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A plea for some real political action for children with disabilities

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So many issues haven’t made it on to the election radar. Indigenous health, rural and remote health, preventative health…and the list goes on.

While there has been some talk of improving services for children with a disability, Bob Buckley, Convenor of Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia, would like to see far more action.

He writes:

“Bill Shorten and Tony Abbott raised services for children with a disability in the election campaign but their promises must be practical to win my vote.

MRI scans could diagnose autism

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Ten minutes in a brain scanner could be all it takes to diagnose autism. So says Christine Ecker at the Institute of Psychiatry, UK, who has developed software that identifies the anatomical signatures of the condition.

Ecker's team carried out MRI scans on the brains of 20 adult males with autism, 20 with attention-deficit disorder and 20 healthy controls. They used a machine-learning tool called a support vector machine (SVM) – which analyses data and identifies patterns – to identify key differences between the groups, such as in the cortical folding and curvature of the brain.

Tasmania Libs make autism/ASD an election issue

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ABC Tasmania website

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The Opposition also announced $4.5 million to deliver autism services to children.

"We can provide them with 20 or 30 hours per week of very, very serious intervention strategies," said Liberal health spokesman, Brett Whiteley.

SA Libs promise special autism school

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LAUREN NOVAK, POLITICAL REPORTER February 01, 2010 12:32PM

THE Liberal Opposition has pledged to set up a school specifically for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder if elected next month.

Leader Isobel Redmond announced this morning the party would establish a school staffed and designed to "meet the needs" of those children while also putting resources towards special needs children who remain in mainstream schools.

She said there was great demand from parents, who had been lobbying the government for such a solution.

National autism register to be established

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Australian Associated Press

"We need to know the extent of autism in Australia so we can properly support people with ASD." Bill Shorten

A national register will be created to track the rising incidence of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in Australia, the federal government has announced.

Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services Bill Shorten told a regional autism conference in Sydney that a register would help improve government support services.

Autism on ABC News website

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Autism gets much more coverage in the media in USA compared to Australia.

If you would like to see some of the coverage, especially the TV coverage, check out these web pages ...

A4 has not reviewed the content of these webpages so it has no opinion about the content and does not endorse anything on those websites.

Trying to Solve Autism's Mysteries

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When Preston Brown was a young child, doctors diagnosed him with autism. Now they say he doesn't have it anymore.

"He's very aware of his surroundings," said his mother, Jamie Brown, who added that the changes in recent months have been drastic and that doctors have dropped his autism diagnosis.

"He communicates, he has favorites, he has opinions, he has humor," she said. "He makes friends, he is learning at warp speed, he's intelligent. He's happy, he's not sick anymore."

The Dangers of Autism

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Here is a very disturbing story from the media in the USA.

Autism in America: A Perilous Diagnosis
By RADHA CHITALE
ABC News Medical Unit
Nov. 6, 2008

Liane Willey's father always told her that, if she was ever in trouble, she should find a policeman and ask for help.

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