After some pushback from the state’s largest autism advocacy group, the Delaware State Fair has canceled its sensory-friendly event Tuesday.
The First State’s largest provider of advocacy, support and services for people on the autism spectrum and their families and caregivers claims that the Delaware State Fair’s inclusionary promises are untruthful.
“Recently it has come to our attention that the Delaware State Fair has promoted their carnival on Tuesday, July 23, 2024 as being sensory-friendly and in partnership with Autism Delaware,” Autism Delaware said in a statement posted on its website and social media accounts Monday.
“These statements were made public by the Fair without advance consultation with, or approval from, Autism Delaware. Further, the Fair has included Autism Delaware as a resource on their FAQ page, offering for families to contact us with questions, something we were never asked to do nor have we agreed to assist with.”
About four hours after Autism Delaware released a statement, the Delaware State Fair canceled the planned Sensory Friendly Carnival program, which was scheduled for Tuesday.
“I would like to apologize to families planning to visit the Delaware State Fair to experience a carnival where the lights and sounds would be turned down or off,” stated Danny Aguilar, general manager of the fair. “Full refunds will be issued if your family planned to join us on Tuesday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.”
According to the autism advocacy group, their own staff went to the fairgrounds “in a good-faith effort” to assist the fair in providing Delaware families with a safe, inclusive environment, and they found that the fair is ill-prepared to give people with autism a safe experience.
The only sensory-friendly space, the statement said, is on the opposite end of the fairgrounds from the carnival, meaning people have to navigate through the thick of the fair and walk 10 minutes, while passing a soundstage that will be at normal sound levels during sensory-friendly hours.
The Delaware State Fair, in Harrington, started this past Friday and runs through Saturday, July 27.
Autism Delaware also took issue with the ADA-compliant bathrooms, which include two rooms for nursing mothers, each with one chair inside.
“We feel strongly that this space is both wholly inadequate and also too far from the carnival to offer any relief to a family in crisis,” the statement read.
Given their presence in the autism community, the group said it feels strongly that it’s their duty to provide honest advice to the community.
“With that in mind, we would like it to be clear that we are not in support of the Fair’s claim to be sensory-friendly and do not recommend our families, or any others whose members have autism, attend until significant improvements are made,” it stated.
The post said Autism Delaware always wants the public to contact them before planning an event to offer assistance to make it inclusive. But, the group finds it “highly discouraging” that its name was used without permission more than once.
“More importantly, though, we are saddened knowing that families needing additional supports may attend this event because of misleading information and may not find what they expected or need,” the statement said.
Aguilar said the state fair has a tremendous amount of work to do to better understand the needs of families with children with sensory needs.
“Additionally, we apologize for the misstatement that Autism Delaware was partnering on this event,” he said. “The Fair was merely attempting to follow a model that has been used by other fairs in other communities throughout the U.S.”
He said the fair understands that it has a lot of loud sounds and bright lights.
“We will continue to work hard to better understand the needs of our communities as we consider future programming,” he said.
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