Committee of Supply 2024 debate, Day 6: Carrie Tan on integrating persons with special needs

The framing of persons with special needs labels them as needy, while the framing of neurodiversity as a problem labels people who have them as problematic, said MP Carrie Tan in Parliament on Wednesday (Mar 6). To change this, she said that people can change their lenses to focus instead on their unique strengths, citing employers who have observed that the productivity of persons with special needs are often higher than normal employees. She added that there there is a need to adopt a strengths-based approach by seeing divergence as an asset and not a problem. Ms Tan also stressed the importance of busting the myths of employing neurodiverse persons, suggesting that the Government invest in a public communications campaign that takes a strengths-based and gift-based approach to their portrayal. She also urged the Ministry of Social and Family Development to set a goal to “leapfrog” employment success by shifting the lens of “special needs” to “specially-abled”.