There were three qualifying criteria for inclusion of a national autism policy in the sample. I defined national policy as a policy emanating from a Parliament or Assembly with devolved powers over education, health and social care. Firstly, the Parliament or Assembly had to be in a country classified as Western European, defined as included in the United Nations Western European and Others Group (WEOG) dataset. Secondly, it had to have a current, autism-specific policy (a policy dealing exclusively with autism). This was to isolate autism policy from disability policy and ensure reliability. Thirdly, there had to be sufficient detail in the policy to enable the instrument types and other details to be coded. Twelve policies met these criteria. The dataset also identifies those policies which were excluded, and the reasons why.