A TEENAGER with autism will not be allowed to return to North Queensland for New Year’s Eve after a magistrate ruled he posed an unacceptable risk to his mother and grandmother. The 18-year-old faces charges of breaching a domestic violence order and is ...

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Kate Campbell

Claims from a world-leading professor, that autism is a silently growing monster and forms of it can be prevented, have prompted outrage within the autism community.

The Fiona Stanley Hospital precinct in Perth's southern suburbs is set to become home to one of the world's leading research laboratories - the Australian National Phenome Centre (ANPC). Harry Perkins Research Institute at Fiona Stanley Hospital to house Australia's first phenome research centre. Phenomics set to revolutionise the way disease is diagnosed and treated.

Biwa Kwan

The Victorian Services Commissioner has referred disability service providers to the police for possible criminal investigation over the deaths of people receiving disability care.

The report by the Victorian Disability Services Commissioner found 'significant failures' in the provision of disability services, which resulted in death in 2017-18. 

Sara Luterman

When I was 4 or 5 years old, my parents told me there was no Santa Claus. As a child who attended a Jewish parochial school, this didn’t come as a shock. But at the mall one day, I became incensed on behalf of children lining up to sit on the lap of a man who wasn’t who he claimed to be.

John Elder Robison

Some institutions can restrain people against their will. Should it be allowed?

Restraint is emerging as a hot-button topic among autistic self-advocates and some parents.  

People on both sides feel their position is obviously correct: Restraint leads to abuse, and should be banned; or restraint is necessary for the safety of some people, and those who deny it are crazy or idealistic.

Karl Knights

Thirty years on, the ‘autistic savant’ portrayed by Dustin Hoffman still represents most people’s idea of autism

Kate Campbell

Jonathan Alexander and Rebecca Black

In one Harry Potter fan fiction story, Hermione Granger anxiously awaits the results from a recent test.

It isn’t her performance on an exam in a potions course that she’s concerned about. Instead, the higher-ups at Hogwarts had ordered she undergo some psychological tests. They had noticed how quickly she talked, along with her nervous tics.

Congratulations, Clem Bastow. Finally, at the age of 36, you received a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (The Age, 12/12). You had spent your life wondering why you were the way you were and felt the way you did and, no doubt, were filled with frustrations and other negative feelings.

What I find concerning about autism diagnosis in cases such as yours – and which are currently being talked about so much – is that people in general seem to believe most autistic people are high functioning and can live productive lives.

There have been only a handful of times in my life where I felt truly “seen”: one was my first visit to San Diego Comic-Con, and the other was my diagnosis, at 36, of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

After a lifetime of feeling distinctly different, I was so thrilled to finally have answers that I half hoped the consulting psychologist delivering my results might tack a “congratulations” on to their assessment.

Clem Bastow knew she felt different, but it took until the age of 36 that she got a diagnosis.Credit:Kristoffer Paulsen