Scotland’s neurodivergent adults, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, are still waiting for a single party at Holyrood to take them seriously. This is what I asked of them before the 2026 election — and why the answers still matter now.
A different kind of childhood
I want to tell you about a boy who was always wrong.
Not wrong in the way children sometimes are — naughty, difficult, testing boundaries. Wrong in a deeper, more bewildering way. He was wrong in how he sat, how he spoke, how he reacted to noise, and how he struggled to understand what was expected of him in rooms full of people who all seemed to understand instinctively what he could not grasp at all. He got the belt at primary school so often it became unremarkable. Then he was removed from primary school altogether, handed to social workers and educational psychologists, and sent to a special school for children with behavioural problems.
That school decided he was too much trouble as well.
He was sent to Forteviot House Hospital, a children’s unit at 14-16 Hope Terrace in Edinburgh, part of the Royal Hospital for Sick Children. His first experience of being ripped away from the only predictability and routine he’d ever known and deposited, without explanation, into a busy, noisy, confusing institution that made no sense to him whatsoever. From there, he was transferred to Harmeny School in Balerno, then a boarding school for children categorised as having behavioural problems, run at the time by Save the Children.
There, the staff regularly mocked and berated him for stimming — self-regulating behaviour that is entirely natural to neurodivergent people, entirely mysterious to those who aren’t, and entirely unthreatening to anyone. He was told it was stupid. He was told it was attention-seeking. He was told he was just ignoring adults. Nobody once asked why he was doing it. Nobody once considered that there might be a reason.
One member of staff did considerably worse than mock him. He beat the boy so severely that hand-shaped welts rose halfway up his back, leaving him barely able to walk. When his parents complained, they were told the marks were simply the result of a hot shower.
He eventually returned to mainstream secondary school, knowing nobody, belonging to no friend group that had formed in primary school, enduring what felt like an eternity of sensory hell and extreme boredom, until at fourteen every institution that had tried to manage him quietly gave up and left him to get on with it.
That boy was me. I’m Jason Boyd. I’m fifty-two years old, autistic, and physically disabled. I grew up in an era when neurodivergence didn’t exist as a concept in any room I ever occupied. What existed instead was the assumption that I was a problem — difficult, disruptive, a drain on patience and resources. Nobody at any point asked what was actually happening inside my head, because in the Scotland of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, that wasn’t a question anyone thought to ask of a working-class boy in West Lothian who wouldn’t sit still and wouldn’t behave.
I’m writing this because, in too many ways that matter, Scotland is still not asking that question with anywhere near the urgency it deserves.
Who we are and how many of us there are
Let’s get the scale of this clear, because it’s still not widely understood.
Current estimates suggest that between 10% and 20% of Scotland’s population is neurodivergent (SPICe, 2025). Neurodivergence covers a range of conditions, including autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, Tourette’s syndrome, and others. These are not mental health conditions, though neurodivergent people are significantly more likely to develop mental health problems as a direct result of living in a world that wasn’t designed for them and frequently punishes them for existing as they are.
Scotland’s National Autism Implementation Team estimates that at a conservative 10% prevalence, around 440,000 adults in Scotland meet the criteria for one or more neurodevelopmental diagnoses (NAIT, 2024). The true figure is almost certainly higher.
This piece is primarily about those adults. I lived through the consequences of failing to diagnose and support neurodivergent children, and I’ll touch on that where it’s directly relevant. But the lives, the barriers, and the political invisibility of neurodivergent adults in contemporary Scotland is where the focus belongs. It’s a focus that is long overdue.
The diagnosis crisis: adults locked out
The waiting list figures alone should embarrass every party that has held or shared power at Holyrood. Adults seeking a neurodevelopmental assessment in NHS Lothian were waiting an average of 37.25 months, more than three years, simply to be assessed (NHS Lothian FOI Response, June 2024). NHS Tayside’s children’s neurodevelopmental services reported average waits of 154 weeks. Across just nine of Scotland’s fourteen health board areas, over 23,000 adults were on waiting lists (SPICe, June 2025). And because not all boards even publish this data, the true national figure is unknown.
It gets worse. SPICe confirmed in June 2025 that over 1.3 million adults, nearly 30% of Scotland’s adult population, live in areas where they cannot access any adult neurodevelopmental assessment through the NHS at all. In parts of NHS Grampian, the adult autism assessment team was simply disbanded in February 2025 (SPICe, June 2025).
The ADHD situation is particularly acute. Between 2018 and 2021, referrals for adult ADHD assessment to Community Mental Health Teams in Glasgow rose by 1,000% (SPICe, September 2024). The system was entirely unprepared for this surge, which experts attribute not to any genuine increase in ADHD prevalence but to a long-overdue increase in public awareness of how the condition actually presents, particularly in women and girls, who have been systematically under-diagnosed for decades.
My twenty-year-old niece has been on the waiting list for an ADHD assessment for almost five years. She’s not an unusual case. She is Scotland right now.
But the cruelty goes deeper than the waiting times alone. I looked into paying for a private ADHD assessment for her, because watching someone you love struggle without support or answers year after year is intolerable. A private assessment costs between £1,500 and £2,500 (Disability Information Scotland, February 2026). I would pay that, if it would actually help. But it won’t, at least not in the way that matters most.
Virtually no NHS boards in Scotland now offer shared care agreements. That means a private ADHD diagnosis doesn’t entitle a patient to NHS prescriptions for ADHD medication. The NHS won’t prescribe without its own diagnosis (Disability Information Scotland, February 2026). My niece would still be left without medication, without the Disabled Students’ Allowance she needs to access proper support at college, and without the reasonable adjustments she is legally entitled to in examinations, all because she can’t get an NHS assessment. The private diagnosis would be, for all practical purposes, a very expensive piece of paper.
This isn’t a system that’s struggling to cope. It’s a system that’s been allowed to fail, repeatedly, because the people it fails don’t have sufficient political voice or visibility to make that failure a political cost.
Daily life: navigating a world not built for you
Living as a neurodivergent adult in Scotland means navigating institutions and services designed entirely around neurotypical assumptions that have made little meaningful effort to accommodate anyone who doesn’t fit those assumptions.
I’m autistic and physically disabled. I currently have diagnoses of chronic arthritis and spinal stenosis and am being investigated for ankylosing spondylitis. The sensory challenges of busy public spaces are real and daily, but they can, with effort, be worked around. What can’t easily be worked around is the institutional ignorance of public services. It’s rarely deliberate ableism, in my experience. It’s institutional ignorance, and it’s no less damaging for that.
Two examples from my own life show exactly what this looks like.
I live in a council house that I’ve spent considerable time and money making into what I need it to be: a sensory haven with smart lighting and devices arranged with precision for my comfort and wellbeing. That’s not a luxury. It’s a medical necessity. When West Lothian Council conducted an electrical safety check and found a light fitting that needed replacing, I wrote accepting this entirely and making one straightforward request: that the replacement be fitted in the same position and angle as the existing fitting so that my carefully configured smart lighting network wouldn’t be disrupted.
The council’s response was to tell me that social housing wasn’t there to satisfy my preferences, and that if they made exceptions for me, they’d face demands from all their tenants. When I pushed back and explained clearly that this was a medical need, not a preference, the response wasn’t an apology. It was a threat. The supervisor informed me that fitting smart lights may have constituted a breach of my tenancy agreement and implied I could face consequences for having done so.
I ultimately prevailed. A formal complaint, an explicit reference to the Equality Act 2010, and the involvement of a senior manager produced the apology and the reasonable adjustment that should have been offered immediately. But it took weeks, enormous amounts of energy, and a level of confrontational persistence that many neurodivergent people simply don’t have.
The NHS experience has been worse. My previous GP practice operated an appointments system that was, in practice, entirely inaccessible to an autistic patient. No routine, no predictability, no preparation. Just call at 8am, hope to be first in the queue, and if successful, be told that a clinician will call back at some unspecified point during the day. For many autistic people, anticipating an unpredictable phone call from an unknown person isn’t a mild inconvenience. It’s an hours-long ordeal that derails the entire day.
When I raised complaints about the practice, including conduct by GPs that was, on at least one occasion, abusive, the practice manager initially attempted to fob me off, then simply stopped responding. When my voice rose during calls, as it does when my mind is working hard to keep pace with a stressful live conversation, I was accused of aggression, and my complaints were dismissed on that basis. NHS Lothian told me the practice was a private business and beyond their remit. My local MSP’s office wrote to the practice and came back to me suggesting they were aware of the problems and working to address them.
The only resolution available to me was to agree in writing that my relationship with the practice was irretrievably broken, a formulation that placed the blame implicitly on me, which allowed me to be moved to a different practice. I haven’t been able to see a GP in person for almost two years, because even at my current, considerably better, practice, the process of arranging an appointment remains too much to bear on many days. I’ve started writing to the GP instead of calling. For now, they’re accommodating this. But I’m one change of staff, one new practice manager, or one policy review away from losing that accommodation entirely, with no guarantee of any protection.
These aren’t isolated stories. They’re everyday life for neurodivergent adults in Scotland, played out in hundreds of thousands of daily interactions with public services, employers, housing providers, and institutions of every kind.
The political failure: words without action
Scotland’s political class isn’t entirely ignorant of these issues. It’s produced legislation, consultations, strategies, and action plans by the yard. What it’s singularly failed to do is implement any of them.
The most significant recent example is the Learning Disabilities, Autism and Neurodivergence (LDAN) Bill. Developed over years in genuine partnership with neurodivergent people and advocacy organisations, the Bill promised a genuinely powerful legal framework: mandatory training for health and social care workers, accessible communications standards, statutory strategies, and enforceable rights. In 2024, the Scottish Government shelved it, citing budget pressures and legislative complexity. People First, which has campaigned for the rights of people with learning disabilities for thirty-five years, described the decision as leaving them “unheard” (People First Scotland, 2024). The Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee launched an inquiry, heard what it described as “devastating” testimony, including evidence that diagnosis delays had led directly to people taking their own lives, and in March 2026, one week before the pre-election period began, published a report calling for fundamental change without delay (STV News, March 2026).
With days remaining before dissolution ahead of the 2026 election, the Scottish Government published proposals for potential LDAN Bill provisions. The Fraser of Allander Institute described these as “a glimpse of how the ambitions discussed over recent years might translate into legislation” (Fraser of Allander Institute, March 2026). A glimpse. Four years after consultation began.
The fireworks situation offers another instructive example. The Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Act was passed by Holyrood in June 2022. For neurodivergent people, veterans with PTSD, and people with anxiety conditions, the unpredictable explosive noise of consumer fireworks isn’t an inconvenience. It’s a serious harm. Scotland’s parliament recognised this and passed a law. Nearly four years later, the Act’s key provisions — the consumer licensing system and the restrictions on days of sale and use — still hadn’t been commenced. Budget pressures, we were told (SPICe, October 2024). Glasgow City Council couldn’t even implement a single control zone in time for Bonfire Night 2024, having missed its own legal notice deadline. Edinburgh introduced restrictions covering four small areas. The law existed. The harm continued.
Make no mistake: this isn’t incompetence. It’s a consistent pattern of quietly sidelining neurodivergent needs the moment there’s budget pressure or a more politically convenient group to keep happy.
And it’s not as if politicians weren’t being told. I wrote to my own MP about welfare reforms, specifically about cuts that would remove the mobility vehicle that is my only means of accessing hospital appointments, which I described plainly as potentially a death sentence for constituents in my position. I got a canned reply defending the government’s position on costs and budgets. When I subsequently saw the same MP praising a government scheme for children with special educational needs on social media, I replied publicly and pointed out the contradiction between celebrating neurodivergent children and voting to impoverish neurodivergent adults. She blocked me.
What we asked, and why it still matters
In the weeks before the 2026 Holyrood election, Bylines Scotland wrote to the leaders of all the main parties contesting seats — the SNP, Scottish Labour, the Scottish Conservatives, the Scottish Greens, the Scottish Liberal Democrats, and Reform UK — with twelve questions. Whatever each party said, or didn’t say, in response, none of the underlying problems the questions describe have gone away simply because the votes have been counted. I’m publishing them again here because they’re still the right questions, and Scotland’s neurodivergent adults are still waiting for a government that treats them as more than an afterthought.
Adults seeking an ADHD assessment in NHS Lothian were waiting an average of 37.25 months, over three years. NHS Tayside children waited 154 weeks. Across nine health boards, over 23,000 adults were on waiting lists. What specific and costed commitment will reduce adult neurodevelopmental assessment waiting times this parliamentary term?
Over 1.3 million adults in Scotland, nearly 30% of the adult population, cannot access any neurodevelopmental assessment through the NHS at all, with several board areas having closed their lists entirely. What will ensure universal adult access to assessment across all NHS board areas, and by what date?
A private ADHD assessment in Scotland costs between £1,500 and £2,500. Virtually no NHS boards now offer shared care agreements, meaning even those who can afford a private diagnosis cannot access NHS medication on the basis of it. Is this defensible, and what will change it?
An undiagnosed young person with suspected ADHD in Scotland is blocked from Disabled Students’ Allowance, from reasonable adjustments in college examinations, and from NHS medication, all because they cannot get an NHS assessment, with waiting lists stretching to five years in some areas. What is the response to this systematic exclusion from education support?
The LDAN Bill was delayed by the Scottish Government in 2024, with organisations such as People First describing the decision as leaving them “unheard”. Will it be introduced and passed within the first year of this parliamentary term? If not, why not?
The employment rate for autistic adults is just 31%, compared with 54.7% for all disabled people. The Buckland Review of Autism Employment found that 25% of autistic employees are refused reasonable workplace adjustments outright (Buckland Review, February 2024). What specific, enforceable measures will close the neurodivergent employment gap?
Public bodies, including councils and NHS boards, routinely fail neurodivergent adults by treating medical needs as personal preferences and designing services entirely around neurotypical communication and behaviour. What enforcement mechanisms will ensure public bodies genuinely comply with their existing duties under the Equality Act 2010?
Many neurodivergent adults cannot use standard GP appointment systems, including phone-only booking and unpredictable callback windows, and as a direct result go without primary healthcare for extended periods. What will make primary care genuinely accessible to neurodivergent patients?
Disability Equality Scotland wrote to all Scottish party leaders before this election requesting commitments on accessible and inclusive election campaigning. Not one party replied (Disability Equality Scotland, January 2026). Why not, and what will now be committed to in terms of making campaigning, communications, and Holyrood itself accessible to neurodivergent people?
In a single, specific sentence, not a general aspiration, what is the single most important action the Scottish Parliament must take for neurodivergent adults in Scotland?
Scotland passed the Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Act in June 2022, nearly four years ago. Its key provisions, including the consumer licensing system and restrictions on days of sale and use, still had not been implemented, repeatedly delayed on budget grounds (SPICe, October 2024). For neurodivergent people, veterans with PTSD, and many others, unpredictable explosive noise isn’t an inconvenience. It’s a genuine and serious harm. Why was four years of inaction on legislation Holyrood itself passed accepted? Is there now a specific date for full implementation?
Currently, a neurodivergent person whose rights are ignored by a public body, a council, an NHS board, or a benefits agency has only one realistic avenue: raise a formal complaint, be ignored or fobbed off, escalate, threaten legal action under the Equality Act, and hope a senior manager eventually intervenes. This process is exhausting, intimidating, and entirely inaccessible to many of the people it’s supposed to protect. It also places the entire burden of enforcement on the individual least equipped to bear it. Would a dedicated, accessible, and properly funded body with statutory powers to investigate and enforce the rights of neurodivergent people with public bodies in Scotland — removing the need for individuals to fight legal battles simply to have their basic needs acknowledged — be supported?
We’re not broken. We never were.
After I left school at fourteen, after every institution had given up on me, I discovered something remarkable. Freed from environments built for a kind of mind I didn’t have, I could finally think. I read voraciously and obsessively, following whatever captivated me, one day deep in Imperial Russian history and the scandal of Anna Karenina, the next somewhere else entirely. In the evenings I found my way into the burgeoning world of early internet hacking groups, teaching myself to break into systems that professional engineers had built and believed were secure. I wasn’t broken. I’d never been broken. I’d simply been in the wrong rooms, assessed by the wrong measures, punished for the wrong things.
There are hundreds of thousands of people like me in Scotland, adults who grew up without diagnosis, without support, without anyone asking the right questions, and who have spent their adult lives navigating a society that still, in too many crucial respects, isn’t asking those questions. They’re not asking for special treatment. They’re asking for a society that recognises them as they actually are, rather than as a problem to be managed until it goes away.
Whether Scotland’s politicians have the knowledge, the courage, and the political will to do any of that is still the question. The election is over. The waiting isn’t.
A note for fellow survivors
Writing the original version of this piece led me to discover something I hadn’t known. Harmeny Education Trust, which took over the running of Harmeny School from Save the Children in December 1995, is a contributor to Scotland’s Redress Scheme, the Scottish Government’s formal scheme providing financial redress to survivors of historical child abuse in care. On the Scottish Government’s own website, Harmeny Education Trust states: “We offer our unreserved and sincere apologies to anyone who suffered abuse or harm while in our care.”
If you experienced abuse in a residential care setting in Scotland before 1 December 2004, when you were under 18, you may be eligible to apply. The scheme covers physical, sexual, emotional abuse and neglect. It covers residential schools, children’s homes, hospitals providing long-term residential care, and other similar settings. The standard of proof is the balance of probabilities, not the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt. The guidance explicitly states that panels must begin by presuming that what an applicant says is true. The absence of records or witnesses is not a barrier to applying.
Payments range from £10,000 to £100,000. Free legal advice and support are available to applicants. You apply through the Scottish Government. Be aware that accepting a payment means agreeing not to pursue legal action against the contributing organisations, so it is worth taking legal advice before you apply.
You can find out more and start an application at redress.scot or mygov.scot/apply-for-scotlands-redress-scheme. You can also speak to a caseworker at the Scottish Government who will help you through the process.
You were believed then. You are believed now.
Jason Boyd is a freelance WordPress developer, writer and political commentator living in Whitburn, West Lothian. He is autistic and physically disabled.