts. But leaving Autistic people out of the conversation means nothing will get better for us, because the things that help most people won't necessarily help us. Creating more ways to do social activities with strangers is not the benefit for us that it might be for allistic people. It might actually make things worse for us, by shifting resources to programs we can't use at the expense of things that might help us.
Autistic people are desperate for help and support, but we and our needs are repeatedly ignored, even by initiatives that should be prioritizing us. It is demoralizing to see a major initiative like the Epidemic of Loneliness exclude and fail us so completely.