George at Asda has become the first supermarket in the UK to sell school clothing designed for children with specific or sensory-sensitive needs, such as autism.
The new range is called Easy On Easy Wear and it’s available to buy now.
In designing these garments, Asda says they’ve ‘undertaken extensive research with customers and charities to ensure our clothing is suitable.’
Their new range is designed to help those with specific needs and their parents, as Asda found that nine in 10 parents say they get ‘distressed or upset’ when trying to either dress their children or watch them do so themselves.
With traditional clothing, Asda’s research revealed that it takes nearly twice as long for children with specific needs to get dressed.
This is largely due to the fact that most school clothing is designed with neuro-typical children in mind, so there will often be design elements that include tight necklines, hard to-do-up buttons, itchy labels, irritating seams, uncomfortable fabrics, and non-elasticated cuffs.
These aspects aren’t always going to work for children with conditions such as autism.
So this new range will have features to make getting dressed quicker and easier, such as buttons with easy close fastenings, softer thread on seams, elasticated waistbands, and care instructions printed on fabric instead of labels.
Even with all of these changes, the uniform items look the same as what’s sold in Asda’s regular schoolwear line.
The supermarket retailer also found that parents of children with specific needs generally buy twice as many clothes while looking for suitable items, and six in 10 believe regular clothing just doesn’t work for their children.
Though there are other options in this area, they can be more costly and harder to find.
The inclusive move aims to make these types of clothes more widely accessible and affordable, given that around 2.5% of children in the UK are believed to have a learning disability.
Caroline Hicks, head of schoolwear at George says the brand ‘received a few letters from customers asking us how we could support their needs, focused around independence and easy to wear clothing.
‘These customers supported us as we developed the range, and have given us incredibly valuable feedback along the way.’
She added: ‘71% of children with autism attend mainstream schools. We know that these children want to look the same as their peers, so we have designed the range to look just like the rest of the school clothing we offer.’
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