Mudgegonga's Judy Brewer, who is Autism CRC chairwoman, said there was no one-size-fits-all approach to educating children with autism.

Ms Brewer said after years of autism advocacy work she got involved in The Cooperative Research Centre for Living with Autism (Autism CRC), the world’s first national, cooperative research effort focused on autism.

“The answer is always to invest in best practice,” she said.  

“To create and quickly translate research into practice and to do so using the experiences of the true experts – autistic children and adults.

“They know what it's like to be in school, they know what worked for them and what didn't.”

The parent of a young adult son with autism now employed in the education sector in Wodonga, Ms Brewer said the CRC research explored a "whole of life" approach to autism focusing on diagnosis, education and adult life.

“There are 54 collaborations across Australia; we’re working with autistic adults and industry partners for whole of life outcomes,” she said.

“We know every child with a diagnosis learns differently from each other just as children without a diagnosis learn differently.

“There’s not a bunch of kids with a label and a bunch without a label.”

Ms Brewer’s comments come in the week One Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson came under fire for her comments about removing children with special needs from mainstream schools during debate on the federal government’s proposed schools overhaul.

Wodonga man Joel Wilson, who was diagnosed with autism at 14, said it was beyond absurd to propose the exclusion of a group of students from mainstream schools based on a wide-ranging diagnosis.

“Each individual will have their own needs,” he said.

“It’s like saying: ‘Why don’t we chuck the left-handed kids in with all the other left-handed kids because they might bump the kid next to them!’” 

Mr Wilson said part of Senator’s Hanson’s statement in Parliament was particularly offensive.

“She mentioned wanting kids who don’t have a disability to go ahead in their education,” he said.

“What about the kids with a disability?”