Autism advocate, mum and business owner Amanda Porter has spent 15 years navigating systems not designed for people like her family. Now she’s helping rewrite the rules.
“The world isn’t built for Autistic people,” Amanda Porter says.
She would know – the passionate advocate and business owner is a mum of three neurodivergent children – two of whom are Autistic. She’s also Autistic herself, diagnosed as an adult after her son, and has spent more than 15 years navigating school systems, emergency departments, university applications and therapy appointments.
That’s why she joined the co-design process for South Australia’s first Autism Strategy Action Plan – a five-year roadmap shaped with lived experience voices at every stage, and launched in September 2025.
“Nothing about us without us,” she says – a principle that’s guided the disability community for decades, and the reason she believes this plan feels different.
Amanda says the government has shown what genuine co-design looks like – involving Autistic people at every stage. “South Australia is really paving the way.”
Family, diagnosis and everyday life
Amanda and her husband are raising three neurodivergent children – two Autistic, and one with global developmental delay and a speech delay.
“It’s a lot of juggling,” she says. “Therapy appointments, after-school activities, making sure the kids can do what their peers do, just with extra support.”
Her autism diagnosis came two years after her eldest son’s. For years, Amanda had pushed through sensory overwhelm and social masking – trying to be what others expected.
One day, in a toy shop she used to work in, she found the layout had changed. The lights were harsher. The toys had moved. The sound was overwhelming. She ended up outside, hyperventilating and vomiting in the bushes.
“I was so angry at myself,” she says. “What adult gets overwhelmed by a toy shop?”
Diagnosis gave her the insight she’d always needed. “Once I understood my neurodivergence, I stopped being so hard on myself.”
Her eldest son, now 18, once came home after hearing another student say they hated being Autistic.
“He said, ‘Mum, thank you for raising us to understand who we are.’”
Fighting for support
Amanda has spent over a decade navigating the education system. “I feel like I’ve been battling schools and childcare for 15 years,” she says.
Her eldest son was bullied almost daily for three years. “It was heartbreaking,” Amanda says. “But once we moved him to a school where the kids wanted to learn, he thrived. We had three whole years with no bullying at all.”
At one school, Amanda was told her son didn’t qualify for help because his autism wasn’t affecting his academic performance. “That broke me. He needed support – just not in the way the system measured it.”
She’s seen what makes a difference: extra school tours, detailed transitions, and advance warning for things like relief teachers. “We’ve seen our kids thrive when they’re supported – and break down when they’re not.”
Changing systems one step at a time
When her son was six, Amanda took him to the ED three times in one week. Each time, they were sent home – despite worsening symptoms. It wasn’t until she refused to leave without further tests that staff discovered he had two types of pneumonia and RSV.
“They kept saying he was fine. That if he was really sick, he wouldn’t be able to talk to them. But he was masking – and he has a high pain threshold.”
Amanda says it’s experiences like this that make the Action Plan’s health commitments so important.
“There’s no more ‘we didn’t know’. It’s written down now. They have to design inclusive spaces. They have to train staff. They have to listen to lived experience.”
Finding pride in her own identity
Amanda says she loves being Autistic – but she’s clear that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
“There’s a tendency to call autism a superpower – and for some of us that can be true. But it’s also okay to say life is hard.”
Before her diagnosis, she’d spent years blaming herself for things she couldn’t control – sensory overload, fatigue, social burnout. Diagnosis changed that.
“It meant I could stop pretending. I could ask for help. I could walk out of a room instead of pushing through until I cried.”
It’s a lesson she’s passed on to her kids. “They know being Autistic doesn’t make them less – it just means they sometimes need different things. That’s it.”
Building a career that works around life
Amanda has four degrees – including two master’s in education – and a diploma in counselling. But she no longer works in schools.
“The system just didn’t know how to support Autistic teachers. And I didn’t know I was Autistic back then, either.”
Now she runs her own online pre-loved kids’ clothing business, Little Earthlings Preloved. “It works around my life. If I’m in a waiting room before therapy or having a bad health day, I can still work around everyone’s schedule.”
She hopes the plan’s employment commitments will lead to more inclusive, flexible roles – especially for people juggling caring responsibilities. “It’s not just about jobs. It’s about being able to participate and contribute.”
A plan shaped by people who live it
Autism is a lifelong developmental condition that affects how a person thinks, feels, communicates and experiences the world – and it’s different for everyone.
One in four Australians has an Autistic family member, and while every experience is unique, many face barriers in education, health care, employment and daily life.
That’s what South Australia’s Autism Strategy – and now the Action Plan – is working to change. The plan is a five-year roadmap with 25 commitments across seven key areas: diagnosis, education, justice, employment, health, inclusion and access to services.
Amanda has been part of the strategy from the start – helping facilitate and co-design the public consultation that reached more than 1,300 people, and sitting on the State Autism Strategy Advisory Committee, which continues to guide implementation.
“It’s been genuinely co-designed. We weren’t just brought in at the end – we’ve been there the whole way.”
She says the broad-ranging scope of the plan matters: “It means every government department has to report back. It’s not just one group doing the work – it’s all of us”.
Looking ahead: Real change takes time
Amanda is especially hopeful about the changes in education and health – two areas where her family has faced major barriers. From sensory-friendly hospital emergency rooms to neurodiversity-affirming school environments, she says the detail in the plan reflects what Autistic people have been asking for.
“People want change now, and I get that. But real change takes time. If we rush it, it’ll just be a tick-a-box. If we do it properly, it’ll stick.”
And for Amanda, that’s what matters most. “This is about making the future better – not just for my kids, but for everyone who comes next.”
For more information and to read the SA Autism Strategy Action Plan 2025–2029, click here.
