Autism and educational governance: diagnostic regimes in England and Wales

This paper examines the historical entanglement of autism diagnosis and educational governance in England and Wales. It develops the concept of diagnostic regimes – the assemblage of laws, routines and classificatory infrastructures through which diagnosis functions as a policy instrument. Using autism as a paradigmatic case, the analysis demonstrates how diagnostic categories have become embedded in eligibility rules, funding formulae, tribunal procedures and statistical systems, thereby shaping access to support. Drawing on path dependence, the paper shows how early design choices created self-reinforcing feedbacks that have entrenched diagnostic reliance in England’s SEN/EHCP framework. Wales’s Additional Learning Needs reforms represent a deliberate attempt to disrupt this trajectory by instituting a needs-based model centred on Individual Development Plans. A documentary – administrative method is used to trace how statutes, codes, appeals and data returns operationalise these instruments. Comparative analysis highlights both lock-in and friction: England illustrates mature convergence around diagnostic proof, while Wales demonstrates the difficulty of decoupling support from diagnosis amid resource pressures and professional routines. The findings offer an analytic vocabulary for understanding governance through diagnosis and argue for redesigning instruments so that needs-based documentation can become actionable, reducing reliance on clinical certification while sustaining equitable entitlements.